Methods and systems for maintaining a healthy building

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12437597-B2
Application number	US-202318462375-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 6, 2023
Priority date	Jun 15, 2020
Publication date	Oct 7, 2025
Grant date	Oct 7, 2025

Abstract

Methods and systems for maintaining a healthy building. In one example, an access card reader for controlling access to a secure area may comprise a card reader for reading an access card identifier from an access card presented by a user, a touchless thermal sensor for sensing a skin temperature of the user, a memory, and a controller operatively coupled to the card reader, the touchless thermal sensor and the memory. In response to a user presenting an access card to the card reader, the controller may be configured to store in the memory the access card identifier read by the card reader along with a corresponding skin temperature of the user. In another example, a system may be configured to perform contact tracing when an occupant has been identified as displaying signs of an illness.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for monitoring a health of one or more occupants of a space, the system comprising:
one or more optical imaging devices each configured to capture a corresponding optical video stream of at least part of the space;
one or more thermal imaging devices each configured to capture a corresponding thermal video stream of at least part of the space;
a controller operatively coupled to the one or more optical imaging devices and the one or more thermal imaging devices, the controller configured to:
identify using video analytics an occupant in the space based at least in part on the optical video stream captured by a first one of the one or more optical imaging devices;
identify a body temperature of the occupant based at least in part on the thermal video stream captured by a first one of the one or more thermal imaging devices;
determine if the body temperature of the occupant falls outside of a predetermined range;
when the body temperature of the occupant falls outside of the predetermined range, tag the occupant as a tagged occupant;
perform primary contact tracing by searching through the optical video stream captured by each of one or more of the optical imaging devices to identify one or more primary exposed occupants that had at least a primary threshold level of interaction with the tagged occupant; and
provide an alert that identifies the one or more primary exposed occupants that had at least the primary threshold level of interaction with the tagged occupant.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the primary threshold level of interaction is based at least in part on a distance between a candidate primary exposed occupant and the tagged occupant and a time that the distance between the candidate primary exposed occupant and the tagged occupant remained below a predetermined distance threshold.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to:
track a distance between the tagged occupant and each of one or more candidate primary exposed occupants in the space over time; and
identify a candidate primary exposed occupant as one of the primary exposed occupants when the candidate primary exposed occupant remains within a threshold distance of the tagged occupant for at least a threshold period of time.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to:
identify a forehead region of the occupant in the thermal video stream captured by the first one of the one or more thermal imaging devices; and
identify the body temperature of the occupant based at the body temperature in the forehead region of the occupant.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to:
determine whether the occupant exhibits one or more predetermined behaviors that are indicative of one or more symptoms of an illness; and
when it is determined that the occupant exhibits one or more of the predetermined behaviors that are indicative of one or more symptoms of an illness, tag the occupant as a tagged occupant.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the one or more predetermined behaviors comprise one or more of a speed of movement, a posture, a frequency of coughing, a frequency of sneezing, a frequency of touching face, a tone of voice, a runny nose and sweating.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more optical imaging devices comprises a plurality of optical imaging devices, and wherein the controller is configured to:
perform primary contact tracing by searching through the optical video stream captured by each of the plurality of optical imaging devices to identify primary exposed occupants that had at least the primary threshold level of interaction with the tagged occupant.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to perform secondary contact tracing by searching through the optical video stream captured by each of one or more of the optical imaging devices to identify secondary exposed occupants that had at least a secondary threshold level of interaction with the primary exposed occupants.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the primary threshold level of interaction is different from the secondary threshold level of interaction.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a number of primary exposed occupants, and when the number of primary exposed occupants in the space exceeds a threshold number, report the space as a hot zone.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the space is one of a plurality of spaces in a building, and the controller is configured to identify a risk level of each of the plurality of spaces based at least on part on a number of primary exposed occupants identified in each space.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the controller is configured to display a heat map of the building, wherein each space of the building is identified in the heat map with the corresponding risk level.

13. A method for monitoring a health of one or more occupants of a space, the method comprising:
receiving a video stream captured by each of a plurality of video cameras of a Building Management System, wherein each of the plurality of video cameras of the Building Management System is installed at a designated location in the space to monitor a designated region of the space;
identifying an occupant in the space that exhibits one or more symptoms of an illness via by performing video analytics on one or more of the video streams captured by the plurality of video cameras of the Building Management System, and tagging the identified occupant as a tagged occupant;
performing primary contact tracing by searching through the video stream captured by each of the plurality of video cameras in the space using video analytics to identify one or more primary exposed occupants that had at least a primary threshold level of interaction with the tagged occupant, wherein the primary threshold level of interaction includes the primary exposed occupants being within a threshold distance of the tagged occupant for at least a threshold period of time; and
providing an alert that identifies the one or more primary exposed occupants that had at least the primary threshold level of interaction with the tagged occupant.

14. The method of claim 13 , comprising:
tracking a distance between the tagged occupant and each of one or more candidate primary exposed occupants in the space over time; and
identifying a candidate primary exposed occupant as one of the primary exposed occupants when the candidate primary exposed occupant remains within the threshold distance of the tagged occupant for at least the threshold period of time.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the one or more symptoms of the illness include a fever detected by a thermal imaging video camera of the plurality of video cameras of the Building Management System.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein the one or more symptoms of the illness include one or more of a speed of movement, a posture, a frequency of coughing, a frequency of sneezing, a frequency of touching face, a tone of voice, a runny nose and sweating.

17. The method of claim 13 , comprising:
performing secondary contact tracing by searching through the video stream captured by each of the plurality of video cameras in the space using video analytics to identify secondary exposed occupants that had at least a secondary threshold level of interaction with the one or more primary exposed occupants.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the primary threshold level of interaction is different from the secondary

Assignees

• Honeywell Int Inc

Inventors

• Chaurasia Jitendra Sitaram
• Kalirajan Arunmanikandan
• Balasubramanian Mourian
• Pham Hai
• Jahagirdar Manik
• Eswara Lalitha M
• Shaik Ismaiel
• Dhayalan Sivasanthanam
• Hanumegowda Bhavya
• Kc Govindaraju
• Salgar Mayur
• Karmakar Sheeladitya
• Dhamija Vijay

Classifications

• G01J5/0025

  Living bodies (ear thermometers G01J5/0011; detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00) · CPC title

• G16H50/30

  for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment · CPC title

• G06V20/53

  Recognition of crowd images, e.g. recognition of crowd congestion · CPC title

• G07C9/27

  with central registration · CPC title

• G07C9/22

  in combination with an identity check of the pass holder · CPC title