US Patent 11179064 Method and system for privacy-preserving fall detection

Various embodiments of a vision-based privacy-preserving embedded fall-detection system are disclosed. This embedded fall-detection system can include one or more cameras for capturing video images of one or more persons. Moreover, this embedded fall-detection system can include various fall-detection modules for processing the captured video images including: a pose-estimation module, an action-recognition module, and a fall-detection module, all of which can perform the intended fall-detection functionalities within the embedded system environment in real-time in order to detect falls of the one or more persons. When a fall is detected, instead of sending the original captured images, the embedded fall-detection system can transmit sanitized video images to the server, wherein each detected person is represented by a skeleton figure in place of the actual person images, thereby preserving the privacy of the detected person. The embedded fall-detection system can be implemented as an embedded vision sensor to be installed at a single fixed location.