Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.

Satoshi Furukawa

Kenichi Hagio

Motoo Ikari

Yuji Takada

Yusuke Shimogaki

Atsuyuki Hirono

Tadashi Satake

Junpei Endo

Akira Takahashi

Yusuke Hashimoto

Minoru Yoshida

Akira Yasuda

Fumikazu Kurihara

Tsunehiko Araki

Hiroyoshi Yuasa

Yoshitaka Morikawa

Yoshihiko Tokunaga

Hidekazu Himezawa

Eiji Nakamoto

Hisataka Fujii

Kiminori Shimizu

Stephen Ray Palm

Nobumoto Yamane

Hiroshi Hamada

Masami Hisada

Nobuo Matsuo

Toshikazu Kawashima

Yuki Takada

There is provided a motor drive device that drives a motor using a three-phase alternating current as a power source. The motor drive device includes a rectifier circuit that rectifies the three-phase alternating current, a current detection circuit that detects a current of a direct current rectified by the rectifier current, and a cross point detection circuit that detects a cross point between the current detected by the current detection circuit and a predetermined current value, and outputs a control signal indicating whether or not to drive the motor based on a detection result.

Motor drive device

A power device includes: a DC voltage output circuit that generates a DC internal power voltage from external supply power; a capacitor that is connected to the internal power voltage; and a voltage supply control circuit that monitors a voltage level of the internal power voltage and that, when detecting a drop in the internal power voltage, cuts off supply of the internal power voltage. The power device supplies internal power to a load. The power device supplies, to a first load that is a part of the load, the internal power voltage, and supplies, to a second load that is a load other than the first load, the internal power voltage via the voltage supply control circuit.

Power device and motor control apparatus provided with said power device

A lighting control circuit includes: a light-emitting element which includes a first terminal and a second terminal; a first shunt resistance element which is connected in parallel to the light-emitting element between the first terminal and the second terminal; and a control circuit which turns, into a conducting state, a first current path extending between the first terminal and the second terminal via the first shunt resistance element when a potential difference between the first terminal and the second terminal is greater than a first threshold value and turns, into a non-conducting state, the first current path when the potential difference is smaller than the first threshold value.

Lighting control circuit

An illumination apparatus includes a light emitting unit having at least one first light emitting element and at least one second light emitting element connected in series with each other. Further, the illumination apparatus includes a keying circuit for electrically closing a first power supply path which passes through both the first and the second light emitting element from the power supply circuit or the capacitive element or a second power supply path which passes through the first light emitting element without passing through the second light emitting element from the capacitive element. The keying circuit is set in a state in which the first power supply path is electrically closed during a power supply, and is set in a state in which the second power supply path is electrically closed when a reduction in quantity of charges of the capacitive element is detected after the power supply is stopped.

Illumination apparatus and lighting circuit

A target moving object tracking device takes a time series of picture images of a target moving object, and track a movement of the moving object in the picture images for displaying an enlarged view of the moving object. The device includes a template memory storing a template image which is compared with each one of time-series outline images given from the picture images to determine a partial area in match with the template image for each of the outline images and extract the partial areas as a moving object outline image. The template image is constantly updated by being replaced with a combination of the previous moving object outline images to accurately reflect the moving object.

Target moving object tracking device

An image processor is provided, which has the capability of detecting an object such as a human face from an image taken against the sun with high accuracy. An image signal provided from an image pickup unit is adjusted at an analog gain by an image adjuster. An out of the image adjuster is converted into a digital, and store in a memory. A feature of the object is extracted from this digital image data to detect an object area in the image. When the object area is not detected, an analog-gain controller sends that the image signal provided from the image pickup unit is adjusted at a different analog gain. Thus, the treatment of detecting the object area is repeated at different analog gains.

Image processor and face detector using the same

An object recognition system utilizes a mask locator for extracting a mask area (M) from within a subject image in order to recognize the mask area (M) with a subject image. The mask locator () refers to density gradient directional images respectively converted from an image size template and the subject image, and analyzes these density gradient directional images particularly with respect to the density gradient directional values (&#x3b8;T, &#x3b8;S) assigned to each pixel in each directional images to obtain parameters linking the image size template to the mask area (M) to be registered with the image size template. The mask locator has a vote module () which gives candidates for the center of the mask by varying the parameters and votes on the candidates. Based upon the number of votes for the candidates, a detection module () designate one of the candidates having a maximum vote number as the center of the mask area (M), thereby determining the mask area (M) around thus designated candidate within the subject image for exact recognition of the object in the subject image.

Object recognition system

The scan converter comprises first and second memories, a frame memory; having a write period and a read period, a video data input circuitfor writing data at a first transfer rate into the memory, a video data output circuitfor outputting the data from the memoryat a third transfer rate. The transfer rate between the memoriesand the memoryis twice as fast as the first or third transfer rate, whichever is faster, and the memorieshas data storage capacities greater than an amount of the data to be written into the memoryin each write period, and the memorieshas data storage capacities greater than an amount of the data to be read from the memoryin each read period.

Scan converter

A spatial information detecting apparatus using an intensity-modulated light has a photoelectric converter for receiving a light provided from a space, into which a light intensity-modulated by a predetermined modulation signal is being irradiated, and generating amounts of electric charges corresponding to an intensity of received light; charge discarding portion having an electrode for removing dispensable charges from the electric charges generated by the photoelectric converter according to a voltage applied to the electrode; charge storage portion for storing signal charges from the electric charges generated by the photoelectric converter; control circuit for controlling the voltage applied to the electrode at a timing synchronized with a period of the modulation signal to change a ratio of the signal charges stored in the charge storage portion to the electric charges generated by the photoelectric converter; charge ejector for outputting the signal charges from the charge storage portion; and an analyzer for determining spatial information from an output of the charge ejector. According to this apparatus, since the dispensable charges are previously removed from the electric charges generated by the photoelectric converter by the charge discarding portion, it is possible to improve S/N ratio and accurately determine the spatial information.

Light receiving device with controllable sensitivity and spatial information detecting apparatus with charge discarding device using the same

Disclosed is a distance measuring apparatus for measuring a distance to a target object also its shape precisely without influence of noise, which is applied to a invader monitoring system. This apparatus comprises a clock signal generator unit, a modulated light projector unit, a light receiver unit, and a demodulator unit, and obtains a range image presenting signal levels changing according to the distances to the objects including the target object by irradiating light onto the objects and receiving reflected light. In the demodulator unit, the range image is processed for evaluating and removing noise components, for interpolating and averaging noise removed region, and for selecting the target object region. Those processes are carried out from the following point of view, the variation of the distance signal levels, the received quantity of light, and the variation of the received quantity of light. Thus a range image without no noise and including substantially only the target object data is obtained, and therefore it is possible to measure a distance to the target object and its shape precisely without influence of noise.

Distance measuring apparatus

Automatic tracking lighting equipment for automatically tracking a target to be illuminated. A spotlight is supported for pivoting in horizontal and vertical directions on a ceiling surface. A horizontal drive mechanism changes the horizontal angle of the spotlight and a vertical drive mechanism changes the vertical angle of the spotlight. A CCD camera picks up the image of a target area to be illuminated. An image recognition unit processes the image from the CCD camera to recognize the target to be illuminated and to specify its coordinates. A coordinate calculation unit calculates how far to move the spotlight based on a distance of the target to be illuminated. A movable control unit converts the output of the coordinate calculation unit into drive signals for the horizontal drive mechanism and for the vertical drive mechanism and outputs drive signals to pivot the spotlight in a desired direction.

Automatic tracking lighting equipment, lighting controller and tracking

An interphone with television includes a terminal device having a wide-angle image input camera, an image output circuit, and a master device for receiving an image signal from the image output circuit. The master device converts the image to a digital format and stores the image signal in an image memory. The image may be panned, magnified, and corrected using digital processing techniques. The contents of the image memory are converted to an analogue signal for reproduction on a monitor.

Interphone with television

A picture encoding system which performs a prediction of picture element values within a block having a plurality of picture elements into which an original picture is divided, a discrete sine transform with respect to prediction error signals for obtaining a transform coefficient, a quantization of the transform coefficient for encoding quantized indexes, an inverse quantization of the quantized indexes for reproduction of the transform coefficient, an inverse discrete sine transform of the reproduced coefficient to reproduce the prediction error signal, and an addition thereto of the predicted picture element value for reproducing the picture element values within the block to employ them in predicting a next stage block to be encoded, whereby the block can be minimized in size while simplifying required transform operation.

Picture encoding system

An abnormality supervising system compares an input picture with a previously stored reference picture having no abnormality, provides a compared picture signal to an abnormality discrimination means having preliminarily stored information for abnormality discrimination, and, upon presence of an abnormality, operates an output means for informing operation, whereby the abnormality discrimination means can effectively attain the abnormality discrimination on the basis of the preliminarily stored information, in a highly reliable manner.

Growing community of inventors

Hirakata, Japan

Satoshi Furukawa