Omron's new image-sensing unit to detect facial expressions

Kyoto-based electronics company, Omron has introduced the HVC-P2 B5T-007001 Series, a built-in human condition recognition unit dubbed as a “Human Vision Components” (HVC) system. The HVC is an image-sensing unit that can recognize human face expression, gender, age, gaze and blink into a camera module.

Better bait against the former model HVC-C

In March 2014, the company had introduced the HVC-C, or Human Vision Components Consumer Model that served a similar function and read a subject’s age, gender, age and facial expression using the facial recognition technology. Omron claims that HVC-P2 boasts a maximum recognition speed 10 times that of the previous model, making it possible to detect a human body four times per second, keeping track of a person within a detection area without fail. The HVC-C came with a camera module small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Being a consumer-end product, it was designed to be integrated into almost any connected product in your home. But with HVC-P2, customers have the choice of two camera heads, a long-distance detection type and a wide-angle detection type, depending on their specific application purposes.

The company explains that a piece of equipment embedded with the HVC-P2 can detect and presume attributes and conditions of a user coming in its vicinity, without the user knowing the presence of a camera, making it possible to provide services deemed most suitable in view of the user’s attributes. The customer can then choose an output image from three types: no image output, 160×120 pixels and 320×240 pixels.

How does Omron HVC-P2 work?

Potential applications of HVC-P2 include digitalizing people’s attention to advertisements including digital signage. Here, the long-distance type of the device can detect and presume attributes of people, including gender and age, as well as their sight line and facial expression and hence determine the degree of attention people walking through a railway station, park or any other public place pay to a digital signage system installed there. Another vital application would be contributing to optimization and development of products for sale from vending machines. In this case, the wide-angle type of the machine which is capable of covering an area 100 cm by 75 cm from a distance of 50 cm, can keep track of people buying naturally from a vending machine, collecting data to be used later for optimum product refill, new product development and marketing activities. Furthermore, Omron claims that HVC-P2 can be embedded in a variety of equipment and machines to do various jobs involving humans and machines, including safeguarding people in manufacturing workplaces, keeping track of congestion in elevators, and watching out for people under care at nursing homes.