Provided according to one or more embodiments is a thermostat having a housing, the housing including a forward-facing surface, the thermostat comprising a passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor disposed inside the housing for sensing occupancy in the vicinity of the thermostat. The PIR motion sensor has a radiation receiving surface and is able to detect the lateral movement of an occupant in front of the forward-facing surface of the housing. The thermostat further comprises a grille member having one or more openings and included along the forward-facing surface of the housing, the grille member being placed over the radiation receiving surface of the PIR motion sensor. The grille member is configured and dimensioned to visually conceal and protect the PIR motion sensor disposed inside the housing, the visual concealment promoting a visually pleasing quality of the thermostat, while at the same time permitting the PIR motion sensor to effectively detect the lateral movement of the occupant. In one embodiment, the grille member openings are slit-like openings oriented along a substantially horizontal direction.

Disclosed is a sensor shield for use in a multi-shelf merchandise display unit including a plurality of sensors mounted on a wall of the unit and opposite a source of illumination, in which each sensor corresponds to a single shelf and in which the shelves are at least semi-porous to the illumination. The shield comprises i) a plate having a length that is sufficient substantially to reduce or prevent incident illumination from the shelf above reaching the sensor; and ii) means to attach the plate to casing of or around the sensor or the wall of the unit. The plate is opaque to the illumination detected by the sensor. Also disclosed is a method to reduce the interference of light in a multi-shelf merchandise display unit from shelves above a shelf on which stock levels are being measured and a method for monitoring stock levels in a retail display cabinet by measuring light entering the retail display cabinet.

Disclosed is a sensor shield for use in a multi-shelf merchandise display unit including a plurality of sensors mounted on a wall of the unit and opposite a source of illumination, in which each sensor corresponds to a single shelf and in which the shelves are at least semi-porous to the illumination. The shield comprises i) a plate having a length that is sufficient substantially to reduce or prevent incident illumination from the shelf above reaching the sensor; and ii) means to attach the plate to casing of or around the sensor or the wall of the unit. The plate is opaque to the illumination detected by the sensor. Also disclosed is a method to reduce the interference of light in a multi-shelf merchandise display unit from shelves above a shelf on which stock levels are being measured and a method for monitoring stock levels in a retail display cabinet by measuring light entering the retail display cabinet.

In some embodiments, apparatus and systems, as well as methods, may operate to select from multiple optical detectors and/or multiple detector amplifiers to form combinations of detectors and amplifiers as part of an optical detection system. The selection may be based on minimizing noise equivalent power (NEP) of the optical detector or a combination of an optical detector and a detector amplifier over a desired temperature range. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.

An object detection apparatus includes a sensor module including a sensor, and a controller that controls the sensor and generates output information, based on a signal that the sensor outputs; and a detector that determines presence or absence of the object, based on the output information. The detector executes a reference object detection process of detecting a reference object existing at a predetermined position within the detection range, by comparing the output information and predetermined reference information, and, when the reference object is detected, executes a correction process of correcting at least one of the output information or a parameter for the sensor, based on the reference information and reference object information that is information indicative of the reference object in the output information.

A method for assessing risk to a marine hydrocarbon recovery operation involves collecting a set of training images and labeling sea surface anomalies on the set of training images. The set of training images and associated labels are used to train a model via backpropagation. A set of non-training images is collected and the trained model is applied to identify a potentially disruptive sea surface anomaly on the set of non-training images. Any risk to the marine hydrocarbon recovery operation by the potentially disruptive sea surface anomaly is then assessed.

A system includes first and second gas cells, each comprising a respective sealed interior waveguide. The first gas cell contains a dipolar gas and the second gas cell does not contain a dipolar gas. The system includes first and second transmit antennas coupled to the first and second gas cells, respectively, to provide first and second electromagnetic waves to the interior of the first and second gas cells, respectively; first receive antenna coupled to the first gas cell to generate a first signal indicative of an amount of energy in the first electromagnetic wave after travel through the first gas cell; second receive antenna coupled to the second gas cell to generate a second signal indicative of an amount of energy in the second electromagnetic wave after travel through the second gas cell; processor configured to calculate a background-free signal based on a difference between the first and second signals.

A millimeter wave image based human body foreign object detection method, comprising: acquiring a millimeter wave gray scale image of a human body; according to a pre-determined foreign object imaging characteristic, extracting from the millimeter wave gray scale image a foreign object area image; according to a pre-determined foreign object image recognition algorithm, performing calculations on the foreign object area image, and acquiring a foreign object image from the foreign object area image; displaying the foreign object image as a foreign object detection result. Also provided is a millimeter wave image based human body foreign object detection system.

An object detection algorithm is selectively applied to frames in a video. A frame in the video is analyzed using a set of neural networks of the object detection algorithm to detect a location of an object in the frame and predict a bounding box for the object in the frame. A magnitude of a delta between the frame and a second frame is determined. The magnitude of the delta is determined based on a difference between the two frames in values of at least one parameter of their respective sets of pixels. Responsive to the magnitude of the delta being less than a threshold, a new bounding box is predicted for the object in the second frame without analyzing the second frame using the set of neural networks.

A device (10) for determining bedbug activity comprises a housing (11) with openings (13), an insect detection zone (42) and pathways through the housing (11) that are traversing the insect detection zone (42). The device (10) has a light emitter (83) configured to direct light through the insect detection zone (42), an optical sensor (84) and a control unit. The light emitter (83) and re) the optical sensor (84) are arranged at a proximal end (43) of the insect detection zone (42) and a reflective surface is arranged at a distal end (44) of the insect detection zone (42). The optical sensor (84) is configured to receive light from the light emitter (83) via the reflective surface. The control unit controls the light emitter (83), the optical sensor (84) and the detection of bedbugs passing through the insect detection zone (42). A method for detection of bedbugs are presented.