Patents by Inventor Shiyuan Yang

Shiyuan Yang has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 12283165
    Abstract: Disclosed are visual recognition and sensor fusion weight detection system and method. An example method includes: tracking, by a sensor system, objects and motions within a selected area of a store; activating, by the sensor system, a first computing device positioned in the selected area in response to detecting a presence of a customer within the selected area: identifying, by the sensor system, the customer and at least one item carried by the customer; transmitting, by the sensor system, identifying information of the customer and the at least one item to a computing server system via a communication network; measuring, by the first computing device, a weight of the at least one item; transmitting, by the first computing device, the weight to the computing server system via the communication network; and generating, by the computing server system, via the communication network, transaction information of the at least one item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2024
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2025
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Shiyuan Yang
  • Publication number: 20250104040
    Abstract: A smart shopping cart includes internally facing cameras and an integrated scale to identify objects that are placed in the cart. To avoid unnecessary processing of images that are irrelevant, and thereby save battery life, the cart uses the scale to detect when an object is placed in the cart. The cart obtains images from a cache and sends those to an object detection machine learning model. The cart captures and sends a load curve as input to the trained model for object detection. Labeled load data and labeled image data are used by a model training system to train the machine learning model to identify an item when it is added to the shopping cart. The shopping cart also uses weight data and the image data from a timeframe associated with the addition of the item to the cart as inputs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 9, 2024
    Publication date: March 27, 2025
    Inventors: Yilin Huang, Ganglu Wu, Xiao Zhou, Youming Luo, Shiyuan Yang
  • Publication number: 20250094956
    Abstract: An item recognition system uses a top camera and one or more peripheral cameras to identify items. The item recognition system may use image embeddings generated based on images captured by the cameras to generate a concatenated embedding that describes an item depicted in the image. The item recognition system may compare the concatenated embedding to reference embeddings to identify the item. Furthermore, the item recognition system may detect when items are overlapping in an image. For example, the item recognition system may apply an overlap detection model to a top image and a pixel-wise mask for the top image to detect whether an item is overlapping with another in the top image. The item recognition system notifies a user of the overlap if detected.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 26, 2024
    Publication date: March 20, 2025
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Shray Chandra
  • Publication number: 20250094749
    Abstract: A barcode decoding system decodes item identifiers from images of barcodes. The barcode decoding system receives an image of a barcode and rotates the image to a pre-determined orientation. The barcode decoding system also may segment the barcode image to emphasize the portions of the image that correspond to the barcode. The barcode decoding system generates a binary sequence representation of the item identifier encoded in the barcode by applying a barcode classifier model to the barcode image, and decodes the item identifier from the barcode based on the binary sequence representation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2024
    Publication date: March 20, 2025
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Yilin Huang, Wentao Pan, Xiao Zhou
  • Publication number: 20250058814
    Abstract: A shopping cart's tracking system determines a baseline location of the shopping cart at a first timestamp with a wireless device located on the shopping cart detecting one or more external wireless devices (e.g., RFID tags). The shopping cart's tracking system receives wheel motion data from one or more wheel sensors coupled to one or more wheels of the shopping cart, wherein the wheel motion data describes rotation and orientation of the one or more wheels. The shopping cart's tracking system calculates a translation traveled by the shopping cart from the baseline location based on the wheel motion data. The shopping cart's tracking system determines an estimated location of the shopping cart at a second timestamp based on the baseline location and the translation. The shopping cart provides functionality with the estimated location.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 5, 2024
    Publication date: February 20, 2025
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Xiaofei Zhou, Kaiyang Chu, Sikun Zhu
  • Patent number: 12227219
    Abstract: A shopping cart's tracking system determines a first baseline location of the shopping cart at a first timestamp with a wireless device located on the shopping cart detecting one or more external wireless devices (e.g., RFID tags) in the indoor environment. The shopping cart's tracking system receives wheel motion data from one or more wheel sensors coupled to one or more wheels of the shopping cart, wherein the wheel motion data describes rotation of the one or more wheels. The shopping cart's tracking system calculates a translation traveled by the shopping cart from the first baseline location based on the wheel motion data. The shopping cart's tracking system determines an estimated location of the shopping cart at a second timestamp based on the first baseline location and the translation. With the estimated location, the shopping cart can update a map with the estimated location of the shopping cart.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2022
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2025
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Xiaofei Zhou, Kaiyang Chu, Sikun Zhu
  • Patent number: 12217236
    Abstract: An item recognition system uses a top camera and one or more peripheral cameras to identify items. The item recognition system may use image embeddings generated based on images captured by the cameras to generate a concatenated embedding that describes an item depicted in the image. The item recognition system may compare the concatenated embedding to reference embeddings to identify the item. Furthermore, the item recognition system may detect when items are overlapping in an image. For example, the item recognition system may apply an overlap detection model to a top image and a pixel-wise mask for the top image to detect whether an item is overlapping with another in the top image. The item recognition system notifies a user of the overlap if detected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2022
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2025
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Shray Chandra
  • Publication number: 20250037101
    Abstract: Self-checkout vehicle systems and methods comprising a self-checkout vehicle having a camera(s), a weight sensor(s), and a processor configured to: (i) identify via computer vision a merchandise item selected by a shopper based on an identifier affixed to the selected item, and (ii) calculate a price of the merchandise item based on the identification and weight of the selected item. Computer vision systems and methods for identifying merchandise selected by a shopper comprising a processor configured to: (i) identify an identifier affixed to the selected merchandise and an item category of the selected merchandise, and (ii) compare the identifier and item category identified in each respective image to determine the most likely identification of the merchandise.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 4, 2024
    Publication date: January 30, 2025
    Inventors: Shiyuan YANG, Lin GAO, Yufeng HE, Xiao ZHOU, Yilin HUANG, Griffin KELLY, Isabel TSAI, Ahmed BESHRY
  • Publication number: 20250029082
    Abstract: Disclosed herein relates to a self-checkout anti-theft vehicle system, comprising: a self-checkout vehicle having a plurality of sensors and components implemented thereon, the self-checkout vehicle being used by shoppers for storing selected merchandises in a retail environment; and a centralized computing device. The centralized computing device is configured to: obtain information related to each merchandise selected and placed into the self-checkout vehicle by a shopper by exchanging data with the plurality of sensors and components via a first communication network, identify each merchandise via a second, different communication network based at least upon the information obtained from the plurality of sensors and components, and process payment information of each merchandise.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 3, 2024
    Publication date: January 23, 2025
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Ahmed Beshry
  • Patent number: 12205098
    Abstract: A smart shopping cart includes internally facing cameras and an integrated scale to identify objects that are placed in the cart. To avoid unnecessary processing of images that are irrelevant, and thereby save battery life, the cart uses the scale to detect when an object is placed in the cart. The cart obtains images from a cache and sends those to an object detection machine learning model. The cart captures and sends a load curve as input to the trained model for object detection. Labeled load data and labeled image data are used by a model training system to train the machine learning model to identify an item when it is added to the shopping cart. The shopping cart also uses weight data and the image data from a timeframe associated with the addition of the item to the cart as inputs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2025
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Yilin Huang, Ganglu Wu, Xiao Zhou, Youming Luo, Shiyuan Yang
  • Patent number: 12197998
    Abstract: A barcode decoding system decodes item identifiers from images of barcodes. The barcode decoding system receives an image of a barcode and rotates the image to a pre-determined orientation. The barcode decoding system also may segment the barcode image to emphasize the portions of the image that correspond to the barcode. The barcode decoding system generates a binary sequence representation of the item identifier encoded in the barcode by applying a barcode classifier model to the barcode image, and decodes the item identifier from the barcode based on the binary sequence representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2023
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Yilin Huang, Wentao Pan, Xiao Zhou
  • Patent number: 12050960
    Abstract: A barcode decoding system decodes item identifiers from images of barcodes. The barcode decoding system receives an image of a barcode and rotates the image to a pre-determined orientation. The barcode decoding system also may segment the barcode image to emphasize the portions of the image that correspond to the barcode. The barcode decoding system generates a binary sequence representation of the item identifier encoded in the barcode by applying a barcode classifier model to the barcode image, and decodes the item identifier from the barcode based on the binary sequence representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2022
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2024
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Yilin Huang, Wentao Pan, Xiao Zhou
  • Publication number: 20240202475
    Abstract: An automated checkout system modifies received images of machine-readable labels to improve the performance of a label detection model that the system uses to decode item identifiers encoded in the machine-readable labels. For example, the automated checkout system may transform subregions of an image of a machine-readable label to adjust for distortions in the image's depiction of the machine-readable label. Similarly, the automated checkout system may identify readable regions within received images of machine-readable labels and apply a label detection model to those readable regions. By modifying received images of machine-readable labels, these techniques improve on existing computer-vision technologies by allowing for the effective decoding of machine-readable labels based on real-world images using relatively clean training data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 26, 2024
    Publication date: June 20, 2024
    Inventors: Ganglu Wu, Shiyuan Yang, Xiao Zhou, Qi Wang, Qunwei Liu, Youming Luo
  • Publication number: 20240202694
    Abstract: An automated checkout system modifies received images of machine-readable labels to improve the performance of a label detection model that the system uses to decode item identifiers encoded in the machine-readable labels. For example, the automated checkout system may transform subregions of an image of a machine-readable label to adjust for distortions in the image's depiction of the machine-readable label. Similarly, the automated checkout system may identify readable regions within received images of machine-readable labels and apply a label detection model to those readable regions. By modifying received images of machine-readable labels, these techniques improve on existing computer-vision technologies by allowing for the effective decoding of machine-readable labels based on real-world images using relatively clean training data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 14, 2023
    Publication date: June 20, 2024
    Inventors: Ganglu Wu, Shiyuan Yang, Xiao Zhou, Qi Wang, Qunwei Liu, Youming Luo
  • Publication number: 20240144688
    Abstract: An automated checkout system accesses an image of an item inside a shopping cart and a location of the shopping cart within a store. The automated checkout system identifies a set of candidate items located within a threshold distance of the location of the shopping cart based on an item map. The item map describes a location of each item within the store and the location of each candidate item corresponds to a location of the candidate item on the item map. The automated checkout system inputs visual features of the item extracted from the image to a machine-learning model to identify the item by determining a similarity score between the item and each candidate item of the set of candidate items. After identifying the item, the automated checkout system displays a list comprising the item and additional items within the shopping cart to a user.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 30, 2022
    Publication date: May 2, 2024
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Xiaofei Zhou, Xiao Zhou, Qunwei Liu
  • Publication number: 20240144789
    Abstract: Disclosed are visual recognition and sensor fusion weight detection system and method. An example method includes: tracking, by a sensor system, objects and motions within a selected area of a store; activating, by the sensor system, a first computing device positioned in the selected area in response to detecting a presence of a customer within the selected area: identifying, by the sensor system, the customer and at least one item carried by the customer; transmitting, by the sensor system, identifying information of the customer and the at least one item to a computing server system via a communication network; measuring, by the first computing device, a weight of the at least one item; transmitting, by the first computing device, the weight to the computing server system via the communication network; and generating, by the computing server system, via the communication network, transaction information of the at least one item.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 10, 2024
    Publication date: May 2, 2024
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Shiyuan Yang
  • Publication number: 20240135123
    Abstract: A barcode decoding system decodes item identifiers from images of barcodes. The barcode decoding system receives an image of a barcode and rotates the image to a pre-determined orientation. The barcode decoding system also may segment the barcode image to emphasize the portions of the image that correspond to the barcode. The barcode decoding system generates a binary sequence representation of the item identifier encoded in the barcode by applying a barcode classifier model to the barcode image, and decodes the item identifier from the barcode based on the binary sequence representation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 28, 2023
    Publication date: April 25, 2024
    Inventors: Shiyuan Yang, Yilin Huang, Wentao Pan, Xiao Zhou
  • Publication number: 20240135353
    Abstract: Disclosed herein relates to a self-checkout anti-theft vehicle system, comprising: a self-checkout vehicle having a plurality of sensors and components implemented thereon, the self-checkout vehicle being used by shoppers for storing selected merchandises in a retail environment; and a centralized computing device. The centralized computing device is configured to: obtain information related to each merchandise selected and placed into the self-checkout vehicle by a shopper by exchanging data with the plurality of sensors and components via a first communication network, identify each merchandise via a second, different communication network based at least upon the information obtained from the plurality of sensors and components, and process payment information of each merchandise.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 3, 2024
    Publication date: April 25, 2024
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Ahmed Beshry
  • Patent number: 11948044
    Abstract: An automated checkout system modifies received images of machine-readable labels to improve the performance of a label detection model that the system uses to decode item identifiers encoded in the machine-readable labels. For example, the automated checkout system may transform subregions of an image of a machine-readable label to adjust for distortions in the image's depiction of the machine-readable label. Similarly, the automated checkout system may identify readable regions within received images of machine-readable labels and apply a label detection model to those readable regions. By modifying received images of machine-readable labels, these techniques improve on existing computer-vision technologies by allowing for the effective decoding of machine-readable labels based on real-world images using relatively clean training data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2024
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Ganglu Wu, Shiyuan Yang, Xiao Zhou, Qi Wang, Qunwei Liu, Youming Luo
  • Patent number: 11915217
    Abstract: Disclosed herein relates to a self-checkout anti-theft vehicle system, comprising: a self-checkout vehicle having a plurality of sensors and components implemented thereon, the self-checkout vehicle being used by shoppers for storing selected merchandises in a retail environment; and a centralized computing device. The centralized computing device is configured to: obtain information related to each merchandise selected and placed into the self-checkout vehicle by a shopper by exchanging data with the plurality of sensors and components via a first communication network, identify each merchandise via a second, different communication network based at least upon the information obtained from the plurality of sensors and components, and process payment information of each merchandise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2024
    Assignee: Maplebear Inc.
    Inventors: Lin Gao, Yilin Huang, Shiyuan Yang, Ahmed Beshry