US 11,832,772 B2
Product use acoustic determination system
Cleary E. Mahaffey, Canton, GA (US); and Stephen Becker, Cumming, GA (US)
Assigned to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc., Neenah, WI (US)
Filed by Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc., Neenah, WI (US)
Filed on Jun. 14, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/839,723.
Application 17/839,723 is a continuation of application No. 16/893,539, filed on Jun. 5, 2020, granted, now 11,369,236.
Application 16/893,539 is a continuation of application No. 15/756,155, granted, now 10,709,300, issued on Jul. 14, 2020, previously published as PCT/US2015/058195, filed on Oct. 30, 2015.
Prior Publication US 2022/0304522 A1, Sep. 29, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. A47K 5/12 (2006.01); G01H 17/00 (2006.01); A47K 10/32 (2006.01); G01F 1/66 (2022.01)
CPC A47K 5/1217 (2013.01) [A47K 5/12 (2013.01); A47K 10/32 (2013.01); G01F 1/66 (2013.01); G01H 17/00 (2013.01); A47K 2010/3226 (2013.01)] 9 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system comprising:
one or more dispensing devices in an environment, each dispensing device having a consumable product storage area and a dispensing mechanism, wherein each dispensing device is configured to store a respective consumable product in the product storage area and to dispense the consumable product through use of the dispensing mechanism to facilitate a hygiene-based process, and wherein actuation of each dispensing device creates an acoustic signal;
an acoustic sensing module configured to
(i) sense one or more acoustic signals based on actuation of the one or more dispensing devices,
(ii) access acoustic signatures corresponding to the one or more acoustic signals,
(iii) individually identify which of the one or more dispensing devices were actuated based on the sensed one or more acoustic signals and the acoustic signatures,
(iv) removing any noise captured during sensing of the one or more acoustic signals, and
(v) detect a door opening event and only sense the one or more acoustic signals within a predetermined time period of the door opening event; and
a data collection device configured to communicate with the acoustic sensing module to store data identifying the one or more dispensing devices determined to have been actuated.