Patent Application
20140043151
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to warning systems of bicycles, in particular, it relates to a wireless warning system for transmitting control signals via a wireless transmission interface.
2. Description of Prior Art
As the environmental awareness rises, people start to highly concern about energy saving and carbon reduction. Accordingly, biking becomes a new trend of biking around the globe.
Generally speaking, in order to improve security of biking, bikers usually install lamp fixtures on bicycles to provide lighting. The lights from the lamp fixtures are used for providing warnings to draw attentions of passengers and other vehicle drivers when biking in a dim environment aiming to lower the accident rates.
Nonetheless, the functions offered by current bicycles lamp fixtures are limited. Bikers are demanding more functions other than providing warning effects.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide a bicycle wireless indicating module, and a wireless warning system having wireless indicating module, wherein a single wireless control module of the wireless warning system is able to simultaneously control all wireless indicating module in the system.
In order to achieve the above objective, the wireless indicating module of the invention performs registration in a wireless control module of a wireless warning system. The wireless indicating module receives and records the central control code of the wireless control module. When the wireless indicating module receives incoming an incoming control signal, the wireless indicating module matches of the control signal is in accordance with the recorded central control code. If the matching passes, the wireless indicating module switches their indicating unit based on the received control signal and forwards the control signal outbound.
Compare with the related art, the advantage of the present invention is that a user is allow to control the wireless indicating module to perform registration at the wireless control module before using, and control the wireless indicating module to receive and record the central control code of the wireless control module where the registration takes place. The advantage is that when a biking team uses the wireless warning system of the present invention, as long as all the bikers in the team control to perform registration of their wireless indicating modules at the wireless control module of the leading bicycle. The biker of the leading bicycle is able to simultaneously control all wireless indicating modules via the wireless control module of the leading bicycle in order to resolving the difficulty where the bikers at the back of the team are not able to know the status of the wireless indicating module and not informed of the coming actions such as turning directions left or right or stop cycling.
The features of the invention believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, may be best understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, which describes an exemplary embodiment of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Embodiments are provided in the following in order to further detail the implementations of the present invention in the summary. It should be noted that objects used in the diagrams of the embodiments are provided with proportions, dimensions, deformations, displacements and details are examples and the present invention is not limited thereto and identical components in the embodiments are the given same component numbers.
The wireless control module 1 has at least a control unit 11 for controlling the indicating light signals of indicating unit 21, such as indicating left turn light signals, right turn light signals, brakes light signals etc., and are not limited thereto. In addition, the wireless control module 1 is carried by the biker of the bicycle 3, or is fixed on the handle of the body of the bicycle 3 via a fastener 10. In the embodiment, the control unit 11 and the switch unit 22 are physical pressing buttons or switches. The switch unit 22 is used for switching the working modes of the wireless indicating module 2. The control unit 11 is used for controlling the light signal patterns indicated on the indicating unit 21, but is not limited thereto.
For example, when a biker rides the bicycle 3 with a wireless warning system, the biker switch the mode of the wireless indicating module 2 to a warning module (the warning mode 251 shown in
The control unit 11 has a plurality of control buttons, such as a left turn button, a right turn button, a warning button etc. to be operated by users, and generate a switch instruction C1 based on the operations. The micro processor 12 receives the switch instruction C1 generated by the control unit 11, and generates a corresponding control signal C2 based on the switch instruction C1. The control end transmission unit 13 forwards the control signal C2. For example, when the user desires to take a right turn, the user presses the right turn button of the control unit 11 for triggering the control unit 11 to generate the switch instruction C1 indicating a right turn, the micro processor 12 generates the control signal C2 indicating the right turn forwarded via the control end transmission unit 13. When the wireless indicating module 2 receives the control signal C2 based on the switch instruction C1, the wireless indicating module 2 controls the indicating unit 21 to switch into the light signal indicating a right turn based on the content of the control signal C2.
The wireless control module 1 further comprise a power unit 14 electrically connected with the micro processor 12. The power unit 14 can be a battery module or solar cells for providing required power operating the wireless control module 1.
The wireless indicating module 2 comprises the indicating unit 21, the switch unit 22, an indicating end transmission unit 23, a micro controller 24 and a memory unit 25, wherein the micro controller 24 electrically connected with the indicating unit 21, the switch unit 22, the indicating end transmission unit 23 and the memory unit 25.
The wireless indicating module 2 receives the incoming control signal C2 via the indicating end transmission unit 23. The micro controller 24 processes the received control signal C2. The micro controller 24 controls the indicating unit 21 to switch the indicating unit 21 to indicate the corresponding light signals based on the content of the control signal C2, which is the light signal indicating taking a right turn in the above embodiment. In the embodiment, the indicating unit 21 is a Light Emitting Diode (LED) or a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), but is not limited thereto.
The wireless indicating module 2 further comprises a speaker 26 and a power unit 27, respectively and electrically connected with the micro controller 24. The speaker is used for making corresponding warning sounds based on the content of the control signal C2, to enhance the warning effect along with the indicating unit 21. The power unit 27 can be a battery module or solar cells, for providing power required to operate on the wireless indicating module 2.
Generally speaking, each wireless display module 2 by default is bundled with a corresponding wireless control module 1. The wireless indicating module 2 and the wireless control module 1 form an independent wireless control assembly (the first wireless control assembly 4 shown in
When the wireless indicating module 2 is switched to work under the follow me mode 252, the wireless indicating module 2 is allowed to perform registration at any wireless control module to be controlled by other wireless control module.
Back to
As mentioned above, in the present invention, as long as the control signal C2 is in accordance with the central control code 131 recorded in the wireless indicating module 2, the control signal C2 is accepted by the wireless indicating module 2. However, the control signal C2 may not be directly sent by the wireless control module 1. In the embodiment, the control end transmission unit 13 and the indicating end transmission unit 23 are Radio Frequency (RF) transmitting units. According to the field tests, the transmission distance is optimized at 50 meters. When the distance between the wireless indicating module 2 and the wireless control module 1 is more than 50 meters, the wireless indicating module 2 cannot directly receive the control signal C2 sent by the wireless control module 1.
The present invention is characterized by that the wireless warning system has multiple wireless indicating modules 2 (for example installed in several bicycles). When a wireless indicating module 2 receives the control signal C2, the wireless indicating module 2 forwards the control signal C2 from itself, the center, to a radius of 50 meters outbound, aiming to arrive to the other wireless display modules in the neighborhood of the wireless indicating module. In other words, forwarding the control signal C2 via the wireless indicating module 2 can effectively expand the transmission distance of the control signal C2.
If the micro controller 24 determines that the control signal C2 is in accordance with the central control code 131, the micro controller 24 controls the indicating unit 21 to switch light signals based on the content of the control signal C2 (step S28) and controls the indicating end transmission unit 23 to forward the control signal C2 outbound (step S30). Thus, other devices, which are away from the wireless control module 1 but within the transmission distance of the wireless indicating module 2, are able to receive the control signal C2.
When working under the warning mode 251, the wireless indicating module 42 is only controlled by the wireless control module 41; the wireless indicating module 52 is only controlled by the wireless control module 51; and the wireless indicating module 62 is only controlled by the wireless control module 61.
When working under the follow me mode 252, these wireless display modules 42, 52, 62 perform registration on any wireless control modules 41, 51, 61 (the wireless control module 41 performs the registration in the example below), to be under control of the wireless control module 41. Under the circumstance, the wireless control modules 51, 61 do not function, and do not control these wireless display modules 42, 52, 62. The wireless control module 41 where the registration is performed simultaneously control these wireless display modules 42, 52, 62. Typically, the wireless control module 41 is for example installed on the leading bicycle of the bicycle team, and controlled by the biker of the leading bicycle.
As shown in the diagram, the wireless indicating modules 52, 62 are away from the wireless control module 41, providing that the wireless indicating modules 52, 62 are unable to directly receive the control signal C2 sent by the wireless control module 41, the wireless indicating module 42 receives and forwards the control signal C2 for expanding the transmission distance of the control signal C2. As shown in the diagram, the wireless indicating module 42 directly receives the control signal C2 sent by the wireless control module 41, the wireless indicating module 52 receives the control signal C2 forwarded by the wireless indicating module 42, the wireless indicating module 62 at the longest distance receives the control signal C2 forwarded by the wireless indicating module 52 in front of the wireless indicating module 62. Thus, when a bicycle team uses the wireless warning system of the present invention, the transmission distance of the control signal C2 is effectively expanded and the length of the bike team is not limited accordingly.
The fixed wireless indicating module 7 performs registration at the wireless control module 41 at the wireless control module 41 of the leading bicycle before the team setting off, and installed by a road corner of the biking paths. The fixed wireless indicating module 7 receives and forwards the control signal C2 sent by the wireless control module 41. For example, when the leading bicycle rides through the road corner and sends the control signal C2 indicating a right turn, the fixed wireless indicating module 7 receives the control signal C2 and controls the indicating unit to switch to the right turn light signal, whilst forwards the control signal C2 outbound.
When a biker of the bicycle left behind rides through the road corner without knowing to take a left turn or a right turn, the biker is informed by the indicating unit of the fixed wireless indicating module 7 of the turning direction took by the bicycle team ahead and accordingly does not get lost. In addition the wireless indicating module 62 also receives the control signal C2 forwarded by the fixed wireless indicating module 7 for controlling the indicating unit to switch to right turn light signal, whilst forwards the control signal C2. As s result, if there are other bicycles left behind, these bicycles are able to receive related information from the wireless indicating module 62 and/or the fixed wireless indicating module 7.
As the skilled person will appreciate, various changes and modifications can be made to the described embodiments. It is intended to include all such variations, modifications and equivalents which fall within the scope of the invention, as defined in the accompanying claims.
