1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electronic locating and annunciating system for a facility and, more particularly, to a system which can continuously operate to maintain a registry of the locations in the facility of individuals and equipment; and store and generate reports of a real time record of movement from location to location of individuals and equipment in the facility.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The need to maintain an up-to-date registry of the location of the personnel and equipment in a facility such as a building is oftentimes required to allow efficient operation. While the present invention is not so limited, an intelligent locator system is needed in a hospital setting, for example, to quickly locate operating personnel or emergency equipment at critical times. The ability to review accurate records of movement of personnel and equipment over time greatly enhances the ability of management to plan and maximize the utilization of resources, and allow a detailed study of events after an incident. One of the simplest methods for locating personnel within a facility involves a network of loudspeakers and phones or other response equipment. Such a network does not allow for locating equipment, only personnel. Also, broadcasting an announcement throughout the entire facility is distracting to all and requires an active response by the person being located. Furthermore, it is impractical with such network to maintain an up-to-date register for monitoring the location of personnel. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,436,320; 3,696,384; and 3,739,329 disclose utilizing ultrasonic transmitters and receivers; however, there are disadvantages because the use of ultrasonics in these systems causes excess battery drain in the transmitters; and the ultrasonic signals pass through walls in a facility resulting in erroneous location indications.
Other prior art systems have been developed utilizing electromagnetic wave energy in the infrared frequency spectrum for the transmitters and receivers. For example, German Patent No. 32 10 002 discloses a system using infrared light emitters which transmit periodic signals for detection by a receiver that in turn energizes relays to register the presence of a person carrying the infrared emitters. No suggestion is made for preventing signal overlap between two different periodic signals transmitted by emitters carried by two different individuals. Additionally, the infrared emitters operate continuously which degrades battery longevity.
Also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,385 is a personnel locating system which maintains a registry of individuals by tracking their entry and exit from defined areas. Each person carries a portable transmitter, and each transmitter transmits a unique twelve bit binary code word with start, stop and parity bits employing infrared light emitting diodes. Infrared receivers are positioned to allow detection of the binary code word transmitted by the transmitter. However, the receiver can only detect the transmitted code word over a limited range, and only when the receiver is positioned so as to be in the “line of sight” of the transmitter. To overcome this problem, the receivers are positioned in doorways to rooms forming the defined area. When a person carrying a transmitter passes through the doorway, such passage is detected. The system therefore actually tracks the entrance and exit of personnel from the rooms rather than continuously maintaining the locations of the personnel. As a result, this prior art system also suffers from several inherent disadvantages. First, because a receiver only detects the transmitted signal during the brief period of time in which personnel pass through a doorway, any transmission problem occurring during this period of time results in the entry and/or exit of the personnel not be registered. Because a unique multi-bit code word as well as parity and stop/start bits must be transmitted in sequence by a portable transmitter in order to correctly identify the personnel passing through the doorway, any bit error results in an incorrect registry entry. Additionally, the number of receivers required to maintain an accurate registry of personnel increases greatly if a room contains more than one doorway allowing entrance and exit. A still further disadvantage inherent to this system occurs when two or more individuals enter through a doorway simultaneously in close proximity to one another (i.e., within the envelope of the receiver). The receiver cannot differentiate between the transmitted signals. Again, an erroneous registry indication results as no individual is registered as entering and/or exiting through the doorway. Still further, an erroneous registry indication also results when personnel pass within the envelope of the receiver, but do not pass through the doorway. For example, in a hospital setting, personnel walking along a hallway may pass within the envelope of several receivers positioned in the doorways of several rooms, but enter none of the rooms. The system would register such personnel in all of the rooms at the same time. In a hospital setting such false information is actually more detrimental than no information at all.
According to the present invention there is provided a locating and monitoring system installable on the premises of a facility, the system including at least one transmitter means adapted for movement about the facility with a person, with an animal or with equipment to allow identification of such transmitter means at any of diverse sites in the facility, the transmitter means including means for transmitting pulse bursts at diverse times during predetermined time intervals for preventing synchronization with resident signals in the facility, the pulse bursts defining a unique binary identification code, and means responsive to the pulse bursts for establishing the location of the transmitter means in the facility.
Advantageously, a plurality of transmitters and a plurality of receivers form part of the system. The receivers each have a reception range about a premises with an allowable overlap with the reception range of another of such receivers. Each of the receivers is responsive to the pulse bursts to validate the binary identification code and thereby establish presence of the transmitter means within the reception range of a receiver. The receivers are joined to a gathering station for validating outputs from each of the receivers and forming start and stop events. The start events include the identity of the one receiver of the plurality of receivers, the binary identification code of one transmitter of the plurality of the transmitters, and when the pulse bursts of such transmitter was detected by such receiver. The stop events include the identity of the one receiver of the plurality of the receivers, the unique identification code of the one transmitter when loss of reception has occurred within the reception range, and when such loss of reception occurred. The receivers are connected to communicate as a group with a plurality of the gathering stations connected by a serial port to a central computer having a storage medium for storing the start and stop events. In the preferred form of the present invention, the system is issued for tracking the movements of hospital personnel and allied hospital equipment, and interfacing to an existing nurse call hospital system by providing: that each of the plurality of the transmitter means comprises a portable communication badge worn by allied hospital personnel, including nurses, and attached to the hospital equipment; the means for establishing the location including a receiver installed in each patient room to interface with the nurse call hospital system; a receiver installed in each patient room for indicating when the allied hospital personnel wearing one of the badges is in the room, and the class of a number of classes to which the allied hospital personnel belongs; and an interface between the central computer and the nurse call hospital system such that location queries entered at terminals of the hospital system are routed to the central computer.
According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a locating and monitoring system installable on the premises of a facility, the system including at least one portable transmitter means adapted for movement about the facility with a person, with an animal or with equipment to allow monitoring of such transmitter means at any of diverse sites in the facility, the transmitter means including means for generating infrared pulse bursts defining a unique binary identification code essentially including an error detection word.
In another aspect of the present invention, the system includes at least one transmitter means adapted for movement about the facility with a person, with an animal or with equipment to allow identification of such transmitter means at any of diverse sites in the facility, the transmitter means including infrared means for generating pulse bursts defining a unique binary identification code according to a pulse position scheme wherein at least two binary bits of the code are represented by one pulse.
In a still further aspect of the system of the present invention includes at least one transmitter means adapted for movement about the facility with a person, with an animal or with equipment to allow identification of such transmitter means at any of diverse sites in the facility, the transmitter means including means for transmitting pulse bursts defining a unique binary identification code, and a plurality of receiver means responsive to the pulse bursts for establishing the location of the transmitter means in the facility, and a gathering station joined to each receiver of the plurality of receivers for validating outputs from each of the plurality of receivers and forming start and stop events, the start events including the identity of the one receiver of the plurality of receivers, the binary identification code of the transmitter, and when the pulse bursts of such transmitter was first detected by such receiver; the stop event including the identity of the one receiver of the plurality of the receivers, the unique identification code of the transmitter when loss of reception has occurred within the reception range, and when such loss of reception occurred.
Still other objections and advantages of the present invention will become apparent when the following description is read in light of the accompanying drawings in which:
Referring first now to the block diagram of
The intelligent locator system of
The intelligent locator arbitrators 61, 62 - - - 632 each includes a +15 DC volt power supply 14 to supply electrical power to the associated arbitrator and line 10 to supply electrical power to intelligent locator receivers 161, 162 - - - 1632 coupled to the associated intelligent locator arbitrator. A ground line 12 is arranged parallel with line 10 which forms an electrical ground potential common to all of arbitrators and receivers. All the intelligent locator receivers associated with the various intelligent locator arbitrators are responsive to anyone of at least one but preferably a plurality of intelligent locator transmitter badges 181, 182, 183, 184 - - - 18n, each of which, as will be described in greater detail hereinafter, transmits an unique bit code when chosen with 20 bits to enable up to 1,048,576 badges uniquely recognizable by the system. More than 20 code bits can be used to allow more than 1,048,876 badges to be uniquely recognized by the system. A bit code greater than 20 bits may be adopted with out departing from the spirit of the present invention.
The intelligent locator badges 18 are constructed in a manner suitable to be worn by persons, animals, and/or equipments and transmit a unique identification code using infrared transmissions. The receivers 16 with infrared detectors are installed at any of various different locations throughout a facility to allow detection of the unique code emitted by any of intelligent locator transmitters 18 within a detection range. While the invention is not so limited, these receivers 16 can be installed in walls, floors, ceilings, structural-parts, and special mountings provided in the facility. The functions of intelligent locator arbitrators 61, 62 - - - 632 is to process the signals to determine when an unique identification code emitted by the intelligent locator transmitter 18 starts being detected by any intelligent locator receivers 161, 162 - - - 1632 and when the code stops being detected. The arbitrators transmit signals corresponding to these start and stop events to the computer 2. A maximum of preferably 32 intelligent locator arbitrators 6 may be connected to a serial port of the intelligent locator computer 2 via the RS-485 serial bus 4. This gives rise to the possibility of up to 1024 intelligent locator receivers 16 per intelligent locator computer 2 serial port. The operating software of the intelligent locator computer operates to read into the computer memory the start and stop events from the intelligent locator arbitrator's 6, time stamps the events, and stores the data of the event in a relational database.
A system user will be able to input a request to the intelligent locator computer 2 terminal and/or generate a report of the present location of any person, animal, or equipment which is wearing an intelligent locator transmitter badge 18 including movement of the badge with the person, animal, or equipment over any previous time period.
Referring now to the block diagram of
The nurse-call system operators, at their own nurse-call terminals through the ethernet communication line 20 between the intelligent locator computer cpu 2 and the nurse-call cpu can request information about the current location of any nurse, other personnel or hospital equipment wearing an intelligent locator transmitter badge 18. A detailed description of the construction and operation of intelligent locator arbitrator 6, intelligent locator receiver 16 and intelligent locator transmitters 18 follows.
An important feature of the present invention is the coding for transmission and decoding of received pulse bursts at diverse times during predetermined time intervals to define an unique binary identification code for the operation of the locating and monitoring system. To facilitate an understanding of the underlying principle of the present invention, reference is now made to the diagram of
As described in regard to
Referring again to the time interval 48 of
As noted above, only 4 intervals of a defined 6 interval bit space are used for the occurrence of a pulse. The first interval occurring before the middle 4 intervals and the sixth interval occurring after the middle 4 intervals enable the circuity of the receiver 16 to distinguish between successively occurring pulses especially where, for example a second code pulse “58” defines a code “11” is followed by a third code pulse 60 defining a code “00”.
In
Diodes 86 and 88 are arranged to form rectifiers by their connection between 90A, 90B, 90C and 90D for protecting the circuitry of the transmitter in the event the batteries are installed with their polarity reversed. The transmitter can be turned OFF by operation of switch 92 coupled in power supply line 93. Capacitor 94 stores an electrical charge between pulse emissions which is discharged when the light emitting diodes 84A and 84B are turned ON for emitting high intensity emission pulses. A serial arrangement of diodes 96, 98 and 100 establish a low voltage in line 68 for powering the microcontroller 70. The voltage setting function of diodes 96, 98 and 100 contributes to a reduction of power consumption by reducing the operating voltage supplied to the microcontroller 70. Capacitor 102 coupled between the voltage supply line 68 and ground minimizes noise and other interference to insure reliable operation of the microcontroller 70 by forming a buffer and filter in the voltage supply line 68.
In
For this purpose, the microcontroller 158 includes an operating program to perform an important and believed novel feature of the present invention of causing operation of the microcontroller to recalculate a checksum by using bursts from the received identification code and then comparing the freshly calculated checksum with the checksum received with the identification code. When the freshly calculated checksum equals the checksum received with the identification code, the code is established as valid. When the comparison shows an inequality of the compared checksums then the code bursts pulses transmission is ignored. In this way, if too few code burst pulses or too many code burst pulses (as in the case of overlapping pulse transmissions) are detected then those transmissions are also ignored.
When the operation of microcontroller 158 establishes the validity of a received identification code then the microcontroller outputs a signal corresponding to the validated code to the intelligent locator arbitrator 61, 62 - - - 632 by way of the RS-485 serial data bus 8. An operating clock for the microcontroller 158 is formed by a quartz crystal 160. In the system shown in
In
Referring now to
As shown the microcontroller 222 communicates with the intelligent locator computer 2 by the RS-485 serial data bus 4 through uart 214 and the RS-485 interface integrated circuit 206. Additionally, the microcontroller 222 communicates with the intelligent locator receiver 16 by the RS-485 type serial data bus 8 through uart 216 and the RS-485 interface integrated circuit 208. The uarts 214 and 216 take the form of integrated circuits which receive parallel data from the microcontroller 222, convert the parallel data to serial data and output the serial data at a selected baud rate to the RS-485 interface integrated circuits 206 and 208. The uarts 214 and 216 also receive serial data at a selected baud rate from the RS-485 interface integrated circuits 206 and 208 and convert the serial data to parallel data read in by the microcontroller 222. Quartz crystals 210 and 212 form operating clocks for the uarts 214 and 216, respectively. The RS-485 interface integrated circuits 206 and 208 convert serial data outputs from the uarts 214 and 216, respectively, to differential outputs in lines 4A and 4B extending to the intelligent locator computer 2 with respect to IC 206 and lines 8A and 8B extending to the intelligent locator receivers 16 for transmission by way of twisted pair wire. The RS-485 interface integrated circuit 206 converts differential inputs received from twisted pair wires 4C and 4D from the intelligent locator computer to serial data inputs read by uart 214. The RS-485 interface integrated circuit 208 converts differential inputs received from twisted pair wires 8C and 8D from the intelligent locator receivers 16 to serial data inputs read by uart 216. The microcontroller 222 latches all its external control signals to the other integrated circuits on the intelligent locator arbitrators logic board 182 in two 8 bit latch integrated circuits 218 and 220. This enables the microcontroller 222 to expand its 8 bit data output port to drive 16 control signals. The microcontroller 222 also latches the address bus of the static rams 190 and 194 in two 8 bit latch integrated circuits 192 and 196. This enable the micro-controller to multiplex its 8 bit data bus with the 15 bit address bus of the static rams 190 and 194. Quartz crystal 224 forms an operating clock for the microcontroller 222.
Each arbitrator 6 is connected by an RS-485 serial bus 8 to process signals from a maximum of preferably 32 intelligent locator receivers 16. Each arbitrator 6 operates to establish the event when a transmitter 18 is first detected by a receiver 16 and the event when a transmitter 18 is no longer detected by a receiver 16 and transmits such start and stop events as signals to the intelligent locator computer 2. The microcontroller 222 in each arbitrator 6 through operation of a resident program reads the identification codes reported by each intelligent locator receiver 16 by way of RS-485 serial bus 8. If an identification code transmitter 18 has been carried into the detection range of a receiver 16, the microcontroller 222 sends a start event message containing the identification code and an identification number of that receiver 16 to the computer 2 by the RS-485 bus 4. The microcontroller 222 also stores that identification code in a static ram 190 and 194 in a table of information for that particular receiver 16. As long as the receiver 16 continues to report that identification code, the identification code remains in the static ram 190 and 194. However, when the intelligent locator stops a reporting of the identification code for more than 10 seconds, the microcontroller 222 sends a stop event message to the computer 2 and removes that identification code from the static ram 190 and 194 for that intelligent locator receiver 16. In the particular embodiment of the system shown in
The table of nurse level information includes a list of identification codes of the badges worn by nurses and the nurse level of each such person e.g., RN, LPN or aid. When an intelligent locator receiver 16 reports an identification code which corresponds to one of the nurse codes, the microcontroller 222 sends that nurse level information to that intelligent locator receiver 16 by the associated RS-485 serial bus 8. In this way, the receiver 16 is supplied with a signal to turn ON one of the nurse level light emitting diodes 120, 122 or 124 and at the same time to deliver a signal to the patient station 32 indicating the presence of a nurse and to which of the three levels the nurse belongs.
In
The stop event includes the identifying number of the receiver 16, the identification code of the transmitter 18 removed from the reception area of the receiver 16 and the real time of the occurrence of the stop event. The computer 2 has a front end interface to enable an operator to request the location of that person or object wearing a transmitter 18. In the embodiment of
In
While the present invention has been described in connection with the preferred embodiments of the various figures, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications and additions may be made to the described embodiment for performing the same function of the present invention without deviating therefrom. Therefore, the present invention should not be limited to any single embodiment, but rather construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the recitation of the appended claims.
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/957,662, filed Oct. 7, 1992 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,425.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 07957662 | Oct 1992 | US |
Child | 08421810 | US |