Patent Application
20110124326
The invention relates to the remote locating of objects to which the “locator” is attached.
This invention relates to GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) location determination.
This invention relates to an application which is suitable for “I-Phone®”-like cell phones in conjunction with the very low power locator apparatus.
It is easy to lose or misplace objects such as car/house keys, eyeglasses, women's pocketbooks/purses including one-of-a kind valuable objects. One such misplacement/lose occurs very locally, such as in the home. Another type of misplacement/lose occurs when outside the home.
The solution to the in-home lost object typically involves an application of a buzzer or sounding device in the attached finder. Lose or misplacement outside the home calls for a more sophisticated location method.
In all of these considerations one must be aware of size, weight and power requirements for the “locator.” The locator may be attached to a small object such as a set of keys, or, eyeglasses. It could also serve as an attachment to a dog's collar in the event a dog ran off or was taken.
It would be desirable, in conjunction with a “locator apparatus' attached to the object to be located, to have an I-phone® or I-phone-like cell phone application available, which may be used to locate the lost object. Whenever reference is made to an I-phone®, that reference herein automatically includes any I-phone-like cell phone.
While automatic methods for finding such objects as cell-phones exist, a more general type of locator would be desirable to locate any lost object. The object is, of course, attached to the locator, herein.
The invention utilizes a server which is telephony capable as part of a network based system. A locator device, or, locator devices are attached to objects one wishes to locate, upon their being lost, misplaced or stolen.
An iPhone or iPhone like mobile device utilizes an application, i.e., a specified computer program, fixed in a media, to interrogate a telephony capable server which in turn calls the locator device which contains a mobile device transceiver, known in the arts, and which in turn, interrogates an on-board GPS (global positioning satellite) chip. The information is returned to the telephony based server, which then pulls up a map depending where the GPS coordinates latitude and longitude show the “missing” locator to be. A telephone call/text message is placed to the user which alerts the user to check on an internet work station.
From an internet web-based computer terminal (i.e., workstation), the user can log in to his/her account and see where the missing locator device, with its attached object, are located, on a scalable map (with zoom capabilities).
The invention utilizes a very low duty cycle receiver-transmitter with an associated low power GPS ‘chip,’ all operating within a reduced function cell-phone, without speech encoding or decoding capability. The reduced cell-phone functionality needs to be able to transmit the simple data: GPS coordinates. An internal timer partially wakes up the invention's receiver for a time window during which the receiver may receive a ‘total’ wake up call.
The invention is woken-up via a call to its cell-phone-based simple receiver. Upon wakening, the apparatus activates a low-power GPS-reading chip, which then transmits the GPS coordinates along with device identification number to the caller.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention, and the advantages
thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The following description is of the best mode presently contemplated for carrying out the invention. This description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is merely made for the purpose of describing the general principles of the invention.
The telephony 14 server 11 processes the GPS coordinates data utilizing a web application. The web application (not shown), residing in the telephony 14 capable server 11 returns latitude and longitude information superimposed on a map covering those GPS-derived co-ordinates. The telephony 14 capable serve 11, acting as host to the web application (not shown) responds to the mobile device 10 via http 13.
Instead of sending data directly to mobile device 10 “application”, i. e. dedicated computer code, fixed in a media (not shown), residing on the mobile device 10
The user logs into his account (login) to see the global positioning satellite's coordinators as passed by the locator device 12.
In
The invention utilizes a very low duty cycle receiver-transmitter with an associated low power GPS ‘chip,’ all operating within a reduced function cell-phone, without speech encoding or decoding capability. The reduced cell-phone functionality needs to be able to transmit the simple data: GPS coordinates.
An internal timer partially wakes up the invention's receiver for a time window during which the receiver may receive a ‘total’ wake up call. The invention is woken-up via a call to its cell-phone-based simple receiver. Upon wakening, the apparatus activates a low-power GPS-reading chip, which then transmits the GPS coordinates along with device identification number to the caller.
When the timer 402, which stays on continuously powered by its separate battery 403, allows the receiver mechanism to turn on periodically, the main battery 401 is brought on-line and powers up the receive section of the locator. Shown as 404 is the other electronics of the locator, not further designated or shown: namely: antenna, transmit-receive switch, band filter, mixer (down-converter) with local oscillator, intermediate frequencies (IF) amplifiers, frequency modulation (FM) detector, adaptive receiver and links “A and “B” to the GPS chip and to the buffering functionality, respectively. These other electronics correspond to known-in-the-arts mobile telephone receiver (or transceiver).
The time periodicity when the timer 402 turns on the main battery 401 is settable. For example, the locator might be placed in an active receive mode for 5 minutes every hour. That requires an incoming call to be made to it within that five minute interval beginning on each hour. The setting of this feature depends on the desirability of keeping the duty cycle low while having the convenience of initiating a location search for the missing object attached to the locator.
The timing and periodicity may be set at the factory, or, in conjunction with a chart indicating how often to recharge the main locator battery 401, it may be set by the locator owner.
Activating the locator 12 and registering it, as above, then allows the locator device 12 to be used.
When the object is not lost 506, nothing happens beyond the periodic turning on, for a limited period, of the locator receive functionality. Eventually, the locator main battery 401 must be recharged. This might be shown by a low power led (light emitting diode) flashing for a while when the main battery power is below a certain level, as known in the arts.
If the object attached to the locator is lost 507, a call is placed to the locator 12 and the locator responds with the GPS coordinates 509. The coordinates are displayed on a map display.
Two separate small, low weight batteries which utilize a low duty cycle locator device, based on a low duty cycle for its main battery. This is accomplished by utilizing a low power prompting timing circuit; and prompting an on-state for the locating device transceiver, occasionally but regularly. For example, the timing circuit may turn the locating device transceiver on for five minutes in every hour, at the beginning of the hour. Another aspect of this preferred invention is having the telephony enabled computer server repeatedly call the locator device corresponding to time-on duty cycle; keeping the time-on duty cycle information in the information data base, for each registered user of the locator method.
The time-on duty cycle may be the same for each locator device.
The approach to choosing the battery size and weight is according to the number of days it is requested that the locator device can remain active.
The locator system (apparatus and method) may utilize accurate timing information available from a global positioning satellite and/or the National Bureau of Standards so as to minimize the duty cycle of the on-time for the locator device(s).
This would allow for the smallest battery sizes for the longest periods of time. Also, for example, with interrogation of the transceiver for a millisecond every 10 seconds, would allow for almost immediate contact, while still maintaining a very low duty cycle.
Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention.
