The following relates generally to the Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) arts and related arts.
A Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) enables an elderly person or other person at elevated risk of incapacitating medical emergency to summon help. For example, a PERS may be activated by a person experiencing a debilitating fall, a heart attack, an acute asthma attack or other respiratory emergency, or so forth. The PERS typically includes a call button in the form of a necklace-worn pendant, a bracelet, or the like. By pressing the call button, a speakerphone console in the residence is activated, by which the at-risk person is placed into telephonic contact with a PERS personal response agent (PRA). The PRA speaks with the calling person (hereinafter referred to as a PERS “subscriber” as the person subscribes with the PERS service, although any associated costs or fees may be paid by a medical insurance company or other third party), and takes appropriate action such as talking the subscriber through an asthma episode, summoning emergency medical service (EMS), dispatching a local PERS agent, neighbor, or other authorized person to check on the subscriber, or so forth. In providing assistance, the PRA has access to a subscriber profile stored on a PERS server, which provides information such as (by way of illustration) name, residence location, demographic information, a list of the person's known chronic conditions, a list of the person's medications, an identification of the nearest hospital, a list of emergency contacts (spouse, relative, friend), physician information, and so forth.
An important service provided by a PERS is the dispatch of help, e.g. a neighbor or EMS, to the residence of the subscriber. The PERS architecture typically assumes a homebound subscriber (where “home” may be an individual residence, a group residence, an apartment, an assisted care facility, or so forth), and subscriber residence location is provided to the PRA as part of the subscriber's PERS profile. A disadvantage of this architecture is that the PERS is only usable when the subscriber is in his or her residence.
The following discloses a new and improved systems and methods that address the above referenced issues, and others.
In one disclosed aspect, a mobile help button device comprises a help button with WiFi and cellular communication and a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. The mobile help button device is programmed to perform a locator method including: attempting to wirelessly connect with a base station; acquiring WiFi access point (AP), cellular tower, and GPS information; and determining a location (i) as a home location if the attempt to wirelessly connect with the base station is successful or (ii) based on the WiFi AP, cellular tower, and GPS information if the attempt to wirelessly connect with the base station is unsuccessful.
In another disclosed aspect, a mobile help button device is configured for short-range wireless communication with a base station of a Personal Emergency Response System (PERS). The mobile help button device comprises a call button, a cellular transceiver configured to communicate with a cellular network, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, and an electronic processor programmed to cause the mobile help button device to perform a locator method to determine a location of the mobile help button device. In the locator method, if the mobile help button device is in short-range wireless communication with the base station, the location is determined as a home location. If the mobile help button device is not in short-range wireless communication with the base station, the locator method attempts to determine the location using location information collected by the mobile help button device including at least cellular tower information collected by the cellular transceiver and GPS information collected by the GPS receiver.
In another disclosed aspect, a locator method is performed by a mobile help button device with cellular communication. The locator method comprises: determining whether the mobile help button device is in short range wireless communication with a base station; setting the location to a home location if the mobile help button device is in short range wireless communication with the base station; and, if the mobile help button device is not in short range wireless communication with the base station, determining the location by collecting location information including at least information on cellular towers in range of the mobile help button device and sending the collected location information to a global locator service via cellular communication.
One advantage resides in facilitating a PERS architecture that provides full PERS service including dispatch of assistance to the subscriber's current location both in the residence and outside of the residence.
Another advantage resides in providing accurate current location information for a PERS subscriber located outside of his or her residence.
Another advantage resides in providing reliable current location information for a PERS subscriber by leveraging multiple location technologies.
Another advantage resides in providing assistance to Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel to precisely locate the subscriber in a busy setting.
A given embodiment may provide none, one, two, more, or all of the foregoing advantages, and/or may provide other advantages as will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the present disclosure.
The invention may take form in various components and arrangements of components, and in various steps and arrangements of steps. The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating the preferred embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the invention.
Techniques disclosed herein identify the subscriber's location for personal emergency alarm service. Cellular, GPS, WiFi technology and a breadcrumbing algorithm are employed synergistically. This information is sent to a global locator service such as the Skyhook™ (Boston, Mass., USA) cloud, which does calculation and presents the location to a PRA during emergency service. Location may be determined based on GPS information, Wifi access point (AP) information, cell tower information, an audio beacon, and/or by the subscriber telling his/her location during voice conversation with the PRA through a cell module. If the end device (e.g. mobile help button, MHB) is in the range of a base station, it is determined that the end device is at its home location. Skyhook's hybrid location service may also be used through the cell module. Cellular, GPS, WiFi technology and a breadcrumbing algorithm are suitably used to determine location in some embodiments.
In illustrative Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) embodiments described herein, the person served by the PERS service is referred to as a “subscriber”. This recognizes that the at-risk person subscribes with the PERS service so that the subscriber's call button device or other PERS hardware are associated with the PERS service and appropriate subscriber data are stored at the PERS server. It is to be understood that the term “subscriber” has no further connotation—for example, any costs or fees associated with the PERS subscription of the subscriber may be paid by the subscriber, or by a medical insurance company, or by a governmental agency, or by some other third party.
Terminology such as “home” or “residence” merely connotes the location where the PERS base station is installed. The home or residence may, by way of non-limiting example, be an individual residence, a group residence, an apartment, an assisted care facility, or so forth.
With reference to
The WiFi radio 20 is configured to wirelessly communicate with a PERS base station 30 either directly or via an intermediate WiFi access point (AP). Instead of WiFi, the mobile help button device 10 may be in short range wireless communication with the base station 30 by another short range wireless communication link, such as a dedicated 900 MHz link. The base station 30 is located in the residence and is connected with the PERS 8 (e.g. with the call center) via a reliable communication link 31 such as a telephone landline. The base station 30 provides the mobile help button device 10 with low-cost communication with the PERS 8 when the subscriber is at his or her residence. Thus, the short range wireless communication of the mobile help button device 10 with the base station 30 has a range approximately coinciding with the spatial extent of the residence (and possibly its immediate environs, e.g. extending to encompass a neighboring house or an apartment floor above or below a residence apartment or so forth). Although the short range communication preferably provides coverage for the entire residence, it is contemplated that in some instances the short range communication may fail to provide such complete coverage and there may, for example, be one or two rooms of a large house that are not covered by the short range communication. For example, if the WiFi 20 provides the short range communication with the base station 30, there may be one or two rooms, or portions thereof, that are outside of range of the WiFi hot spot of the residence.
The base station 30 includes a speaker 32 and a microphone 34. Thus, the base station 30 comprises a speakerphone console 30 via which a PRA can directly speak with the subscriber. To this end, the base station 30 employs the communication link 31 to the PERS 8, such as a landline telephone link (although another type of reliable wired or wireless link is also contemplated, such as a cable television cable link or so forth).
The cellular 22 is configured to wirelessly communicate with a cellular network, e.g. a cellular telephone (cellphone) network. This is diagrammatically indicated in
The electronic processor 28 is programmed to execute a PERS application 40, which detects activation of the call button 12 (or detects another emergency call trigger such as an accelerometer signal indicative of a sudden fall) and transmits information to initiate an emergency call via the base station 30 (when in-residence) or via the cellular 22 (when out-of-residence) in response to the detected trigger. When using the cellular 22, the PERS application 40 also operates the speaker 14 and microphone 16 to conduct conversation between the PRA and the subscriber. (By contrast, when in-residence this conversation is conducted by the base station 30).
The illustrative PERS architecture here described with reference to
Accordingly, when the PERS application 40 is activated, it invokes a locator application 42 which executes on the electronic processor 28 to cause the mobile help button device 10 to determine the location of the subscriber (or, more precisely, the location of the mobile help button device 10). As described herein, the locator application 42 leverages various resources of the mobile help button device 10 to provide an accurate location. First, if the mobile help button device 10 is in short range wireless communication with the base station 30 (e.g. via the WiFi 20 or another short range wireless link such as a dedicated 900 MHz link) then the locator application 42 sets the location as a “home” location, i.e. the residence of the subscriber where the base station 30 is located.
On the other hand, if the mobile help button device 10 is not in short range wireless communication with the base station 30 then it cannot be concluded that the subscriber is in the residence. In this case, the mobile help button device 10 attempts to determine the location using location information collected by the mobile help button device 10. This location information may, for example, include one or more of the following: WiFi access points (APs) in range of the WiFi 20; cellular towers (such as the illustrative cell tower 36) in range of the cellular 22; and/or GPS information collected by the GPS receiver 26. In some embodiments, the location information may be used directly to determine the location—for example, the GPS information collected by the GPS receiver 26 may be an actual location, e.g. in global latitude/longitude coordinates, and hence used directly as the determined location. In other embodiments, location cannot be directly determined from the location information—for example, identification of in-range WiFi APs and/or cell towers does not, by itself, provide an actual location in any global coordinate system. Even if some location information may provide actual location (e.g. a GPS location), it may be preferable to leverage all available location information to provide the most accurate location—thus, although the GPS may be in global coordinates other location information such as in-range WiFi APs and/or cell towers may be beneficially leveraged to provide a more accurate and/or definitive location. This also allows the location to be determined if insufficient GPS satellite signal is available to obtain an accurate GPS location, or if the mobile help button 10 does not include the illustrative GPS receiver 26.
Accordingly, in some embodiments the mobile help button device 10 communicates with a Global Locator Service 44 via the cellular 22 to send the location information to the Global Locator Service 44 and to, in response, receive the location from the Global Locator Service 44. The Global Locator Service 44 may, for example, be Skyhook™ (Boston, Mass., USA), which is a commercially available Global Locator Service that correlates detected cell towers or APs with geographical location. It is also contemplated to communicate with the Global Locator Service 44 by WiFi 20, e.g. via a WiFi Access Point connected to the Internet (via, e.g., a home router or a WiFi/Cellular bridge).
The location application 42 is provided to the PERS application 40 which sends the location to the PERS 8 via the base station 30 or via the cellular 22. (Alternatively, the locator application 42 may perform this transmission). The PERS application 40 preferably invokes the locator application 42 immediately upon start-up in response to pressing of the call button 12 (or in response to another indication of an emergency such as the triggering of a fall detector) in order to determine the current location. Additionally, in some embodiments, the locator application 42 is invoked at other times, for example on a predetermined cycle (e.g. every 15 minutes) in order to perform tracking by breadcrumbing (i.e. storing the locations determined over time). If this is done, then as a final “fall back”, the location can be determined from the tracking if the mobile help button device 10 is not in short range wireless communication with the base station 30 and the location cannot be determined by collecting location information and sending the collected location information to the global locator service 44. The location can be determined from the tracking as the last (i.e. most recent) location logged by the breadcrumbing. Alternatively, it is contemplated to estimate a current trajectory of the subscriber (or more specifically of the mobile help button device 10) based on the last two or more locations logged by the breadcrumbing, e.g. assuming a linear or parabolic extrapolation of these last two or more locations to the current time. The breadcrumbing data (or at least the last one, two, or few locations of the breadcrumbing data) are stored locally in an electronic data storage (e.g. flash memory) of the mobile help button device 10, and the breadcrumbing data optionally may also be transmitted to the PERS 8 via the base station 30 or cellular 22 so that the PERS 8 has (relatively) current location information for the subscriber in the event that communication with the mobile help button device 10 is lost entirely.
The locator application 42 thus provides a mechanism by which the current location of the subscriber (or, more particularly, of the mobile help button device 10) can be determined regardless of whether the location is in-residence or out-of-residence. In a PERS architecture that assumes a homebound subscriber, the location accuracy achieved by assuming the subscriber is in the residence is usually on the order of a few thousand square feet for a typical house, down to a few hundred square feet for a small apartment. GPS can generally provide greater location accuracy than this if the GPS satellite signals are strong enough, while location based on in-range WiFi AP or cell towers is typically roughly comparable with the locational accuracy obtained by assuming an in-residence location. Such locational accuracy is generally sufficient in the case of a homebound subscriber, since a typical home has only the subscriber as a residence or, if it has additional residents, they generally know the subscriber and will assist EMS personnel in locating the subscriber. Thus, locating the homebound subscriber to being in the residence is sufficient.
On the other hand, it is recognized herein that if the subscriber is out-of-residence then this level of locational accuracy may be insufficient. For example, locating the subscriber to an area on the order of a few hundred to a few thousand square feet may merely place the subscriber somewhere in a large department store, mall, or other congested location. The other people in this congested location generally do not know the subscriber, and may be unaware that the subscriber needs assistance. In such a case, EMS personnel may spend valuable time attempting to locate the subscriber within the area identified by the locator application 42.
Accordingly, in some embodiments the mobile help button device 10 further includes an audio beacon 46, e.g. comprising the speaker 14 operated by suitable programming of the electronic processor 28 to emit a loud beacon sound, e.g. a beeping sound or the like. The audio beacon 46 may, in various embodiments, be triggered by the subscriber, e.g. using the call button 12, and/or remotely by the PRA via the cellular 22 (or, optionally, also via the base station 30, although the beacon is less likely to be useful when the subscriber is in the residence). In some embodiments, the audio beacon 46 may be triggered anytime the subscriber presses the call button 12. However, this is generally not preferable because the beacon may not be needed if the subscriber is calling for assistance but is not incapacitated—and, activation of the audio beacon 46 each time the call button 12 is pressed may be annoying and may discourage the subscriber from making a PERS call that should be made.
Accordingly, in some embodiments activation of the audio beacon 46 locally via the mobile help button 10 may require more complex actions. For example, in one embodiment the subscriber must press the call button 12 twice in rapid succession (or three times in rapid succession) in order to activate the audio beacon 46. A disadvantage of this approach is that if the subscriber is becoming incapacitated, so that the audio beacon 46 should be activated, he or she may be unable to perform such rapid-succession repeated pressing of the call button 12.
In another approach, the audio beacon 46 is activated at some time interval after the first pressing of the call button 12 unless the call button 12 is pressed a second time in order to abort the delayed activation of the audio beacon 46. This approach has the advantage of enabling the audio beacon 46 to be activated by a single press of the call button 12, albeit with some programmed delay, but allows the subscriber to abort activation of the audio beacon 46 before it starts if the subscriber is not incapacitated. The programmed delay is preferably chosen to be long enough to provide the subscriber with time to abort activation of the audio beacon 46 before it alarms, but short enough that the audio beacon 46 will be alarming by the time EMS personnel arrive in the event the subscriber is actually incapacitated. For example, a pre-programmed delay of between ten seconds and two minutes may be suitable in some embodiments, although shorter or longer delays are contemplated. Optionally, the pre-programmed delay may be a configurable parameter of the mobile help button device 10.
It is also contemplated for the audio beacon 46 to be triggered by other events, such as by detection of a fall by a fall detector of the mobile help button device 10. As previously mentioned, it is additionally or alternatively contemplated for the audio beacon 46 to be configured to be remotely triggered by the PRA via the cellular 22.
With reference to
In embodiments that include tracking, if the operation 80 fails to determine the location via the Global Locator Service 44 (e.g. because of a lost cellular connection), or the Global Locator Service being down; or, more generally, if the location is unable to be determined as either the “home” location 66 in response to being in short range wireless contact with the base station 30, or from the location information generated by the information gathering operation 70), then in response to such failure 90 the location is determined (or estimated) from the breadcrumbing in an operation 92 (e.g. as the last breadcrumbed location, or based on a trajectory estimated from two or more last breadcrumbed locations). This location is then the location output in the operation 84 (optionally output with a warning that the location may not be current).
The invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments. Modifications and alterations may occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding detailed description. It is intended that the invention be construed as including all such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62055351 | Sep 2014 | US | |
62055329 | Sep 2014 | US | |
62055308 | Sep 2014 | US | |
62055279 | Sep 2014 | US |