FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to a device for locating person (mostly kids) in case of emergencies such as lost, missing, kidnapped, abducted and/or all crimes.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The Problem
Over 2000 kids are reported missing everyday. That is the worst thing any parents can experience. Crimes against kids are big problem all over the world. Although modern cellular phones are popular, for kids, it is expensive to own, difficult to use and not effective in case of emergency. (The perpetrator could easily spot the kid's phone and turn it off or simply destroy it.) There are products such as GPS personal locator watch (http://www.gpschildlocatorwatch.com/) for kids, again, these devices are very easily spotted and destroyed by perpetrators and won't be useful in case of real situations. Not just for kids, on the other hand, of course, adults could also get themselves into troubles too.
The Solution
The present invention will directly provide a solution with an electronic Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) device which is disguised as kid's toys such as a popular handheld game cartridge or built inside the popular handheld game itself, activated by insert the cartridge into the game, automatically dial 911 or other pre-programmed phone numbers by recognizing the preprogrammed keystrokes, “keywords” or voice command. This process will summon helps from parents or the law-enforcement agencies. In case, the person is not capable of activating the ELT device, the parents or law-enforcement agencies could activate the ELT device remotely via the cellular phone networks to locate the troubled person.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Handheld LCD video games; such as Gameboy™ are very popular toys for kids. (Over 21 million have been sold in US) The present invention contains a cellular phone radio, GPS and/or voice recognition device inside the “Gameboy” to locate the person in case of emergency. This device is either retrofitted inside the handheld game or camouflaged as a game cartridge. In case of emergency, the person simply plugs the ELT cartridge into the handheld game, turn it on, talk to the handheld game with preprogrammed “emergency keywords” or press the buttons at certain sequence. The device than recognize a self programmed keyword and dial the emergency 911 to notify parents or police for help. The parents or police than monitoring the GPS information (if available) and/or triangulate the cellular signal based on the cellular tower location to locate the person.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 Shows the circuit block diagram of the emergency locator transmitter (ELT) device and the game device
FIG. 2 Shows the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) is assembled inside the game cartridge and about to plug into the game device.
FIG. 3 Shows the method of triangulation for locating the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) device by using the GPS satellites.
FIG. 4 Shows the method of triangulation for locating the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) device by using the cellular base-station sites.
REFERENCE NUMERALS IN DRAWINGS
101 Handheld LCD Video Game device
102 Circuit for controlling and activating the GPS and the Cellular radio Transceiver
103 Game device logic interface circuit
104 Power supply circuitry for ELT cartridge
105 GPS receiver
106 Encoder, encode GPS longitude/latitude information to cellular radio transceiver
107 Cellular Radio Transceiver
108 Antenna for GPS receiver
109 Antenna for Cellular Radio Transceiver
110 Microphone device for voice recognition and monitoring the surrounding sound of the game device
201 ELT device disguised inside the game cartridge
301 GPS satellite #1
302 GPS satellite #2
303 GPS satellite #3
401 Cellular base-station #1
402 Cellular base-station #2
403 Cellular base-station #3
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The present invention consists of cellular/radio phone, GPS and/or voice recognition components working as an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) for kids/persons in case of emergency. This device is either packaged inside the popular handheld LCD video game or as a handheld LCD Video game cartridge that insert into the handheld game.
A. The Emergency Locator Transmitter device FIG. 1 of 4 (201) comprising of:
- 1. GPS receiver module (105) is receiving its position coordinate information from its GPS antenna (108) via 24 satellites in space orbit.
- 2. The Encoder (106) is capable of encoding and translating the position coordinate information into signals such as:
- i. Digital modulation, send out data bits for the cellular transceiver,
- ii. Analog modulation, such as audio, synthesized voice form, or
- iii. Morse code form of tone signals, for the cellular transceiver (107) to send out to the receiving end.
- 3. The cellular transceiver module (107) contains cellular phone equivalent circuitry that receives and transmits to the cellular base-stations to communicate voice or data. Cellular transceiver uses antenna (109) for receiving and transmitting information between cellular transceiver and the base-station.
- 4. Control & Activation circuitry (102) is activated whenever there is a situation when the owner of this ELT device needs assistance. Typically, GPS (105) and cellular transceiver (107) are activated:
- i. By key stroke sequence to the game device,
- ii. Recognition of the voice from microphone (110), or
- iii. Remotely, via the cellular phone network through cellular transceiver (107) module.
- 5. Game device logic interface (103) circuitry that provides signal buffers, amplifiers and the edge-card connector that physically plugs into the game device (101)
- 6. Power supply circuitry (104) contains circuitries that:
- i. Regulating the voltages and currents supply to the ELT (201)
- ii. Battery backup incase of battery low.
B. Activating in case of emergency FIG. 2 of 4
- 1. In case of emergency, for the ELT game device users with built-in ELT (201 inside 201), he or she simply locates the game device; turn the power on then activate the ELT via keystroke sequences and/or voice commands via built-in microphone. (110)
- 2. In case of emergency, for the ELT game device users with a stand-alone separated ELT cartridge (201), he or she simply locates the game device, plug the ELT cartridge (201) into the game device; Turn the power on, activate the ELT via keystroke sequences and/or voice commands via microphone (110).
- 3. In case of emergency, and simply plug the ELT (201) cartridge into the game device (101). The ELT device can be remotely activated via the cellular or radio network by parents, operator or police.
- 4. In case of emergency, the ELT cartridge (201) can be a stand alone unit, got built-in battery, always on and in low-power mode, can monitoring and responding to cellular phone remote control command and activate the GPS to report the location of the ELT.
- 5. Please note: the microphone FIG. 1 of 4 (110) can be used as a monitoring device to listen to the situation in the development.
C. Locating the person and the device
- 1. Via satellites, FIG. 3 of 4, the game device (101) with ELT (201) built-in or plug-in can receive GPS satellites 301, 302 and/or 303 and determine the longitude or latitude of the troubled person by triangulating these 3 satellites. Typical GPS receiver (105) requires line-of-sight visibilities to the satellites to receive the satellites signal. The GPS satellite receiver (105) is a receiving only device.
- 2. Via cellular phone network, FIG. 4 of 4, the game device (101) with ELT (201) built-in or plug-in can receive cellular phone signals via multiple cellular phone base-station sites (401, 402, 403) to determine the distance from the cellular phone sites to locate the ELT (201) device. Typically land-based transceivers require at least 2 cellular sites to “pin-point” the ELT device.
Thus the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents, rather than by the examples given.
Patent Application
20050258958
