Room-level-sound-event sensor-initiated real-time location system (rtls)
AssigneeCenTrak, Inc.
InventorsJohn A. Swart, Mark J. Rheault
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A room-level sound-event sensor is used to initiate the location process whenever it is likely that a person has entered or left the room. A room-level sound-event sensor is defined as an electronic sensing device that can determine whether a sound event occurs in one room, independently of what is happening in any adjacent room. In one embodiment of the invention, a room-level sound-event sensor may be a microphone. The sensed room-level sound event is the transition from a room being silent to a room being occupied by people speaking.
Claims13
A real-time location system (RTLS) having tags, room-level sound-event sensors, bridges, and a location server for providing people and asset-tag locating, comprising:
- a central server;
- at least one tag which transmits a report of its motion status as sensed by its accelerometer;
- at least one room-level sound-event sensor, which transmits a report of sound events that occur in a room to a location engine;
- at least one bridge for receiving reports from at least one tag and measuring at least one characteristic of the received transmissions, the characteristic including received signal strength characteristic or an Ultrawideband (UWB) characteristic, and forwarding those reports to the central server, that receives transmissions of reports from the at least one room-level sound-event sensor, which report sound events that occur in a room;
- and
- a location engine which initiates a process to estimate the room-level location of the at least one tag, whenever it receives a sound-event report from a room-level sound-event sensor.
A real-time location system (RTLS) having tags, room-level sound-event sensors, bridges, and a location server for providing people and asset-tag locating, comprising:
- at least one room-level sound-event sensor, which wirelessly transmits a report of its sensation of sound events that occur in a room;
- at least one tag for listening for radio transmissions from the at least one room-level sound-event sensor and measuring multiple characteristics of those received transmissions, including received signal strength and the report of sound events in the room-level sound-event sensor's room, where accelerometer-sensed-motion status of the tag is compared to sound events received in the room-level sound-event sensors' transmissions, and location-estimate messages are transmitted to the at least one bridge;
- at least one bridge for receiving reports from at least one tag and forwarding those location-update messages to a central server, which also receives reports from the at least one room-level sound-event sensor, and forwards those reports to a central server;
- and
- a location engine which initiates a process to estimate the room-level location of the at least one tag, whenever it receives a sound-event report from a room-level sound-event sensor.
A method of estimating room-location for at least one asset tag used in a real-time location system (RTLS), comprising the steps of:
- receiving an event notification generated by a room-level sound-event sensor, indicating a sound event in its room;
- initiating a location-estimation process for that room;
- and
- estimating which tag or tags may have entered or left the room based on reports of radio-signal characteristics for one or more tags, received from bridges near that room.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.