Pet locator
OwnerJennifer Durst, Eugene F. Fowler +1inventors
InventorsJennifer Durst, Eugene F. Fowler, Joseph C. McAlexander
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Abstract
There is disclosed an object locator system (10) for requesting and obtaining information about the location of an individual animal or moveable object, having a lightweight, attached object locator (42), that is present in a region served by a two-way paging system (12) and a global positioning satellite system (50). The object locator (42) may be selectively activated to conserve power or enabled to respond only when beyond or within a boundary. Further, the object locator system (10) may provide the location information in several forms including rectangular or polar coordinates referred to a base station (18) or origin, position on a map display, etc.
Claims20
A method for locating or tracking an animal having attached thereto an object locator operable to communicate via a two-way paging system with a base station, comprising the steps of:
- securing a collar, having the object locator and a GPS antenna coupled thereto integrated with the collar, to the body of the animal;
- transmitting a request for location information from the base station over the paging system to a paging receiver integrated with the object locator;
- enabling a GPS receiver in the object locator to acquire location coordinates for a position of the animal from a GPS system and store the location coordinates in a memory in the object locator;
- disabling the GPS receiver after acquisition of the location coordinates;
- loading the location coordinates stored in the memory into a paging transmitter integrated with the object locator and transmitting the location coordinates via the paging system to the base station;
- and
- outputting the location of the animal in human readable form at the base station.
Apparatus for locating or tracking an animal having attached to the body thereof an object locator operable to communicate via a two-way paging system with a base station, comprising:
- means for securing a collar, having said object locator and a GPS antenna coupled thereto integrated with said collar, to said body of said animal;
- means for transmitting a request for location information from said base station over said paging system to a paging receiver integrated with said object locator;
- means for enabling a GPS receiver in said object locator to acquire location coordinates for a position of said animal from a GPS system and store said location coordinates in a memory in said object locator;
- means for disabling said GPS receiver after acquisition of said location coordinates;
- means for loading said location coordinates stored in said memory into a paging transmitter integrated with said object locator and transmitting said location coordinates via said paging system to said base station;
- and
- means for outputting said location of said animal in human readable form at said base station.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.