Foldable cart with tracking arrangement
AssigneeFTR Systems, Inc
InventorsJian Zhang, Chunghsin Lee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A foldable cart assembly having a user tracking arrangement so as to follow movement of the user during motion over a field. The cart assembly has a plurality of ultrasound and RF sensors in communication with corresponding sensors in a remote handset transmission device carried by the user. The sensors provide timing, direction and distance information to a central processor on the cart for instructing individual electrical motors empowering the respective direction and speed of rotation of the cart's wheels.
Claims18
A wirelessly controllable, electrically driven, foldable four wheeled, multi-portioned frame arrangement, articulable into and from a load carryable cart assembly system, the cart assembly system carryable by a human when the cart assembly is in a folded configuration the cart assembly comprising:
- an elongated lower base frame arrangement having a freewheeling pair of wheels on a first half-end thereof, and a pair of individually empowered individually computer controlled forward and reversibly rotable drive wheels on a second half-end thereof;
- a plurality of pivotable frame portions consisting of a “U” shaped upper handle and a pair of parallel mid-frame members extending upwardly from a pair of upwardly extending curved side bar members comprising the second half end, and wherein the first half end and the second half end of the lower base frame arrangement is foldable about a generally centrally located collapse pivot arrangement therebetween, and wherein the plurality of pivotable frame portions are pivotally connected to and foldable about one another and are hingedly attached to a transversely arranged, carry-handle-pivot-axis immovably arranged between the upper ends of the pair of curved side bar members which extend immovably upwardly from the second half end of the lower base frame arrangement, to permit the cart assembly to be folded into a compact hand-carryable configuration, carryable by the intermediately located transversely -disposed immovable carry-handle pivot axis;
- and
- wherein the cart assembly system includes a wireless user-tracking arrangement thereon, and wherein the wireless user-tracking arrangement has a sensor on an end of each of a pair of “L” shaped brackets, each attached to one of the parallel mid frame members, and which sensors send and receive signals so as to electronically instruct an onboard central processing unit computer to individually control the individually empowered drive wheels as to both a common or an opposite rotational direction and rotational speed from one another, to permit the cart assembly to track, sharply turn, and otherwise promptly follow movement or instructions of a system's user.
A process for controlling the track, speed and direction of a collapsably foldable, central processor unit controlled, electronically motorized, individual drive wheeled, cart assembly system for use by a cart assembly user in a field of play, comprising:
- arranging a pair of spaced-apart wireless ultrasound transponders on a frame portion of the cart assembly;
- providing a carryable wireless location ultrasound transceiver device to a user of the cart assembly;
- sending a pair of corresponding ultrasound signals from the ultrasound transponders on the cart assembly to and receiving returned back ultrasound signals from the location transceiver device carried by a user;
- timing the pair of received ultrasound signals received back to the cart assembly by an onboard RF transponder;
- communicating the signals received by the ultrasound transponder and the RF transponder to the central processing unit computer;
- triangulating the signals so as to govern the electronic instructions to the individual drive wheels as to both their individual direction of rotation and their individual speed of rotation for the cart assembly to follow the user's instructions carrying the transponder device;
- and
- operating the carryable device as a remote control to instruct the cart assembly to autonomously advance to a user-desired destination position.
A pivot-axis-grabable, hand-carryable, collapsible wheeled load carryable autonomously mobile cart assembly system comprising:
- an articulable lower frame foldable onto itself about a mid-lower frame-located collapse-pivot-arrangement, the lower frame having two independently empowered drive wheels at a rear end thereof;
- an articulable upper frame connected to the rear end of the lower frame the articulable upper frame consisting of a air of curved side bar members fixedly connected to a rear axis at a lower rear end thereof, and to one another at an upper end thereof b a transversely -disposed immovable, cart-assembly-carry-handle pivot-axis onto which carry-handle-pivot-axis, a pair of articulable mid-frame members are hingedly attached, which mid-frame members pivotally support a “U” shaped upper handle, and from which pair of mid-frame members, a first and a second sensor transponder arrangement are also respectively supported;
- and
- a central processing unit on the cart assembly to instruct the empowered drive wheels as to individual rotational requirements as to each individual first and second drive wheel's speed of rotation and each individual first and second drive wheel's common direction of rotation or each individual first or second drive wheel's sharp-U-turn-inducing opposite direction of rotation from its adjacent second or first drive wheel's direction of rotation upon receipt of the central processing unit receiving time, direction and distance information from the first and second sensor transponder arrangement.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.