Emergency monitoring of tagged objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9536407-B2
Application number	US-201414585893-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 30, 2014
Priority date	Dec 30, 2014
Publication date	Jan 3, 2017
Grant date	Jan 3, 2017

Abstract

There are provided systems and methods for remote monitoring of tagged physical objects in an emergency. A user may set up a series of beacons at a facility of the user, such as an office or hospital. The beacons may connect to tag devices as the devices enter a coverage area for the wireless beacons or upon request by a service provider server in an emergency situation. The beacons communicate distance information regarding the tag devices and associated physical objects to a service provider server. The service provider server may determine the location of a physical object and provides the location to the user or to emergency personnel. In an emergency, the service provider server may provide a notification to a specific subset of users, in which the notification includes the location of a physical object of interest to the subset of users because of the emergency condition.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a non-transitory memory storing location information for a tag device; and
one or more hardware processors configured to execute instructions to cause the system to perform operations comprising:
determining an emergency condition;
in response to determining the emergency condition, directing at least one beacon to initiate communication with a tag device associated with a physical object;
determining a location of the physical object based at least on a distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the at least one beacon;
transmitting data comprising the determined location of the physical object to a user device;
after an interval of time, determining a current distance between the physical object and the at least one beacon to determine a current location of the physical object;
comparing the current location of the physical object with the determined location of the physical object; and
when a location change greater than a threshold is found by the comparison, transmitting an alert to the user device.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the tag device and the at least one beacon connect using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the tag device comprises one of a BLE communication module, and LTE Direct communication module, and a radiofrequency identification (RFID) communication module.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the physical object comprises a file cabinet, a computer, a safe, a first aid kit, a defibrillator, or a user device associated with a person.

5. The system of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:
determining relative locations of a plurality of beacons including the at least one beacon;
accessing a set of previously determined relative locations of the beacons;
determining a change in the relative locations of the beacons; and
compensating for the change in relative locations when determining the location of the physical object.

6. The system of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:
receiving a location fixation signal originating from outside a facility containing the at least one beacon; and
registering locations of a plurality of beacons comprising the at least one beacon according to the location fixation signal.

7. The system of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:
determining a subset of users based on the emergency condition; and
transmitting a notification to each user of the subset of users.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the notification comprises the location of the physical object, the physical object being determined of interest to each user of the subset of users due to the emergency condition.

9. A method for locating one or more physical objects in an emergency condition, the method comprising:
determining an emergency condition;
in response to the determining of the emergency condition, directing at least one beacon to initiate communication with a tag device associated with a physical object;
determining a location of the physical object based at least on a distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the at least one beacon;
transmitting data comprising the determined location to a user device;
accessing a pre-notification location of the physical object;
comparing the pre-notification location of the physical object with the determined location of the physical object; and
when a location change greater than a threshold is found by the comparison, transmitting an alert to the user device.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
providing a facility layout to the user device; and
overlaying an indicator of the physical object onto the facility layout by registering the determined location to the facility layout.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the tag device connects to the at least one beacon using one of near field communication, radio communication, infrared communication, Bluetooth communication, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining a subset of users based on the emergency condition; and
transmitting a notification to each user of the subset of users, wherein the notification comprises the location of the physical object, the physical object being determined of interest to each user of the subset of users due to the emergency condition.

13. A method for locating one or more physical objects in an emergency condition, the method comprising:
determining an emergency condition;
in response to the determining of the emergency condition, directing at least one beacon to initiate communication with a tag device associated with a physical object;
determining a location of the physical object based at least on a distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the at least one beacon;
transmitting data comprising the determined location to a user device;
after an interval of time, determining a current distance between the physical object and the at least one beacon to determine a current location of the physical object;
comparing the current location of the physical object with the determined location of the physical object; and
when a location change greater than a threshold is found by the comparison, transmitting an alert to the user device.

14. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
after an interval of time, initiating a communication request for the at least one beacon to communicate with the tag device associated with the physical object; and
when a response is not received by the at least one beacon, transmitting a second alert to the user device.

15. A method for locating one or more physical objects in an emergency condition, the method comprising:
determining an emergency condition;
in response to the determining of the emergency condition, directing at least one beacon to initiate communication with a tag device associated with a physical object;
determining a location of the physical object based at least on a distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the at least one beacon;
transmitting data comprising the determined location to a user device;
determining relative locations of a plurality of beacons including the at least one beacon;
accessing a set of previously determined relative locations of the beacons;
determining a change in the relative locations of at least one of the beacons; and
compensating for the change in relative locations when gauging the distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the beacons to determine the location of the physical object.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon machine-readable instructions executable to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:
determining an emergency condition;
in response to the determining of the emergency condition, directing at least one beacon to initiate communication with a tag device associated with a physical object;
determining a location of the physical object based at least on a distance between the tag device associated with the physical object and the at least one beacon;
transmitting data comprising the determined location to a user device;
accessing a pre-notification location of the physical object;
comparing the pre-notification location of the physical object with the determined location of the physical object; and
when a location change greater than a threshold is found by the comparison, transmitting an alert to the user device

Assignees

• Paypal Inc

Inventors

• Todasco Michael Charles
• Crossett Autumn Paige
• Fussell James

Classifications

• H04W4/33

  for indoor environments, e.g. buildings · CPC title

• H04W4/029

  Location-based management or tracking services · CPC title

• G08B21/02 Primary

  Alarms for ensuring the safety of persons · CPC title

• G08B21/10

  responsive to calamitous events, e.g. tornados or earthquakes · CPC title

• G08B25/08

  using communication transmission lines {(G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence)} · CPC title