WO2009094223A2 - Badge nominatif pour suivi et localisation en sauvetage - Google Patents

Badge nominatif pour suivi et localisation en sauvetage Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2009094223A2
WO2009094223A2 PCT/US2009/000508 US2009000508W WO2009094223A2 WO 2009094223 A2 WO2009094223 A2 WO 2009094223A2 US 2009000508 W US2009000508 W US 2009000508W WO 2009094223 A2 WO2009094223 A2 WO 2009094223A2
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
badge
information
identification
register
transaction
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Ceased
Application number
PCT/US2009/000508
Other languages
English (en)
Other versions
WO2009094223A3 (fr
Inventor
Kenneth Stephen Bailey
Paul S. Mula, Jr.
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Individual
Original Assignee
Individual
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Publication of WO2009094223A2 publication Critical patent/WO2009094223A2/fr
Publication of WO2009094223A3 publication Critical patent/WO2009094223A3/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Ceased legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/08—Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
    • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
    • G06K19/06—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings characterised by the kind of the digital marking, e.g. shape, nature, code
    • G06K19/067—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components
    • G06K19/07—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips
    • G06K19/0701—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips at least one of the integrated circuit chips comprising an arrangement for power management
    • G06K19/0702—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips at least one of the integrated circuit chips comprising an arrangement for power management the arrangement including a battery
    • G06K19/0705—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips at least one of the integrated circuit chips comprising an arrangement for power management the arrangement including a battery the battery being connected to a power saving arrangement
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Definitions

  • a system is described that enables employers to identify employees wirelessly from battery powered name badges. The personnel are detected and identified as they come into close proximity to the base station or host located underneath or near the business' s cash register.
  • Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the system
  • figure 2 shows an excitation antenna and its associated circuitry
  • figure 3 shows a block diagram of the associated circuitry
  • figure 4 shows a block diagram of the end to end system
  • figure 5 shows an embodiment of using this system to find persons in an emergency
  • figure 6 shows a system flowchart.
  • an employee approaches the cash register wearing a badge of the type disclosed in an embodiment.
  • the badge transmits signals, such that when the employee gets to within two feet (or some other short distance representing a proximity) of the cash register, the employee's badge sends out a signal via a miniature transmitter located within the badge.
  • the signal is received by a small receiver attached to a printed circuit board located in a resting pad beneath or near to the cash register.
  • each transaction as rung up is time and date stamped, and forwarded to a server computer in a central office, e.g.., the manager's office, via a wireless connection, such as Wifi or ZigBee.
  • the received information is stored in the server computer's database. This information represents an amount of the transaction (e.g.., how much cash was rung up) and the person doing the transaction.
  • the present inventor recognizes that this is an unexpectedly simple solution to the employee theft problem.
  • the present system can track employees, and also can track both cash and inventory in a same way. Everything can be tracked from the time it arrives at the store, until it leaves the store, either sold or otherwise accounted for.
  • the present inventors realized that at least one source of the employee theft problem is that there is no adequate way of accounting for who does certain selling functions in a store. By monitoring wirelessly persons' positions at times of transactions, this problem is addressed.
  • the name badge has a battery (alkaline or rechargeable), a memory chip, a microprocessor chip, a proximity activation coil, a low power RF transmitter, an LED., a power supply and an antenna.
  • the badge communicates with an electronics board, e.g. a PC board as part of a computer, located either under the cash register, housed within a rubber resting pad, or nearby the cash register.
  • an electronics board e.g. a PC board as part of a computer, located either under the cash register, housed within a rubber resting pad, or nearby the cash register.
  • the antenna coil at the cash register acts as an exciter and causes the exciter coil located within the employee's name badge to become excited. This wakes up the microprocessor within the badge from an idle or sleep state in which the battery consumption is minimized.
  • the wake up causes the MPU to send a signal via the miniature transmitter located within the employee badge.
  • the transmitted data is received at the PC board and transmitted to the remote server within the facility via wireless protocol, e.g., BlueTooth or Zig-Bee.
  • the signal indicating who is close to the cash register, and hence is presumably operating the cash register is also time coded using the PC board internal time clock (RTC). All of this is sent to the remote server via wireless link as well.
  • the wireless cash register sends a message to the remote server, either wirelessly or via Ethernet cable, to indicate how much cash was entered on the cash register.
  • Figure 1 depicts the employee's name badge with internal components.
  • the badge has a plastic housing, a battery, a power supply, an excitation coil, a microprocessor unit, a memory storage device for storing the employee's unique identification, a low powered transmitter, coupled to an antenna.
  • the badge 100 includes a number of fields thereon both written and electronically accessible. These fields may include company name 102, the employee name 104, and employee title 106.
  • the name badge may include an internal battery 108, and an indicator 110 such as an LED.
  • the internals of the system are shown, including a 900 MHz antenna 112, preferably located on a flat surface of the badge, preferably extending around, for example, a perimeter of at least a portion of the badge.
  • the antenna is driven by the electronics that are located within the badge. These electronics are preferably flatpack housed devices.
  • the battery 108 for example, may drive a power supply 120 which may be a DC to DC converter, or may simply be a power junction area that connects to multiple different units.
  • the power supply 120 drives a processor 130, and memory chip 132. It also drives a transmitter 134 which is substantially matched to the antenna 112. In operation, the processor and memory operate as described further herein.
  • An excitation coil 140 is provided, and has an output 142 which is sampled by the processor.
  • the processor 130 causes all of the electronics to operate in a sleep mode except during a time when and immediately after, the excitation coil 140 is sensing an excitation.
  • sleep mode all of the electronic devices are turned off, including the LED 110. This may use conventional sleep mode electronics to determine operation.
  • an employee wearing the name badge normally has this LED in the off position. However, when the employee comes within range of an exciter and appropriately turned on, the LED is correspondingly turned on.
  • Figure 2 depicts the internal components of the "Resting Pad” as described more fully herein above.
  • the PC board is comprised of a two foot diameter or similar, excitation antenna, two LEDs, indicating if the system detects the presence of the employee badge, and the rubber enclosure which contains and protects the PC board and other components of the resting pad portion of the system.
  • the exciter shown in figure 2 has 200 represents the rubber resting pad, which may be associated with for example, a cash register or other device that accepts transactions.
  • a large size excitation antenna 210 is provided. This excitation antenna for example, can be 2 feet in diameter, to produce sufficient amount of signal to be received by the much smaller excitation coil 140.
  • the rubber resting pad is itself connected to a source of AC power shown generally as 215.
  • a PC board 220 carries out certain circuit operations as described herein.
  • the excitation antenna may include two different LEDs, and inactive LED 225 which indicates that the system is inactive, and an active LED 230 which indicates that a system is active.
  • Figure 3 depicts the PC board located beneath or near to the cash register that the employee uses to ring up transactions.
  • the PC board has a miniature transceiver, an antenna, a wireless transceiver (such as Blue-Tooth or Zig-Bee), a power supply, a microprocessor (MPU), a Real Time Clock (RTC), a memory storage device, an active/inactive signaling circuit, and a rubber enclosure resting pad for the cash register.
  • MPU microprocessor
  • RTC Real Time Clock
  • Outputs 301 of the PC board 220 goes to the antenna excitation coil, while an output 302 can connect to the LEDs.
  • the system includes a power supply 310 which drives all of the different modules including the microprocessor 320, a real time clock 325, memory 330, transmitter receiver 335, and a network device 340 which may be a ZigBee network.
  • the active/inactive signal module 345 may be a dedicated device that determines whether a name badge is within range, or may be implemented as part of the microprocessor 320.
  • the excitation coil can be a tubular coil or can be a flat coil, limited only by the packaging of the ID device. In some embodiments, it may be extremely advantageous to use flat components.
  • Figure 4 depicts the entire end to end system, including the employee ID badge, the electronic cash register, the resting pad, the low power transceiver communicating with the employee ID badge, the ZigBee or BlueTooth transceiver unit, and the system remote server computer.
  • Figure 4 illustrates how the ID badge 100 can produce a wireless signal shown as 400, directed to the "resting pad" 200, that associates a person's proximity with real-time information.
  • the circuitry in the resting pad 200 is sends information by the wireless communication, e.g. Zig Bee, to the receiver 410.
  • This is connected to the system server 420, and records information about the transactions and for the person's proximity and the real time information.
  • the system server may also associate this with other similar information.
  • Figure 5 depicts the rescue and track embodiment of the employee ID (name) badge.
  • the system contains a detector, using a metal detector type device, housing the P/C board as described in Figure 3 above, wherein the P/C board has been made in such a manner that it becomes mobile and battery powered, in order to locate a victim of a plane crash, earthquake or other disaster that might be buried under some type of debris.
  • the ID badge is a wallet sized device, kept with the person at all times.
  • a large antenna 500 is used to excite the corresponding antenna in the lost person.
  • the outputs from the receiver are sent to a signal strength meter 520 which can be used, for example, to detect the location or proximity of persons who are difficult to find, such as earthquake victims or crash victims.
  • the signals can be handled and processed in a PC board 525 which may operate in a similar way to that discussed above with respect to figure 3 [ 0033 ]
  • Figure 6 illustrates an end to end flowchart.
  • the system starts out in sleep mode 600. At 605, a person wearing the badge approaches the large antenna.
  • the 610 determines if the badge is within range, ' and if so, at 615, the excitation coil 140 within the badge is energized. [0034 ] At 620 this causes the badge to send its identification to the receiver 335 within the host.
  • the host's electronic processor at 625 receives and stores the ID, and at 630 sends that ID along with data from the real time clock 325 to the host server platform.
  • that server platform timestamps the data and stores it into a master database file.
  • 640 logs the cash register entry using the real-time clock and associates it with the information from the badge.
  • Another embodiment can hence be used to save lives in a disaster. Also, other similar structure can be used to determine location. [ 0036] While the above has described very specific forms of structure and networks that can be used, other network protocols, including but not limited to Bluetooth and others can be similarly and analogously used. In addition, other applications for this system are possible and are contemplated by the present application.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Economics (AREA)
  • Human Resources & Organizations (AREA)
  • Entrepreneurship & Innovation (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Strategic Management (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Operations Research (AREA)
  • Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
  • Marketing (AREA)
  • Microelectronics & Electronic Packaging (AREA)
  • Quality & Reliability (AREA)
  • Development Economics (AREA)
  • Tourism & Hospitality (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Educational Administration (AREA)
  • Game Theory and Decision Science (AREA)
  • Alarm Systems (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention porte sur un badge nominatif qui possède des capacités sans fil. Le badge nominatif est normalement conservé dans des états à puissance réduite, mais détecte un signal d'excitation provenant d'une antenne à distance et s'allume pour fournir des informations d'identifiant. Les informations d'identifiant peuvent être associées à la transaction à partir de l'ordinateur à distance, et utilisées pour déterminer qui a déclenché cette transaction.
PCT/US2009/000508 2008-01-24 2009-01-26 Badge nominatif pour suivi et localisation en sauvetage Ceased WO2009094223A2 (fr)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US2332308P 2008-01-24 2008-01-24
US61/023,323 2008-01-24
US59442809A 2009-01-26 2009-01-26
US12/594,428 2009-01-26

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2009094223A2 true WO2009094223A2 (fr) 2009-07-30
WO2009094223A3 WO2009094223A3 (fr) 2009-12-30

Family

ID=40901589

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2009/000508 Ceased WO2009094223A2 (fr) 2008-01-24 2009-01-26 Badge nominatif pour suivi et localisation en sauvetage

Country Status (1)

Country Link
WO (1) WO2009094223A2 (fr)

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US12481957B2 (en) 2023-08-17 2025-11-25 Paul Salvatore Mula Barmaster item inventory system

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6476708B1 (en) * 1998-03-20 2002-11-05 Hid Corporation Detection of an RFID device by an RF reader unit operating in a reduced power state
US20030034877A1 (en) * 2001-08-14 2003-02-20 Miller Brett E. Proximity detection for access control
US7373109B2 (en) * 2003-11-04 2008-05-13 Nokia Corporation System and method for registering attendance of entities associated with content creation
US20060163349A1 (en) * 2004-09-30 2006-07-27 W5 Networks, Inc. Wireless systems suitable for retail automation and promotion
US20060193262A1 (en) * 2005-02-25 2006-08-31 Mcsheffrey Brendan T Collecting and managing data at a construction site

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US12481957B2 (en) 2023-08-17 2025-11-25 Paul Salvatore Mula Barmaster item inventory system

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
WO2009094223A3 (fr) 2009-12-30

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