Personal hazard detection system with redundant position registration and communication

• US 10,460,592 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2018
• Issued: 10/29/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: USM Holdings Limited (Coats Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Universal Site Monitoring Pty., Ltd.
• Inventors: Thurlow, Andrew Charles, Tastula, Emil William, Earl, Timothy Clinton
• Primary Examiner(s): Syed, Nabil H
• Application Number:
  US16/164,930
• Publication Number:
  US 20190051141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 375 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0461 integrated or attached to an item closely associated with the person but not worn by the person, e.g. chair, walking stick, bed sensor
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/12 responsive to undesired emission of substances, e.g. pollution alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/182 Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/009 Signalling of the alarm condition to a substation whose identity is signalled to a central station, e.g. relaying alarm signals in order to extend communication range
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]

Abstract

A system for monitoring the safety of personnel on a work site, by providing workers on the site with portable battery powered safety monitors equipped with alarms, sensors to detect hazardous conditions, at least two forms of geo-location and two forms of voice and data telecommunication and two CPU'"'"'s sharing the computation load, each CPU equipped to monitor and reset the other in case of failure to function, with each monitor capable of serving as a node in a mesh network and relaying information concerning alarms detected including location thereof to other monitors on the mesh network.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring the safety of personnel on an enterprise site, comprising:

(a) a central monitoring server providing wireless connectivity via at least one wireless local area network point;

(b) a plurality of portable, position-aware, personal safety monitors;

each monitor including;

(i) a programmable microprocessor module, including;

a.) a data input and output bus,

b.) data storage,

c.) program instruction storage,

d.) an alarm module,

e.) a communications module,

f.) a geo-location module, and

g.) a networking module capable of communicating as a node in a wireless mesh network;

(ii) a radio frequency transceiver coupled to said programmable microprocessor module;

(iii) an antenna operatively connected to said radio frequency transceiver;

(iv) a user interface module capable of providing sensibly perceptible signals from said microprocessor to the user, as well as inputting signals from the user to the microprocessor; and

(v) an array of sensors operatively connected to the data input bus of said programmable microprocessor module, said sensors, including at least sensors for measurement of at least one environmental hazard and at least one bodily function indicator of its user;

said communications module including mobile telephony connectivity (analog &

digital) operatively connected to said radio frequency transceiver, said communications module comprising a data packet formatting, caching and forwarding system, said communications module being capable of wireless communication with at least;

a.) a mesh network of functionally similar monitor or access points;

b.) a mobile telephony network; and

c.) the central monitoring server, whether;

(1) directly through the device'"'"'s own communications module;

(2) via at least one of any of the other functionally similar monitors having available connectivity to the central monitoring server;

or

(3) through a wireless local network access point;

said geo-location module being capable of storing data concerning previous positions of said monitor and applied certainty factors therefor, said geo-location module including GPS connectivity, an accelerometer and an RSSI module and being capable of substantially continuously estimating the position of the device;

directly via said GPS connectivity as well as via the device'"'"'s own mobile telephony providing assisted GPS capability,

derived from one of;

the received signal strength indicated of other functionally similar monitors with known positions in mesh network connected communication therewith;

measurement of signal transit time to and from adjacent monitors in communication therewith;

measurement of time difference of arrival or frequency difference on arrival of signals from;

monitors with known locations;

wireless local area network access points with known location; and

known motion of the monitor as determined by the accelerometer; and

derived from interacting with at least two groups of interacting pairs of mesh network connected devices with known positions;

when a local alarm condition is indicated at one of said monitors, said alarm module of said one of said monitors being capable of;

alerting the user directly through the user interface via a sensibly perceptible signal of a local alarm condition detected by its sensors;

reiteratively refining its estimated position on a substantially continuous basis; and

automatically and reiteratively so long as a hazard is detected, transmitting at least one formatted data packet containing at least the alarm condition, geo-location and sensor data to;

other monitors connected to said mesh network and initiating interaction between the alarmed monitor and at least one other monitor connected to said mesh network; and

a central monitoring server on the safety network via the communications module;

said alarm module of said one monitor, when a remote alarm condition is reported by another monitor connected to said mesh network, being capable of;

alerting the user directly through the user interface of said one monitor via a sensibly perceptible signal of the remote alarm condition reported by said other monitor connected to said mesh network;

responding to said other monitor'"'"'s alarm condition by activating its user interface to indicate;

data relating to an estimated position of said other alarmed monitor; and

sensor data communicated by said other alarmed monitor; and

acknowledging receipt of the alarm condition transmission;

automatically and reiteratively communicating with additional mesh network connected monitors on said mesh network and a central monitoring server on the internet; and

calculating a ranked priority, based at least in part on distance from said other alarmed monitor'"'"'s position to each additional remote monitor'"'"'s position, said ranked priority capable of being communicated to the additional mesh network connected monitors until a predetermined number of the additional mesh network connected monitors have responded to the alarm condition, indicating that they will be responding.

2. The system according to claim 1, comprising a plurality of intrinsic safety barriers.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein each portable, position aware, personal safety monitor has at least one intrinsic safety barrier.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein each portable, position aware, personal safety monitor has two intrinsic safety barriers.