Method and system for an emergency location information service (E-LIS) for Internet of Things (IoT) devices

• US 10,511,950 B2
• Filed: 04/19/2017
• Issued: 12/17/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Everbridge Incorporated
• Original Assignee: RedSky Technologies, Inc. (Everbridge Incorporated)
• Inventors: Maier, Nicholas M., Eisner, Gerald R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Behnamian, Shahriar
• Application Number:
  US15/491,608
• Publication Number:
  US 20170238129A1
• Time in Patent Office: 972 Days
• Field of Search: 4554042
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72421 with automatic activation of emergency service functions, e.g. upon sensing an alarm
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 for emergency connections

Abstract

A method and system for determining and verifying a location of network devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). The method and system provide a current physical geographic location for such IoT network devices and/or a user of the IoT network device in an emergency situation such as an accident, health, fitness, fire, terrorist attack, military incident, weather, flood event, etc. and forwarding the current physical geographic location to a legacy 911 network, NG-911 network, a Emergency Services IP networks (ESInet) or text-to-911 Short Message Services (SMS) networks to alert emergency responders.

Claims

1. A method for locating an Internet of Things (IoT) network device during an emergency with an emergency information system (E-LIS), comprising:

receiving on a server application on a server network device with one or more processors an emergency message or a text-to-911 message from an IoT network device with one or more processors, one or more sensors or one or more actuators and a network connection interface via a communications network indicating an emergency event has occurred,

the IoT network device comprising an automated network device capable of automatically sensing its own physical environment to automatically detect the emergency event with the one or more sensors or the one or more actuators without operator input,

the one or more sensors or the one or more actuators of the IoT network device automatically detecting an altitude, height, depth, speed, velocity, acceleration, de-acceleration, temperature, moisture, barometric pressure or force-related pressure information from the emergency event,

the emergency message and text-to-911 message including current location information for the IoT network device,

the current location information including an E-Location Object with Presence Information Data Format (PIDF-LO) information and with Emergency Location-By-Reference (LbR) information, wherein the LbR is a reference key that is used by the server application to determine an actual current location of the IoT network device preventing eavesdropping and preventing modification of the current location information of the IoT network device during sending of the emergency message or the text-to-911 message on the communications network;

determining on the server application with the LbR the actual current location of the IoT Network device;

determining from the server application a current set of three-dimensional (3D) (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates for the IoT network device with the actual current location information determined with the LbR extracted from the received text-to-911 message or with the actual current location information determined with the LbR extracted from the received emergency message and with other current location information extracted from the received emergency message including audiovisual location information, Global Positioning System (GPS), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Wi-Fi Aware, Bluetooth, Near Field Communications (NFC), Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM), Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) or cell tower location information collected automatically on the IoT network device while automatically sensing its own physical environment and without operator input;

determining on the server application with the determined current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates a current physical geographic location for the IoT network device;

sending from the server application an emergency response message or a 911-to-text response message including the determined current physical geographic location for the IoT network device via a second communications network to a desired emergency response server with one or more processors; and

displaying in real-time on the server network device or another server network device with one or more processors on a graphical map the determined current physical geographic location for the IoT network device for one or more desired emergency response agencies.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining automatically visually from the IoT network device with an audiovisual component on the IoT network device visual physical geographic information around the IoT network device; and

determining from the IoT network device a current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates or 2D (X,Y) geo-space coordinates with the determined visual physical geographic information.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein a Z geo-space coordinate from the 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates includes elevation, altitude, height, depth, speed, velocity, acceleration, de-acceleration, temperature, moisture, barometric pressure information or other pressure information automatically collected by the one or more sensors or one or more actuators on the IoT device.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining from one or more sensors or actuators on the IoT network device that a physical environment including the IoT network device that one or more pre-determined conditions have been exceeded indicating that an emergency event is likely to occur;

determining from the IoT network device the current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates or current physical geographic location for the IoT network device; and

sending from the IoT network device to a desired emergency response server a pre-cautionary message including the one or more pre-determined conditions that have been exceeded on the IoT network device and the determined current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates or current physical geographic location for the IoT network device indicating that that the one or more pre-determined conditions have been exceeded on the IoT network device.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

displaying in real-time on the server network device or another server network device with one or more processors real-time information from the pre-cautionary message from the IoT network device for one or more desired emergency response agencies indicating that an emergency event is likely to occur.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the pre-determined conditions include threshold levels for medical information and physical environmental information.

7. The method of claim 4 further including determining 2D (X, Y) geo-space coordinates for the IoT network device, wherein the determined 2D (X, Y) geo-space coordinates for the IoT network device are included in the pre-cautionary message.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

displaying in real-time on the server network device or another server network device with one or more processors real-time visual images from the IoT network device for one or more desired emergency response agencies.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the desired emergency response server includes a NG-911 emergency response server, E911 emergency response server or 911 emergency response server, a text-to-911 server, a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) server, an Emergency Services IP networks (ESInet) server or an emergency gateway network server device, each with one or more processors.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the emergency message includes an E911 communication message, a legacy 911 communication message, a NG-911 communication message, a Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) message or a Public safety answering point (PSAP) to AutoMatic Location Identification (ALI) (PAM) interface protocol message.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the current 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates at the current physical location includes current 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates for a location in an urban area, rural area, a location in a parking garage, a location in a vehicle, in a building, a location on a street in an enterprise, campus, village, town, city, state, country or continent or global region.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the emergency message further includes the current 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space of the IoT network device within the emergency message sent to the desired emergency response server.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the emergency event includes a health event, medical event, fitness event, accident event, fire event, terrorist attack event, military event, weather event, flood event or crime event.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the emergency event includes an emergency event automatically detected by an emergency button, an accelerometer, radio frequency identifier (RFID) sensor, a barometric pressure sensor, other pressure sensor, a moisture sensor, an altimeter, air bag deployment sensor, a crash sensor, a depth sensor, an activity sensor, a biometric sensor, a medical sensor, a temperature sensor, an immersion sensor, a biometric sensor, an Emergency Position indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) sensor, a personal locator beacon (PLB) sensor, an emergency locator beacon (ELB) sensor, an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) sensor or one or more actuators, included on, or connected to, the IoT network device.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the determined current physical geographic location comprises:

latitude, longitude, vertical distance, horizontal distance, elevation, altitude, height, depth, speed, velocity, acceleration, de-acceleration, temperature, moisture, street address or barometric pressure information for the IoT network device.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the IoT network device includes:

cars, trucks, boats, ships, locomotives, airplanes, motorcycles, bicycles, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), driverless vehicles, smart phones, tablet computers, wearable mobile network devices, smart clothing, security cameras, doorbells with real-time audiovisual cameras, baby monitors, televisions, set-top boxes, lighting systems, heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) systems, appliances including washers, dryers, robotic vacuums, air purifiers, ovens, refrigerators, freezers, toys, game platform controllers or game platform attachments.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the E-Location Object further includes an Extensible Markup Language (XML) object extension to the Presence Information Data Format (PIDF-LO) information for the IoT network device.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the emergency message further includes current 2D (X, Y) geo-space coordinates of the IoT network device within the emergency message sent to the desired emergency response server.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the communications network and the second communications network include a wired or a wireless:

local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), mesh networks, telecommunications network, cloud communications network, or emergency network.

20. An emergency location information system (E-LIS) for Internet of Things (IoT) network devices, comprising in combination:

one or more IoT network devices each with one or more processors, one or more sensors or one or more actuators and a network connection interface;

one or more server network devices each with one or more processors;

one or more emergency response servers each with one or more processors;

the one or more processors including a plurality of instructions configuring the one or more processors;

for receiving on a server application on a server network device with one or more processors an emergency message or a text-to-911 message from an IoT network device with one or more processors, one or more sensors or one or more actuators and a network connection interface via a communications network indicating an emergency event has occurred,

the IoT network device comprising an automated network device capable of automatically sensing its own physical environment to automatically detect the emergency event with the one or more sensors or the one or more actuators without operator input,

the one or more sensors or the one or more actuators of the IoT network device automatically detecting an altitude, height, depth, speed, velocity, acceleration, de-acceleration, temperature, moisture, barometric pressure or force-related pressure information from the emergency event,

the emergency message and text-to-911 message including current location information for the IoT network device,

the current location information including an E-Location Object with Presence Information Data Format (PIDF-LO) information and with Emergency Location-By-Reference (LbR) information, wherein the LbR is a reference key that is used by the server application to determine an actual current location of the IoT network device preventing eavesdropping and preventing modification of the current location information of the IoT network device during sending of the emergency message or the text-to-911 message on the communications network for determining on the server application with the LbR the actual current location of the IoT Network device;

for determining from the server application a current set of three-dimensional (3D) (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates for the IoT network device with the actual current location information determined with the LbR extracted from the received text-to-911 message or with the actual current location information determined with the LbR extracted from the received emergency message and with other current location information extracted from the received emergency message including audiovisual location information, Global Positioning System (GPS), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Wi-Fi Aware, Bluetooth, Near Field Communications (NFC), Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM), Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) or cell tower location information collected automatically on the IoT network device while automatically sensing its own physical environment and without operator input;

for determining on the server application with the determined current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates a current physical geographic location for the IoT network device;

for sending from the server application an emergency response message or a 911-to-text response message including the determined current physical geographic location for the IoT network device via a second communications network to a desired emergency response server with one or more processors;

for displaying in real-time on the server network device or another server network device with one or more processors on a graphical map the determined current physical geographic location for the IoT network device for one or more desired emergency response agencies;

for determining from a selected sensor or actuator on the IoT network device that a physical environment including the IoT network device that one or more pre-determined conditions have been exceeded indicating that an emergency event is likely to occur;

for determining from the IoT network device the current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates or current physical location for the IoT network device; and

for sending from the IoT network device a pre-cautionary message including the one or more pre-determined conditions that have been exceeded on the IoT network device and the determined current set of 3D (X, Y, Z) geo-space coordinates or current physical location for the IoT network device indicating that that the one or more pre-determined conditions have been exceeded on the IoT network device.