METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RECORDING INCIDENTS
First Claim
1. A digital incident recording apparatus comprising:
- means for continuously capturing actual visual scene that comes within the vicinity of said apparatus wherein said means for capturing visual scene is achieved by an image capturing unit, means for buffering up a plurality of captured visual scene having finite number of storage elements over-written repeatedly using a first-in-first-out mechanism such that a finite storage can be used to hold a plurality of said visual scene continuously;
means for preserving said buffered scenes long enough to be useful after an incident has occurred;
means for triggering a preservation of said buffered scenes, wherein said triggering is a mechanism chosen from the group consisting of software mechanism, firmware mechanism, hardware mechanism and combinations thereof wherein said firmware or software mechanism comprises of programmable logic instructions that fire off a signal in responding to an external event, wherein said hardware mechanism comprises at least one sensor capable of sending out a signal upon detecting a physical event, wherein said physical event can be a physical impact, sudden change in momentum, shock wave, sudden change in sound wave amplitude, manual activation and combinations thereof, and means for providing overall operational control of said apparatus.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for capturing the visual scenes of an incident so many seconds before, during and after the incident has occurred is disclosed. The apparatus can provide additional functionality of capturing the activities of the operator of a transportation system as well as the sound wave of the environment before, during and after an incident. The disclosed method and apparatus can be used in a land, sea and air based transportation system as well as a traffic monitoring system. The apparatus uses a digital first-in-first-out bufferring mechanism to allow for capturing of an event that may occur at any time in an infinite time span using a finite stoage. The apparatus is comprised of a control unit for overall operational control, a memory unit for temporally storage, an imaging capturing unit for capturing visual scene, a digital sensor for triggering an automatic preservation of captured scenes, a digital sound recorder for capturing sound wave matching the recorded images, a persistent storage unit for preserving of captured scene and sound wave, a power source to allow for continued operation and a protective housing to resist environmental damages.
20 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A digital incident recording apparatus comprising:
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means for continuously capturing actual visual scene that comes within the vicinity of said apparatus wherein said means for capturing visual scene is achieved by an image capturing unit, means for buffering up a plurality of captured visual scene having finite number of storage elements over-written repeatedly using a first-in-first-out mechanism such that a finite storage can be used to hold a plurality of said visual scene continuously;
means for preserving said buffered scenes long enough to be useful after an incident has occurred;
means for triggering a preservation of said buffered scenes, wherein said triggering is a mechanism chosen from the group consisting of software mechanism, firmware mechanism, hardware mechanism and combinations thereof wherein said firmware or software mechanism comprises of programmable logic instructions that fire off a signal in responding to an external event, wherein said hardware mechanism comprises at least one sensor capable of sending out a signal upon detecting a physical event, wherein said physical event can be a physical impact, sudden change in momentum, shock wave, sudden change in sound wave amplitude, manual activation and combinations thereof, and means for providing overall operational control of said apparatus. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for digitally recording incidents using a finite storage for capturing events that may occur at any time within a long time span comprises steps of:
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continuously capturing the actual visual scene in real-time and converting said scene into digital form;
controlling the operation and timing of said capture process;
continuously buffering up a plurality of captured images using a first-in-first-out mechanism so that said buffered images can be preserved when needed; and
triggering a permanent preservation of a plurality of frames of said buffered images. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification