Wireless detection and alarm system for monitoring human falls and entries into swimming pools by using three dimensional acceleration and wireless link energy data method and apparatus

• US 20080258907A1
• Filed: 03/17/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: 24/8 LLC
• Original Assignee: 24/8 LLC
• Inventors: Kalpaxis, Alex J.
• Application Number:
  US12/076,364
• Publication Number:
  US 20080258907A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/539.1
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/086 by monitoring a perimeter outside the body of the water
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/088 by monitoring a device worn by the person, e.g. a bracelet attached to the swimmer

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and apparatus for monitoring and analysis. The system (1000) includes a wireless detector (1040) within a body of water in combination with video cameras (1080) that surround a body of water. The wireless detector (130) sends acceleration data and the video cameras sends image data, both using a mesh-type wireless network, to a wireless Collector/Analyzer Server (1020). The Collector/Analyzer Server (1020) processes the received data and provides an alarm signal based on the results of comparisons of the different types of data to respective reference data. Image tracking video algorithms are used to create video fences around the swimming pool'"'"'s perimeter and using this as the boundary conditions for creating an alarm criteria.

Claims

1. A system for determining the occurrence of abnormal motion of a surface, comprising:

a wireless motion detector for measuring three-dimensional acceleration motion data of the surface and wireless communications channel link energy data;

a transmitter for transmitting the measured data;

a receiver for receiving and storing the data from the wireless motion detector;

a processor for processing the data to determine whether the surface has experienced abnormal motion by signal averaging, temporally smoothing the received data using dynamically sized moving average convolution filters, and comparing the processed data with stored data; and

an output device for outputting an indication of the occurrence of abnormal motion of the surface based on the comparison.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the wireless motion detector is a water floatation device adaptable to wirelessly transmit data to the server and other wireless, water floatation motion detectors.

3. The system of claim 2, the server comprising:

an RF transceiver configured to receive data from the wireless motion detectors;

a microcontroller processing unit; and

a peripheral communications interface.

4. The system of claim 3, the wireless, water floatation device comprising:

plurality of three-dimensional accelerometers;

a radio frequency transceiver; and

a microcontroller processor unit.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the radio frequency transceiver of the wireless, water floatation device and the server are compliant with any one of IEEE 802.15.4, BlueTooth, or IEEE 802.11.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the wireless motion detector is a bracelet wearable by a human adaptable to wirelessly communicate with the server and other wireless motion detectors.

7. The system of claim 1, comprising:

a video camera focused on the perimeter surrounding the surface;

a video camera interface for transferring image data collected by the video camera to the processor, wherein the processor processes the transferred image data and compares the processed image data to previously processed image reference data; and

a memory for storing the processed image data;

8. The system of claim 7, comprising an alarm signal transmitted from the processor based on the comparison of the processed image data to previously processed image reference data.

9. A method for detecting entry of a person into a body of water by determining a condition of the water that indicates the entry of a person into the body of water, comprising:

measuring the three dimensional acceleration data of a device in the body of water and the wireless water wave device communications channel link energy;

transmitting the measured acceleration data to a processor;

processing the transmitted data by signal averaging and temporally smoothing the transmitted acceleration data using dynamically sized moving average convolution filters;

creating differential acceleration time derivatives from the processed data;

comparing the created differential acceleration time derivatives to historical profiles including differential acceleration time derivatives that relate to conditions that indicate the entry of a person into a body of water; and

providing an indication of the entry of a person into the body of water based on the comparison.

10. The method of claim 9, comprising:

detecting swimmer body sizes and their number, wherein adults compared to children for the proposes of determining if the swimming pool perimeter boundary breach is a child or adult, and if the child is alone.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the system is implemented using a dynamic mesh-network topology for creating a multi-node monitoring environment that is only limited by the network node address set of the underlying network infrastructure and the number of nodes implemented for monitoring swimming pool activity.