COMPREHENSIVE TSUNAMI ALERT SYSTEM VIA MOBILE DEVICES

• US 20090286505A1
• Filed: 05/14/2008
• Published: 11/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kirk, Erik A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,301,088 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.200
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2205/006 for emergency situations
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/10 responsive to calamitous events, e.g. tornados or earthquakes
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/005 with transmission via computer network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/30 Determination of the location of a subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to navigation in GPS-enabled mobile computing devices and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for location-based tsunami alerting navigational instructions in mobile computing devices. In an embodiment of the invention, a location-based tsunami alerting data processing system can be provided. The system can include a central processing unit coupled with a memory component, and a visual display along with location-based navigation logic that is enabled to compute a geographic zone of danger resulting from a tsunami, identify a geographic location for a mobile computing device corresponding to a subscriber, and render a set of personalized navigational instructions in the mobile computing device responsive to a determination that the subscriber is located in the geographic zone of danger.

Claims

1. A location-based tsunami alerting method comprising:

computing a geographic zone of danger resulting from a tsunami;

determining a geographic location for a mobile computing device in a zone of danger; and

rendering in the mobile computing device a set of personalized navigational instructions from the determined geographic location for the mobile computing device to a geographic location outside of the computed zone of danger.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein computing a geographic zone of danger further comprises receiving an alert from a tsunami monitoring agency, computing a set of geographical coordinates corresponding to a zone of danger based on tsunami computer simulation modeling data, flagging the set of geographical coordinates corresponding to the zone of danger.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein computing a geographic zone of danger further comprises associating a set of geographic coordinates as boundary area of a geographic zone of danger.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising computing a set of geographic coordinates corresponding to a zone of safety wherein a zone of safety comprises a set of geographic coordinates as a boundary area of the zone of safety.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein rendering a set of personalized navigational instructions further comprises responsive to the mobile computing device'"'"'s current location being in the zone of danger, calculating a shortest safest path to direct the mobile computing device out of the zone of danger.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein rendering a set of personalized navigational instructions further comprises dynamically updating the personalized navigational instructions in real-time.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein rendering a set of personalized navigational instructions further comprises displaying a pointer that points to the shortest safest path to a zone of safety.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising, displaying a pointer that points to a first zone of safety, and responsive to tracking the mobile computing device changing direction away from the first zone of safety, determining a second zone of safety that is closer to the mobile computing device'"'"'s current location.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising rendering updated distance information between the mobile computing device'"'"'s current location and the destination zone of safety.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying a geographic location for a mobile computing device is established by a global positioning system (GPS) coordinates.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying a geographic location for a mobile computing device is established by cellular triangulation.

12. A data processing system for location-based tsunami alerting navigational instructions in a mobile computing device, the data processing system comprising:

a central processing unit;

a memory component;

a visual display;

location-based navigation logic that is enabled to compute a geographic zone of danger resulting from a tsunami, determine a geographic location for a mobile computing device in a zone of danger, and render in the mobile computing device a set of personalized navigational instructions from the determined geographic location for the mobile computing device to a geographic location outside of the computed zone of danger.