DEVICE FOR TRACKING A MOVING OBJECT

• US 20090304374A1
• Filed: 02/19/2009
• Published: 12/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Dietmar Weisl
• Original Assignee: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forsching E.V.
• Inventors: EDELHAEUSSER, Thorsten, WEISL, Dietmar, FRUEHAUF, Hans Holm
• Application Number:
  US12/388,790
• Publication Number:
  US 20090304374A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 396/153
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0284 Relative positioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/61 based on recognised objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/695 Control of camera direction for changing a field of view, e.g. pan, tilt or based on tracking of objects

Abstract

A device for tracking a moving object comprises a receiver, an evaluation unit, a camera and a control unit. The receiver is implemented to receive a signal transmitted by a mobile transmitter which is located at the moving object and follows movements of the object. The evaluation unit determines position data of the moving object from the received signal. The control unit aligns the camera to the moving object based on the determined position data.

Claims

1. A device for tracking a moving object, comprising:

a receiver which is implemented to receive a signal transmitted by a mobile transmitter which is located at the moving object and follows movements of the object;

an evaluation unit for determining position data of the moving object from the received signal;

a camera; and

a control unit for aligning the camera to the moving object based on the determined position data.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the signal between the transmitter and the receiver is a radio signal.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the position data of the moving object result from a relative position of the moving object with regard to the position of the receiver.

4. The device according to claim 1, which is implemented to activate the tracking of the object upon the detection of an alarm.

5. The device according to claim 1, comprising a further camera and being implemented to hand over the tracking of the object from the first camera to the further camera.

6. The device according to claim 1, wherein the receiver comprises an array antenna with a plurality of spaced apart antennae.

7. The device according to claim 6, wherein the evaluation unit is implemented to calculate the position data of the moving object by a phase evaluation of the signal received at the antennae of the array antenna.

8. The device according to claim 1, which is implemented to calculate the distance of the moving object by an evaluation of run-time differences of signals.

9. The device according to claim 1, wherein the camera is rotatable in a plane around any angle.

10. The device according to claim 6, wherein the array antenna of the receiver comprises at least three antennae.

11. The device according to claim 1, wherein the evaluation unit is implemented to recover an identification feature of the mobile transmitter from the received signal.

12. The device according to claim 1, wherein the evaluation unit is implemented to recover identification features of different mobile transmitters from received signals, wherein a switch for switching the alignment of the camera is provided between the different mobile transmitters.

13. A system for tracking a moving object comprising a device for tracking a moving object, comprising:

a receiver which is implemented to receive a signal transmitted by a mobile transmitter which is located at the moving object and follows movements of the object;

an evaluation unit for determining position data of the moving object from the received signal;

a camera; and

a control unit for aligning the camera to the moving object based on the determined position data,

and comprising the mobile transmitter.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein the mobile transmitter is implemented to activate or deactivate the transmission of the signal.

15. The system according to claim 13, comprising a further mobile transmitter, wherein the first transmitter and the further transmitter comprise different identification features and are implemented to transmit the identification feature with the signal.

16. The system according to claim 13, wherein the mobile transmitter is implemented to be able to receive a signal from the receiver.

17. The system according to claim 13, wherein the transmitter and the receiver are implemented to operate in a frequency band between 2.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz.

18. The system according to claim 13, wherein the mobile transmitter is implemented as a “

WiSmIt”

module or as a WLAN-capable device.

19. A method for tracking a moving object, comprising:

receiving a signal transmitted by a mobile transmitter which is located at the moving object and follows movements of the object;

determining position data of the moving object from the received signal; and

aligning a camera to the moving object based on the determined position data.

20. A computer readable medium storing a computer program with program code for performing the method according to claim 19, when the computer program runs on a computer or a microcontroller.