METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PLACING AN EMERGENCY CALL

• US 20100273446A1
• Filed: 06/17/2008
• Published: 10/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Continental Teves AG & Co. OHG (Continental AG)
• Original Assignee: Continental Teves AG & Company HG (Continental AG)
• Inventors: Stählin, Ulrich, Rieth, Peter, Neumann, Karl-Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 8,712,367 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.200
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/17 Emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0036 of measured values, i.e. measurement on mobile and position calculation on base station
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental
• 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 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 for emergency connections

Abstract

An emergency call device for a vehicle is specified in which, on occurrence of a certain event, a data record is generated which thereupon is transmitted during the emergency call. The event can be an external request by an operator or a trigger signal inside a vehicle. In this way, the operator can obtain the most recent information at any time during the emergency call.

Claims

1-12. -12. (canceled)

13. A method for placing an emergency call from a vehicle in an accident to a rescue co-ordination center by text-to-speech method, comprising the steps:

detecting an accident of the vehicle via a sensor system of an automatic accident monitoring unit in the vehicle,

determining the associated geographic accident co-ordinates of the vehicle by a positioning system, and

sending at least the accident co-ordinates to a central call unit for correlating these with a digital map centrally stored there for the purpose of obtaining a cartographic accident position as text information,

converting the text information about the cartographic accident position into voice information by the central call unit, and

transmitting the voice information from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center by voice channel.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13, further comprising establishing a direct voice channel from the rescue co-ordination center to the vehicle in the accident.

15. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein transmitting the voice information from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center further comprises establishing a provisional voice channel for transmitting messages of the vehicle passengers from the vehicle in the accident to the central call unit.

16. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein transmitting the voice information from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center further comprises temporarily storing messages of the vehicle passengers by the vehicle in an accident in order to forward these to the rescue co-ordination center after completed transmission of the voice information.

17. A system for placing an emergency call from a vehicle in an accident to a rescue co-ordination center by text-to-speech method, comprising an automatic accident monitoring unit in the vehicle for detecting an accident of the vehicle via a sensor system, a positioning system for determining the current geographic accident co-ordinates of the vehicle, wherein the accident monitoring unit transmits the accident co-ordinates to a central call unit for correlating them with a digital map stored there centrally, for obtaining a cartographic accident position as text information which is converted by the central call unit into voice information in order to transmit the voice information by voice channel from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the central call unit comprises a computer server having a navigation application unit with connected central digital map and text-to-speech application unit.

19. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein at least one operator for transmitting the voice information from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center or for provisionally receiving messages of the vehicle passengers from the vehicle in the accident for the rescue co-ordination center is allocated to the computer server.

20. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the positioning system in the vehicle accesses a global satellite navigation system for obtaining the geographic accident co-ordinates.

21. The system as claimed in claim 20 wherein the positioning system in the vehicle accesses a global positioning system for obtaining the geographic accident co-ordinates.

22. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the voice channel between the central call unit and the rescue co-ordination center is set up by a mobile radio network.

23. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the voice channel between the central call unit and the rescue co-ordination center is set up via a landline network.

24. A computer program product which, when it is executed on a processor of a central call unit as claimed in claim 17 instructs the processor to carry out the following steps:

correlating the received accident co-ordinates with a centrally stored digital map for obtaining a cartographic accident position as text information,

converting the text information about the cartographic accident position determined into voice information, and

transmitting the voice information by voice channel from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center.

25. A computer-readable medium on which a computer program product is stored which, when it is executed on a processor of a central call unit as claimed in claim 17 instructs the processor to carry out the following steps:

correlating the received accident co-ordinates with a centrally stored digital map for obtaining a cartographic accident position as text information,

converting the text information about the cartographic accident position determined into voice information, and

transmitting the voice information by voice channel from the central call unit to the rescue co-ordination center.