Electronic Device and Procedure for Locating Pieces of Luggage Gone Astray

• US 20110241874A1
• Filed: 11/18/2010
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Francisco Domingo Polledo, Luis Juan Firpo Polledo, Nicolas Keglevich, Rolando Roberto Ghisani
• Original Assignee: Francisco Domingo Polledo, Nicolas Keglevich
• Inventors: GHISANI, Rolando Roberto
• Granted Patent: US 8,531,290 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/539.32
• CPC Class Codes: A45C 13/18 Devices to prevent theft or loss of purses, luggage or hand carried bags

Abstract

An arrangement and a method for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment, comprising a plurality of mobile units (11) for associating to a piece of luggage to be located if gone astray, and a set of locating units on the ground (21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35), wherein each of the mobile units (11) comprise: a movement detection module (15, 16) capable of detecting a state of stillness or movement of the lost piece of luggage and capable of blocking the communications of said at least one mobile units (11) from and towards said set of locating units on the ground (21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35), depending on the state of stillness or movement of the lost piece of luggage.

Claims

1. An arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment, comprising:

at least one mobile unit (11) to be associated to a piece of luggage which should be located when going astray, and a set of locating units on the ground (21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35), wherein each of said at least one mobile units (11) comprise;

a movement detection module (15, 16) capable of detecting the state of stillness or movement of the lost piece of luggage and capable of blocking the communications of said at least one mobile units (11) from and towards said set of locating units on the ground 21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35) as a function of the movement or stillness state of said piece of luggage.

2. The arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 1, wherein said movement detection module comprises a triaxial accelerometer (16) and an accelerations processing unit (15).

3. The arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 1, wherein said accelerations processing unit (15) comprises an analog module.

4. The arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 1, wherein said acceleration processing unit (15) comprises a subroutine in the microcontroller program.

5. The arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 1, wherein each of said mobile units (11) further comprises an antenna (17), a microcontroller unit (14) and a battery (12).

6. The arrangement for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 1, wherein said set of locating units placed on the ground further comprise:

one or more GSM cellular telephone cells (21, 22, 23, 24, 25), one or more servers (32) connected to one or more GSM cellular telephone modems (31), and connected by TCP/IP to the Internet, one or more remote computers (33) connected to said servers (32) via the Internet and containing a computer program capable of displaying data of the arrangement locating units via its screen.

7. A method for locating for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment, comprising:

the steps of;

(i) prior to the delivery, placing in each of said pieces of luggage a mobile unit;

(ii) delivering the piece of luggage for being loaded in a commercial airplane;

(iii) if of one or more of the delivered pieces of luggage fails to arrive to its destination, sending from a remote PC (33) a telephone call to the lost luggage'"'"'s mobile unit (11);

(iv) once it receives the telephone communication request, urging the mobile unit (11) to send a message containing the data identifying the place where it lies to the remote PC (33);

(v) displaying on the PC screen the data contained in the received message;

(vi) detecting the lost luggage'"'"'s static or movement status and, if the piece of luggage is in movement or in a first predetermined period right after the end of a movement status, blocking the communications of steps (iii) and (iv).

8. The method for locating for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 7, further comprising the additional steps of:

(vii) detecting again the static or movement status of the lost piece of luggage and, if the piece of luggage is still moving or in said first predetermined period right after the end of a movement status, keeping blocked the communications of steps 8iii) and (iv);

(viii) detecting the static or movement status of the lost piece of luggage and, if the piece of luggage is still or out of said first predetermined period right after the end of the movement status, unblocking the communications of steps (iii) and (iv).

9. The method for locating for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 7, wherein said period after a movement condition is programmable from a remote PC.

10. The method for locating for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 7, wherein said period after a movement condition is in a range of 10-45 minutes.

11. The method for locating for locating pieces of luggage gone astray in a commercial air flight shipment according to claim 7, wherein said message is transmitted by means of a SMS.