Marine Emergency Position Indicating System

• US 20140191865A1
• Filed: 11/11/2011
• Published: 07/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Shanghai Radio Equipment RES Institute
• Original Assignee: Shanghai Radio Equipment RES Institute
• Inventors: Yan, Xiaoshang, Liang, Yi, Yan, Peng
• Granted Patent: US 9,384,648 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/539.13
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 11/06 using intensity measurements
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/48 the waves arriving at the antennas being continuous or intermittent and the phase difference of signals derived therefrom being measured
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0231 Emergency, distress or locator beacons
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/12 by co-ordinating position lines of different shape, e.g. hyperbolic, circular, elliptical or radial
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/088 by monitoring a device worn by the person, e.g. a bracelet attached to the swimmer

Abstract

A marine emergency position indicating system that can communicate wirelessly between beacon and search engine is provided. When someone carrying the beacon falls into the water, power supply of the beacon opens through drowning automatic switch or manual switch, therefore the beacon can emit wireless SOS signals out. Rescue boat or aircraft installed with search engine can search and receive SOS signals sent from beacons over a 5-kilometer radius along the way to accidental site. The search engine can distinguish the beacons around this area and determine the direction and approximate distance between drowning persons carrying beacons and the search engine through wireless communication technology and wireless positioning technology to help rescuers implement fixed-point rescue. Therefore, the marine emergency position indicating system can overcome the bad weather impact on marine rescue, speed up the rescue process and improve the success possibilities of fixed-point rescue.

Claims

1-10. -10. (canceled)

11. A marine emergency position indicating system is characterized in that the said system includes the following parts:

beacon, carried by the marine staff, can send out wireless communication signals after ship wreck;

the said beacon contains power supply circuit, signal process circuit and antenna, which are electrical connected;

search engine, mounted in rescue boat or aircraft towards the accident site the said search engine receives wireless communication signals from all neighboring beacons within a certain range and has a signal demodulation module for user identification and conflict detection, and two signal process modules for calculating relative distance and direction of each beacon based on the communication signals;

modules within the said search engine indicating the beacon direction contains;

direction finding antenna array, which contains multiple antennas according to the design of distribution array, which respectively receive the wireless communication signals matched with the same beacon'"'"'s emitting frequencies;

antenna signal process module, which integrates the multi-channel signals from the receiving antennas of the mentioned direction finding antenna array into one channel;

mixer amplifier module, which converts the integrated one channel signal output from the mentioned antenna signal process module to a pre-set frequency and amplifiers this signal in the whole signal range to a pre-set amplitude;

direction finding data process module, which samples the signals output from the mixer amplifier module on time-division base, recovers the multi-channel signals received from the direction finding antenna array, calculates phase differences of the multi-channel signals and determines the relative direction between the sending beacon and the mentioned search engine.

12. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 11, wherein, the said power supply circuit of the said beacon contains power management module, signal trigger switch and battery which are respectively electrical connected to the said power management module;

the said signal trigger switch contains manual switch and drowning automatic switch which are respectively electrical connected to the said power management module;

the said battery provides working power for the beacon;

the said manual switch can be used to manually open the power management module to make the beacon entering into working status;

the said drowning automatic switch can automatically open the power management module to make the beacon entering into working status by the way of detecting immergence;

the said power management module can convert the supply voltage from battery into stable output working voltage when manual switch or drowning automatic switch is opened.

13. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 12, wherein, an additional power switch, which is set between the said battery and the power management module, can control the beacon to switch states between low power standby and power-off.

14. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 13, wherein, the said signal process circuit of the beacon contains system control module, modulation module, power amplifier and filter, which are electrical connected in sequence;

the said system control module is connected to the said power management module;

the said filter is electrical connected to the said antenna;

the said system control module transmits emitting data to the modulation module and controls the emitting timeline after receiving working voltage output from the power management module;

the said modulation module converts the received emitting data into modulated signals and transfers the signals to the power amplifier;

the said power amplifier amplifies the received modulated signals to the emitting power required and transmits them to filter;

the said filter receives the amplified signals from the power amplifier, and filters their noise and harmonic signals.

15. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 12, wherein, the said beacon also contains a buzzer connected to the power management module;

the buzzer beeps when it receives the stable output working voltage from the power management module.

16. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 11, wherein,

the said search engine includes the following additional parts:

communication antenna, which receives the wireless communication signals matched with beacon'"'"'s emitting frequency,

filter amplifier module, which receives signals output from the said communication antenna, filters noise from them and amplifies the required radio signals;

the said signal demodulation module demodulates the signals output from the filter amplifier module, determine whether the signal is sent from the beacon with simultaneously deciding on beacon ID to distinguish multi-users according to the demodulated information, and confirms validity of this communication to realize conflict detection based on correctness of transmitted data;

the modules within the said search engine indicating the relative distance include signal detect module, which detects amplitude of the signals output from the filter amplifier module and estimates on the relative distance between the sending beacon and the said search engine.

17. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 16, wherein,

the antenna signal process module also contains the following parts:

interface driving module, which receives the control instruction and power output from the said search engine host and forms control driving signals;

change-over switch, which integrates the multi-channel received signals from the said direction finding antenna array into one channel by time division based on related control driving instruction.

SAW-filter and amplifier, filters and amplifies the integrated signal, and then transmits it to the subsequent modules.

18. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 17, wherein, the said change-over switch contains the following parts,

multiple signal input ends are connected to the multiple antennas from the said direction finding antenna array respectively and receive the multi-channel signals from them;

several control instruction input ends receive related control instructions output from the said search engine host through the said interface driving module;

one signal output end is only connected to only one received signal of the change-over switch inputs under each selected status driven by the said control instruction, to make the multi-channel receiving signals exist on time-division and integrated into one channel signal.

19. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 18, wherein,

the said search engine contains other parts as follows,

system control module receives signals respectively output from the said signal demodulation module, signal detect module and direction finding data process module, and controls the working status of the whole search engine;

display module, connected to the system control module, directly shows the information depicting direction and distance of the beacon on LCD;

buzzer, connected to the said system control module, beeps differently according to the received beacon signals to remind rescuers.

20. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 14, wherein,

the said search engine includes the following additional parts:

communication antenna, which receives the wireless communication signals matched with beacon'"'"'s emitting frequency,

filter amplifier module, which receives signals output from the said communication antenna, filters noise from them and amplifies the required radio signals;

the said signal demodulation module demodulates the signals output from the filter amplifier module, determine whether the signal is sent from the beacon with simultaneously deciding on beacon ID to distinguish multi-users according to the demodulated information, and confirms validity of this communication to realize conflict detection based on correctness of transmitted data;

the modules within the said search engine indicating the relative distance include signal detect module, which detects amplitude of the signals output from the filter amplifier module and estimates on the relative distance between the sending beacon and the said search engine.