WEARABLE DEVICE FOR SAFETY MONITORING OF A USER

• US 20170372592A1
• Filed: 06/26/2017
• Published: 12/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Titan (L3Harris Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: M/S. Hug Innovations Corp.
• Inventors: Neravati, Raja Sekhar, Gangalakurti, Manohar, Panjala, Dileep Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 10,249,172 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0446 worn on the body to detect changes of posture, e.g. a fall, inclination, acceleration, gait
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0492 Sensor dual technology, i.e. two or more technologies collaborate to extract unsafe condition, e.g. video tracking and RFID tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/001 Alarm cancelling procedures or alarm forwarding decisions, e.g. based on absence of alarm confirmation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/004 Alarm propagated along alternative communication path or using alternative communication medium according to a hierarchy of available ways to communicate, e.g. if Wi-Fi not available use GSM
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/08 using communication transmission lines G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/008 with transmission via TV or radio broadcast

Abstract

A precise, gesture-based, safety monitoring system, method and device. The present invention comprises a controller, wherein the controller upon detection of a distress signal, sends an alert signal along with the Location information of the user to a Remote Server. The Remote Server, upon receiving an alert signal sends an SMS and e-mail along with the Location information to a Mobile device of the registered emergency numbers of the user and responds in real-time.

Claims

1. A gesture-based system having (a) a Wearable A comprising a Wearable 101 and a Mobile application 102, (b) Location services B comprising Location services 104 and a Location processor 105, (c) Services C comprising a Redis cluster 108, an Application Gateway 120, User services 106, Health Services 107 and Safety Services 117, and (d) Customer services D, comprising a Customer Service Relationship (CSR) office 113, Website 115, CSR Services 116 with Site-to-site (STS) VPN 114 and a Load Balancer 103f with data processing apparatus programmed to perform precise safety monitoring operations comprising:

a. Detecting one or more user inputs from the wearable A and performing measurements;

b. Triggering one or more SOS signals based on the user input;

c. Communicating between the wearable A and services C;

d. Initiating the SOS after eliminating false alarms; and

e. Detecting the user'"'"'s location and contacting safety services and responding in real-time.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising (a) Service Bus Queues 112, (b) a SQL Database 109, (c) Solar search Engine 118, (d) Mongo Database 110, (e) Telephony services 111, (f) Notification services 119, and (g) one or more Load Balancers 103a, 103b, 103c, 103d, 103e, wherein:

a. The SQL Database 109 feeds User data such as the registered well-wisher'"'"'s details, local emergency contacts, to enable an efficient system performance;

b. The Solar search Engine 118 and Redis cluster 108 are assimilated into the system;

c. The services requested are lined-up and processed by the Service Bus Queues 112;

d. The Telephony services 111 and Notification services 119 which can be used by a User accordingly as and when required either to alert their network members or to dismiss the alert signal generated during an emergency; and

e. Dismissal of an SOS triggered during an emergency is done through either a Call-center or a Mobile application, which will be dealt with the CSR office 113.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the Wearable 101 has a cover 1, side keys 2, a laser etching 3, a heart-rate monitor 4, a charging port 5, a controller, a mobile device, a Remote Server, a battery, an SOS battery, distress signal, a display, a vibration motor, 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU), one or more alert signals, a Bluetooth and, a processor, wherein:

a. The vibration motor is located away from the 9-axis inertial measurement unit and is configured as a silent alarm using a vibration module such that the motor configured to vibrate upon generation of a distress Gesture to indicate to the user that the alert signal has been sent to registered emergency numbers of the user;

b. The alert signal from the user is in the form of Gestures, and the IMU is utilized to get 3D position and orientation of the wearable device that aids in extracting meaningful Gestures;

c. The IMU acts as a high accuracy motion tracking unit to recognize Gestures and is of small size with low power consumption, comprises of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and 3-axis magnetometer, thus with 9 degrees of freedom, wherein;

a) Hand Gestures are tracked by the 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope from which alphabets are created for the Gestures, each alphabet represents a particular action and configured by the user using either the Bluetooth or a web-based application;

b) The 3-axis accelerometer measures acceleration of the user, whereas, the 3-axis magnetometer measures magnetic field associated with the user'"'"'s change of orientation;

c) The 3-axis gyroscope along with the 3-axis accelerometer is utilized for precise determination of an orientation of the user;

d) The 9-axis inertial measurement unit automatically identifies a type of distress by calculating the change of orientation of the user from the 3-axis accelerometer, the 3-axis gyroscope, and the 3-axis magnetometer; and

e) To reduce false activations which might be performed while performing daily activities, an activation Gesture is performed by the user to activate the actual Gestures pre-configured by the user;

d. The controller is a microcontroller which is capable of storing necessary instructions required for generating distress signal and for transmitting an alert signal along with location information of the user to the Remote Server and it co-ordinates various modules in the wearable device and initiates different modules based on the Gestures recognized by the IMU, and executes necessary actions including Gesture recognition, configuration, communication and storage; and

e. The display screen is either a light-emitting diode (LED) Screen or an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) or liquid crystal display (LCD), used to indicate various information such as time and notifications.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein there are two categories of a Companion model exist including a mobile device 12 and being a GSM and GPS-enabled model 15 in the case of the absence of the mobile device 12.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the wearable allows the user to pre-configure one or more Gestures such that:

a. They can control any electronic device; and

b. The user can configure Gestures in an x-y plane, x-z plane and also with varying angular velocities, upon detection of an activation Gesture followed by the Gesture hit in the x-y plane, x-z plane or with varied angular velocity pre-configured by the user, the controller activates action associated with the pre-configured Gesture set by the user.

6. A computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:

a. Detecting one or more user input 500 from a wearable device including, (a) button press 202, (b) force detection 203, (c) Auto-accident Collision detection 204, (d) stress and fatigue detection 205, and (e) Hand Gestures 206;

b. Performing one or more measurements 501 based on the user'"'"'s input 201 by detecting a button press 207, enabling force detection 209, measuring IMU Sensor data 215, and detecting patterns from Hand Gestures 224;

c. Triggering SOS based on the user input 502;

d. Communicating between the wearable device and the Remote Server 503;

e. Initiating the SOS 504 by the Remote Server;

f. Verifying a false alarm 505;

g. Calculating Location and contacting emergency services 506; and

h. Dismissing the SOS triggered 507 by a user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of performing measurements 501 further comprises:

a. For a button press 202 input,

i) Pressing a SOS button 207 present in the wearable device;

ii) Verifying a period of button press 208 by the controller, further,

A. Pressing the button for longer than one second vibrates the wearable 226 and triggers the SOS and;

B. Pressing the button for a period less than one second, awaits SOS button press again;

b. For a force detection 203,

i) Enabling force detection 209;

ii) Triggering a Proximity Sensor 210 upon enabling the force detection;

iii) Measuring Proximity value 211 by the Proximity Sensor 210 and checking a position of the wearable device 212;

iv) Vibrating the wearable device 226 and initiating of the SOS 502, if the wearable device is not attached to a user'"'"'s wrist; and

v) Monitoring Proximity value and attachment of the wearable device to the wrist, in the case of the wearable device safely attached to the user'"'"'s wrist;

c. For an Auto-accident Collision detection 204,

i) Enabling force detection 209;

ii) Measuring G-Force value from a Sensor 213 on receiving the user input;

iii) Enabling vibrate mode of the wearable device 226 thus initiating the SOS 502 once the G-Force value 214 exceeds a threshold value; and

iv) Non-initiating the action for G-Force value lesser than the threshold value;

d. For a stress and fatigue detection 205,

i) Measuring an IMU Sensor data 215 on detection of the fall of a user;

ii) Measuring the Proximity 217 if there is a fall detected 216, else step ‘

i’

is repeated;

iii) Measuring the Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) data 219 if the Wearable is attached 218 to the wrist else no action is taken 223;

iv) Vibrating the Wearable 226 if the HRM data is not stable 220 and initiating the SOS 502, else starting the timer for sixty seconds 221 and if moving of the user is detected 222, then no action is taken 223; and

v) Moving of the user when not detected, Wearable is vibrated 226 and initiating the SOS 502; and

e. For Hand Gestures 206,

i) Oscillating of hand by the user for a configurable number of times continuously 206, and detecting a pattern of Hand Gesture by the wearable device 224;

ii) Comparing a pattern detected by the Sensor with a user-defined pattern 224 which are pre-defined by the user; and

iii) Vibrating the Wearable 226 and sending notifications to raise SOS, if the pattern of Hand Gesture is valid 225, else no action is taken 223.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of communicating between the wearable device and the Remote Server 503 further comprises:

a. Receiving an SOS by the wearable device 227;

b. Transmitting the signals to Remote server via cellular network 230, when the Wearable has connectivity 228;

c. Saving the SOS and waiting till connectivity is back 229, when no connectivity in wearable device;

d. If a mobile device is present in the system then,

i) Receiving an SOS by the wearable device 227;

ii) Transmitting the signals to the Remote server through the Mobile 232, when the Wearable has connectivity 228; and

iii) Saving the SOS and waiting till connectivity is back 229, when no connectivity in wearable device;

e. Receiving the signals 231 by the Remote Server; and

f. Initiating the SOS 233 by the Remove Server.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of verifying a false alarm 505 further comprises:

a. Checking the User'"'"'s preferences 234 by the controller;

b. Verifying the false alarm before raising the SOS 235 based on User'"'"'s preference provided 234, initiating a call back to the User 236, before proceeding to the next step ‘

c’

;

c. Confirming SOS situation by the controller to the Remote Server to send let or long every Q (configurable) seconds to the Remote Server, 237 if there is no false alarm.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of calculating Location and contacting emergency services 506 further comprises:

a. Creating a dynamic URL by the Remote Server to track the User 238;

b. Calculating the nearest R (configurable) Users within S (configurable) metres radius of the Proximity from an incident Location by the Remote Server 239; and

c. Sending the alert signals 240 by the Remote Server to well-wishers, nearest R Users, and emergency services.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of dismissing the SOS signals 507 further comprises:

a. Confirming the information to the well-wishers, even when the user is fine, then the user dismiss 241 the SOS alerted; and

b. Initiating the dismissal of SOS 242 either by calling the customer service or by using the mobile application, after taking user input 73 as follows,

i) Dismissal of SOS by calling the customer service 82,

A. Initiating a call to a Customer service 82 by the User and providing authentication details to a Customer Service Representative (CSR) 83, a session remains active 86 for invalid authentication 84;

B. Triggering a dismissal of the session by the CSR 85 by sending a notification to the Remote Server 78 upon successful authentication 84, thus ending transmit of the Location 79 and disabling 80 the session in the Remote Server; and

C. Sending an SMS and E-mail by the Remote Server to the Registered users 81 and to those whom earlier the alert signal was forwarded, confirming the safety of the affected user and ending the process 87; and

ii) Dismissal of SOS through the Mobile Application 74,

A. Selecting an “

I am Safe”

option in the mobile application 75 to dismiss the SOS alert initiated, that requires entering a Passcode 76 to enable, the dismissal could not be initiated until a valid Passcode is provided 77;

B. Sending a notification to the Remote Server 78 which stops to transmit the Location 79 and disables the session in the Remote Server 80; and

C. Initiating an SMS and E-mail by the Remote Server to all those who were alerted earlier to inform about the safety of the affected user 81 and ending the process 87.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein a process of the triggered SOS signal to protect an affected user further comprises:

a. Communicating 503 with the Remote Server by the wearable device,

i) Receiving the SOS 42 at the wearable device and forwarding the same to the Remove Server via cellular network 45 if wearable has connectivity 43;

ii) If no connectivity in the wearable then saving the SOS and waiting till the connectivity is back 44;

iii) If a mobile device is present in the system, then,

A. Receiving the SOS 42 at the wearable device and forwarding the same to the Remote Server through the mobile device 46 if wearable has connectivity 43; and

B. If no connectivity in the wearable then saving the SOS and waiting till the connectivity is back 44; and

iv) Receiving signals 47 by the Remote Server and initiating the SOS 48;

b. Triggering of SOS 504 to process the alert signal;

c. Verifying 505 for false alarm by the controller,

i) Checking the user'"'"'s preference provided for “

verify for false alarm before raising SOS”

49;

ii) Confirming the SOS situation to the Remote Server 56 directly if the user does not prefer for any verification, else further comprises;

(a) Initiating IVR call 50 to check false SOS for a configurable number of times 52 if not answered for first time 51;

(b) Prompting the user to enter a Passcode 53 if the call is answered to ensure that the user is in real trouble, a valid Passcode indicates no harm to the user, and hence the process ends ignoring the SOS trigger 55; and

(c) Confirming the SOS situation to the Remote Server 56 for an invalid Passcode entry 54; and

iii) Forwarding SOS notification to the Remote Server and sending either a Let or Long every configurable second to the Remote Server 57 continuously;

d. Calculating the Location and contacting 506 of emergency services,

i) Creating a dynamic URL 58 by the Remote Server to track the user and, also calculating the nearest R configurable users within configurable meters radius of Proximity from the incident Location 59;

ii) Sending an alert signal by the Remote Server to Registered well-wishers and nearest R users in a network and local Emergency services 60, the Remote Server sends only basic details but not entire details while alerting nearest R users if they are not part of the affected user'"'"'s network, to avoid any unnecessary trouble to the user during an emergency or later;

iii) Refreshing the Location 61 by the Remote server based on the input received from the wearable device time-to-time; and

iv) Identifying the network type of the users as 3G, 4G, Edge or SMS by the Remote Server 62 to forward the details,

A. Forwarding real-time Location 68 for 3G, 4G users 63, and 2G users 64 receive the Location with slow refresh 69;

B. Receiving of SMS Location 65 for users without 3G, 4G and 2G, which undergoes Cell triangulation 66 and showing the nearest Proximity based on available Cell Tower 67; and

C. Monitoring continuously for the signal 71 of those users who do not come under any of the above-mentioned network facility to whom the Location could not be shared 70, on identifying the signal 72 performs a check for network identification and forwarding the details accordingly.

13. The method of claim 6 wherein the wearable device allows the user to pre-configure one or more Gestures such that:

a. They can control any electronic device; and

b. The user can configure Gestures in an x-y plane, x-z plane and also with varying angular velocities, upon detection of an activation Gesture followed by the Gesture hit in the x-y plane, x-z plane or with varied angular velocity pre-configured by the user, the controller activates action associated with the pre-configured Gesture set by the user.

14. A precise, gesture-based, safety monitoring wearable device 101 for a user having, (a) a cover 1, (b) side keys, (c) a laser etching 3, (d) a heart-rate monitor 4, (e) a charging port 5, (f) a controller, (g) a mobile device, (h) a Remote Server, (i) a battery, (j) an SOS battery, (k) distress signal, (l) a light emitting diode (LED), (m) a vibration motor, (n) 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU), (o) one or more alert signals, (p) a Bluetooth and, (q) a processor, wherein:

a. The cover 1 is located on top front portion;

b. The laser etching 3, the heart-rate monitor 4 and the charging port 5 are on the backside of the wearable device;

c. The battery is molded into a design for maximum safety;

d. The SOS battery reserve is used to send the distress signal;

e. The light emitting diode has a TFT display screen to display time under normal operating conditions;

f. The vibration motor is located away from the 9-axis inertial measurement unit and is configured as a silent alarm using a vibration module such that the motor configured to vibrate upon generation of a distress Gesture to indicate to a user that the alert signal has been sent to registered emergency numbers of the user;

g. The alert signal from the user is in the form of Gestures, and the IMU is utilized to get 3D position and orientation of the wearable device that aids in extracting meaningful Gestures;

h. The controller is a microcontroller which is capable of storing necessary instructions required for generating distress signal and for transmitting an alert signal along with location information of the user to the Remote Server and it co-ordinates various modules in the wearable device and initiates different modules based on the Gestures recognized by the IMU, and executes necessary actions including Gesture recognition, configuration, communication and storage; and

i. The IMU acts as a high accuracy motion tracking unit to recognize Gestures and is of small size with low power consumption, comprises of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and 3-axis magnetometer, thus with 9 degrees of freedom, wherein;

i) Hand Gestures are tracked by the 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope from which alphabets are created for the Gestures, each alphabet represents a particular action and configured by the user using either the Bluetooth or a web-based application;

ii) The 3-axis accelerometer measures acceleration of the user, whereas, the 3-axis magnetometer measures magnetic field associated with the user'"'"'s change of orientation;

iii) The 3-axis gyroscope is used along with the 3-axis accelerometer for more precise determination of an orientation of the user;

iv) The 9-axis inertial measurement unit automatically identifies a type of distress by calculating the change of orientation of the user from the 3-axis accelerometer, the 3-axis gyroscope, and the 3-axis magnetometer; and

v) To reduce false activations which might be performed while performing daily activities, an activation Gesture is performed by the user to activate the actual Gestures pre-configured by the user.

15. The device of claim 14, wherein a future version of the device contains an OLED display and an LED display.

16. The device of claim 14, wherein the wearable device allows the user to pre-configure one or more Gestures such that:

a. They can control any electronic device; and

b. The user can configure Gestures in an x-y plane, x-z plane and also with varying angular velocities, upon detection of an activation Gesture followed by the Gesture hit in the x-y plane, x-z plane or with varied angular velocity pre-configured by the user, the controller activates action associated with the pre-configured Gesture set by the user.