Vehicle locator system
First Claim
1. A positional display system of visually indicating a given location such as the location of a motor vehicle such as a plice car or the location of the occurrence of an incident warranting police attention to aid in making command and control decisions, said positional display system comprising:
- a display board including a row and column matrix of individual lights and a map overlaying said matrix so that each of said individual lights represents a unique locational area of said map;
means for inputting a sequence of decimal digits of information including a first set of decimal digits indicative of the specific row address of a given locational area of said map, a second set of decimal digits indicative of the specific column address of a given locational area of said map and a third set of at least one command digit for determining the desired status of illumination of the individual light located at said given row and column address on said display board;
means for converting each of said sets of decimal digits of information into their binary equivalents such that said first set of decimal digits is represented by a first binary number having "m" bit positions, said second set of decimal digits is represented by a second binary number having "n" bit positions and said third set of at least one command digit is represented by a third binary number;
means for temporarily storing said binary numbers, said storage means including a first set of outputs for outputting said first binary number, a second set of outputs for outputting said second binary number and means responsive to a first value of said command digit for generating a "light on" signal and to a second value of said command digit for generating a "light off" signal;
scanning means including a 2m+n bit binary up counter having a first set of "m" outputs corresponding to the first "m" bit positions of the counter and a second set of "n" outputs corresponding to the next successive "n" bit positions of the counter;
row comparator means having a first set of comparator inputs coupled to the first set of outputs of said temporary storage means, a second set of comparator inputs coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said binary up counter and a comparator output for supplying a "row equal" signal when equivalency exists between said row comparator inputs;
column comparator means having a first set of comparator inputs coupled to said second set of outputs of said temporary storage means, a second set of comparator inputs coupled to said second set of "n" outputs of said binary up counter and a comparator output for supplying a "column equal" signal when equivalency exists between said column comparator inputs;
memory means having at least 2m row by 2n column memory locations, input means coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said binary up counter for scanning said row addresses in said memory and to said second set of "n" outputs of said binary up counter for scanning said column addresses, said memory means further including a write input coupled to said temporary storage means for presenting said "light on" signal and said "light off" signal thereto and a write enable port responsive to the presence of a "write enable" signal for enabling said memory means to write said "light on" and "light off" signals into the memory location then being addressed by said scanning means and a memory output for reading out the "lights on" or "lights off" signal stored in each of said memory locations;
gating means coupled to the outputs of said row and column comparator means for generating a "write enable" signal when said "row equal" and said "column equal" signals exist simultaneously;
row decoder means coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said scanning means for sequentially addressing the rows of said matrix;
column decoder means coupled to said "n" outputs of said scanning means for sequentially addressing the 2n columns of said matrix; and
logical gating means responsive to the output of said row decoder means, the output of said column decoder means, and the output of said memory means for sequentially addressing each of said lights in said matrix and for selectively energizing a given light in said row and column matrix when the command digit entered with said given row and column coordinate so dictates thereby visually displaying the location of said motor vehicle or incident on said display board for command and control purposes.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A positional display system for visually indicating given geographical locations such as the position of motor vehicles such as police cars and/or the location of the occurrence of an incident warranting police attention. The system includes a display board having a row and column matrix of individual lights and a map of the local geographic area of concern overlaying the matrix so that each light represents a unique map section. Whenever a patrol car transmits its position to a central station or a remote alarm indicates the occurrence of a robbery or the like, information indicative of the row and column address of the given location and at least one instructional command for determining the light status are entered. The entered information is converted into binary numbers indicative of the row and column addresses and the converted binary numbers are temporarily stored. The stored numbers are compared with the output of a scanning counter. The comparator outputs are gated to enable the instructional command for determining the status of the lights to be entered into a memory whenever the entered row and column address is scanned by the counter. The scanning counter is also coupled to a row decoder which sequentially generates the series of individual row scan signals and to a column decoder which sequentially generates a series of column scan signals. These signals are gated with the output of the memory and used to address corresponding rows and columns of the matrix so that when each row and column light is addressed, its illumination status will be determined by the memory output in accordance with the instructional command. If the location of the police cars are entered with an instructional command specifying a steady light condition and the location of an incident is entered with an instructional command specifying a blinking light, the person observing a display board will observe the locations of all patrol cars as steady lights and the location of the incident as a blinking light and will be able to determine which car is closest to the location of the incident for facilitating command and control dispatching decisions and the like.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A positional display system of visually indicating a given location such as the location of a motor vehicle such as a plice car or the location of the occurrence of an incident warranting police attention to aid in making command and control decisions, said positional display system comprising:
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a display board including a row and column matrix of individual lights and a map overlaying said matrix so that each of said individual lights represents a unique locational area of said map; means for inputting a sequence of decimal digits of information including a first set of decimal digits indicative of the specific row address of a given locational area of said map, a second set of decimal digits indicative of the specific column address of a given locational area of said map and a third set of at least one command digit for determining the desired status of illumination of the individual light located at said given row and column address on said display board; means for converting each of said sets of decimal digits of information into their binary equivalents such that said first set of decimal digits is represented by a first binary number having "m" bit positions, said second set of decimal digits is represented by a second binary number having "n" bit positions and said third set of at least one command digit is represented by a third binary number; means for temporarily storing said binary numbers, said storage means including a first set of outputs for outputting said first binary number, a second set of outputs for outputting said second binary number and means responsive to a first value of said command digit for generating a "light on" signal and to a second value of said command digit for generating a "light off" signal; scanning means including a 2m+n bit binary up counter having a first set of "m" outputs corresponding to the first "m" bit positions of the counter and a second set of "n" outputs corresponding to the next successive "n" bit positions of the counter; row comparator means having a first set of comparator inputs coupled to the first set of outputs of said temporary storage means, a second set of comparator inputs coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said binary up counter and a comparator output for supplying a "row equal" signal when equivalency exists between said row comparator inputs; column comparator means having a first set of comparator inputs coupled to said second set of outputs of said temporary storage means, a second set of comparator inputs coupled to said second set of "n" outputs of said binary up counter and a comparator output for supplying a "column equal" signal when equivalency exists between said column comparator inputs; memory means having at least 2m row by 2n column memory locations, input means coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said binary up counter for scanning said row addresses in said memory and to said second set of "n" outputs of said binary up counter for scanning said column addresses, said memory means further including a write input coupled to said temporary storage means for presenting said "light on" signal and said "light off" signal thereto and a write enable port responsive to the presence of a "write enable" signal for enabling said memory means to write said "light on" and "light off" signals into the memory location then being addressed by said scanning means and a memory output for reading out the "lights on" or "lights off" signal stored in each of said memory locations; gating means coupled to the outputs of said row and column comparator means for generating a "write enable" signal when said "row equal" and said "column equal" signals exist simultaneously; row decoder means coupled to said first set of "m" outputs of said scanning means for sequentially addressing the rows of said matrix; column decoder means coupled to said "n" outputs of said scanning means for sequentially addressing the 2n columns of said matrix; and logical gating means responsive to the output of said row decoder means, the output of said column decoder means, and the output of said memory means for sequentially addressing each of said lights in said matrix and for selectively energizing a given light in said row and column matrix when the command digit entered with said given row and column coordinate so dictates thereby visually displaying the location of said motor vehicle or incident on said display board for command and control purposes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A positional location display system for visually displaying the position of a vehicle such as a police car on a map matrix comprising:
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means for generating input signals representing "d" decimal digits of information relating to at least the positional coordinates of a motor vehicle such as a police car and a command instruction directing "light on" and "light off" status conditions; priority encoding means for receiving said input signals representing said decimal digits of information and for sequentially encoding said input signals one digit at a time into binary coded decimal form, said priority encoding means producing a 1'"'"'s, 2'"'"'s, 4'"'"'s and 8'"'"'s binary bit respectfully for each decimal digit as it is encoded, said priority encoder means further including delay means responsive to the completion of encoding of each of said decimal digits for generating a shift pulse; shift register means including a 1'"'"'s position shift register for receiving and storing the units bit of each binary encoded digit of information entered into said priority encoding means, a 2'"'"'s position shift register for receiving and storing the 2'"'"'s bit of each binary encoded digit of information entered into said priority encoding means, a 4'"'"'s position shift register for receiving and storing the 4'"'"'s bit of each binary encoded digit of information entered into said priority encoding means, and an 8'"'"'s position shift register for receiving and storing the 8'"'"'s bit for each binary encoded digit of information entered into said priority encoding means, each of said shift registers having a separate stage and output for each of said "d" digits of information to be entered, each of said shift registers being coupled to said shift pulse-generating means and being responsive to the generation of a shift pulse indicative of the completed entry of a digit of information for shifting the stored contents of each of the "d" stages thereof to the next higher stage to enable said shift register to receive the binary representation of the next sequentially encoded digit of information, said shift register means further including a first counting means coupled to said shift pulse generating means for counting said shift pulses and generating a "last count" signal when "d" digits of information have been entered and "d" shift pulses counted; first means coupled to the outputs of those shift register stages which ultimately store information for defining the "x" coordinates of positional location of said vehicle for generating a first "m" bit binary number representative of said "x" coordinate; second means coupled to the outputs of those shift register stages which ultimately store information for defining the "y" coordinates of positional location of said vehicle for generating a second "n" bit binary number representative of said "y" coordinate; third means coupled to the outputs of those shift register stages which ultimately store information for defining said command instruction for outputting "light on" and "light off" status condition commands; a parallel-in/serial-out register coupled to the said first and second means for receiving in parallel an m+n bit sequence of binary bits representing the "x" and "y" coordinates of said vehicle and for serially outputting said m+n bit data sequence upon command; clock means responsive to the generation of said "last count" signal for generating clock pulses at a predetermined rate; a second counter means coupled to said clock means and said parallel-in/serial-out means for counting out exactly m+n of said clock pulses before disabling said clock means and outputting a "termination flag" pulse indicating that said m+n pulses have been counted, said parallel-in/serial-out register means being responsive to said m+n counted clock pulses for shifting out said m+n binary bits of stored data in response thereto; serial-in/parallel-out means coupled to said clock means and said parallel-in/serial-out register means for serially receiving said m+n bit sequence of binary bits, said serial-in/parallel-out means including a set of "m" row outputs of outputting in parallel the first "m" binary bits of received data representative of the "x" coordinates of said vehicle and further including a set of "n" column outputs for outputting in parallel the next "n" binary bits of received data representative of the "y" coordinates of said vehicle; a relatively high speed master clock for generating master clock pulses at a predetermined rate; a 2m+n binary up counter for counting said master clock pulses, said binary up counter having a first set of "m" row counter outputs and a second set of "n" column counter outputs, said first set of "m" row counter outputs corresponding to the first "m" consecutive lower ordered binary places while said second set of "n" column counter outputs correspond to the next higher ordered "n" consecutive binary places of said count; row comparator means having a first set of "m" inputs coupled to the "m" outputs of said serial-in/parallel-out means and a second set of "m" inputs coupled to said first set of "m" row counter outputs of said binary up counter for comparing the binary number representation of the "x" coordinate which is stored on said "m" row outputs with the changing binary count on said "m" row counter outputs and for outputting a "row match" signal when equality exists; column comparator means having a first set of "n" inputs coupled to the "n" column outputs of said serial-in/parallel-out means and a second set of "n" inputs coupled to said second set of "n" column counter outputs of said binary up counter for comparing the binary number representing the "y" coordinate which is stored on said "n" column outputs with the changing binary count on said "n" column counter outputs and for outputting a "column match" signal when equality exists; gating means responsive to the generation of said "row match" signal, said "column match" signal and said "termination flag" signal for generating a "write command" signal; a random access memory coupled to the row and column counter outputs of said binary up counter for sequentially scanning the row and column address locations thereof, said random access memory including an input for receiving said "lights on" and "lights off" command instruction and further including an input responsive to the generation of said "write command" signal for enabling said random access memory to write said command instruction into the address location then being scanned by said row and column counter outputs and further including output means for reading out the stored "lights on" or "lights off" command whenever said address location is scanned by said row and column counter outputs; a matrix display of lighting means overlaid with a map representing the geographical area of concern to the user of the system, said matrix display having "a" rows of lighting means, each of said rows having "b" individual lighting means therein; and logic means responsive to said row and column counter outputs and to said random access memory output means for selectively lighting or not lighting the particular individual light means of the matrix display corresponding to the actual positional location of the vehicle which was previously entered into the system to provide a visual indication of the position of the vehicle for dispatch and control purposes.
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Specification