Emergency reporting apparatus

• US 7,044,742 B2
• Filed: 12/26/2002
• Issued: 05/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushikikaisha Equos Research
• Original Assignee: Kabushikikaisha Equos Research
• Inventors: Hori, Koji, Kubota, Tomoki, Fujii, Kazuaki, Sumiya, Koji
• Primary Examiner(s): Cheng, Joe H.
• Application Number:
  US10/328,021
• Publication Number:
  US 20030128123A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,237 Days
• Field of Search: 434/30, 434/35, 434/38, 434/111, 434/118, 434/218, 434/219, 434/226, 434/236, 434/319, 434/305, 434/322, 434/350, 434/365, 340/573.1, 340/438, 340/425.5, 340/515, 340/426.19, 340/539.21, 340/945, 340/909, 704/270, 704/273, 701/1, 701/3, 701/29, 379/49, 235/462.49, 273/252, 455/456.3, 368/10, 705/26, 280/735, 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 434/305
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 23/00 Alarms responsive to unspecified undesired or abnormal conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/006 Alarm destination chosen according to type of event, e.g. in case of fire phone the fire service, in case of medical emergency phone the ambulance

Abstract

An emergency reporting apparatus is provided which is capable of easily acquiring passenger information necessary at the time of an emergency report and reporting as deputy for a passenger in the case of an emergency. The emergency reporting apparatus, in a training mode, simulates questions from an emergency rescue facility which will be addressed when an emergency situation occurs, and learns and stores the reply contents and response procedures. From the questions and replies, the emergency reporting apparatus automatically acquires the necessary passenger information. Then, the emergency reporting apparatus reports, as a deputy for the user, the passenger information acquired in the training mode when there is no reaction from the user at the time of an actual emergency.

Claims

1. An emergency reporting apparatus which reports an emergency situation involving a vehicle or a passenger within the a vehicle to an emergency report destination, comprising:

training means for simulating an emergency situation and report to an emergency report destination;

passenger information storage means for storing information pertaining to the passenger;

wherein said training means comprises;

suggestions means for suggesting different types of emergency situations;

selecting means for selecting an emergency situation suggested by said suggestion means; and

question means for outputting one or more questions corresponding to the emergency situation selected by said selection means; and

wherein said suggestion means selects the suggested emergency situations based on the passenger information stored in said passenger information storage means.

2. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

answer receiving means for receiving an answer to the question by said question means; and

a training evaluation means for outputting an evaluation of the answer received by said answer receiving means.

3. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

present position information detection means for detecting information pertaining to a present location of the vehicle,

wherein said suggestion means, in selecting the suggested emergency situations, also refers to the present position information detected by said present position information detection means.

4. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

result storage means for storing results obtained in simulation by said training means,

wherein said suggestion means, in selecting the suggested emergency situations, also refers to the results obtained in simulation and stored in said result storage means.

5. The emergency reporting apparatus which reports an emergency situation, involving a vehicle or a passenger within the a vehicle, to an emergency report destination, comprising:

training means for simulating an emergency situation and report to the emergency report destination;

passenger information storage means for storing as, passenger information, results obtained in simulation by said training means;

detection means for detecting an occurrence of an emergency involving the vehicle or the passenger; and

passenger information transmission means for transmitting to the emergency report destination, the passenger information stored in said passenger information storage means, when said detection means detects the occurrence of the emergency situation.

6. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising:

response capability judging means for judging whether the passenger is capable of responding to the emergency report destination, when said detection means detects the occurrence of the emergency situation,

wherein said passenger information transmission means transmits the passenger information when said response capability judging means judges that the passenger is incapable of responding.

7. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein said training means comprises:

question means for outputting one or more questions simulating an emergency situation; and

answer receiving means for receiving an answer to the question output by said question means,

wherein said passenger information storage means stores the answer to the question received by said answer receiving means.

8. The emergency reporting apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein said passenger information transmission means comprises a voice output means for outputting by voice in the vehicle the passenger information transmitted to the emergency report destination.