Networked pest control system

• US 9,542,835 B2
• Filed: 07/21/2014
• Issued: 01/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ecolab USA Incorporated (Ecolab, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dow Agrosciences LLC (Corteva, Inc.)
• Inventors: Borth, Paul W., Scherer, Peter N., Tolley, Mike P., Voglewede, Christopher J., Schneider, Brian M., Orr, Nailah, Baxter, Richard V. Jr., Brune, Douglas K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tweel, Jr., John A
• Application Number:
  US14/336,529
• Publication Number:
  US 20140325892A1
• Time in Patent Office: 904 Days
• Field of Search: 340/573.2, 340/573.1, 340/531, 738/658, 43/82, 431/321
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 1/02 with devices or substances, e.g. food, pheronones attracting the insects
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 1/026 combined with devices for monitoring insect presence, e.g. termites bait stations A01M1/2005; detecting other animals in a given area A01M31/002
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 1/103 for crawling insects
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 1/2011 for crawling insects
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 2200/011 Crawling insects
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 23/00 Traps for animals
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 23/30 Break-back traps , i.e. mouse-trap type
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 23/38 Electric traps
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 25/002 Bait holders, i.e. stationary devices for holding poisonous bait at the disposal of the animal
• CPC Class Codes: A01M 31/002 Detecting animals in a given area
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/265 by moving the sensor relative to a stationary material
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/04 adapted for relaying to or from another terminal or user

Abstract

A pest control device system includes a plurality of pest control devices and a data collector. The system may further include the data collector in the form of a gateway that is connected to a data management server via a computer network along with other gateways in corresponding pest control device groups. Each pest control device includes a pest sensor and a wireless communication circuit to transmit information from the corresponding sensor. The devices also configure to define a local wireless communication network that can relay the information from one to the next and ultimately to the data collector.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of pest control devices, each pest control device including (i) a bait including a pest-consumable material, (ii) a sensor operable to generate a detection signal indicative of a pest presence, (iii) a controller configured to receive the detection signal and generate an electronic signal based on the detection signal, and (iv) a wireless communication circuit operable to transmit the electronic signal,

a gateway to receive electronic signals from the plurality of pest control devices, and

a wireless communication node operable to relay electronic signals to the gateway from the plurality of pest control devices,

wherein the wireless communication node, the plurality of pest control devices, the gateway are configured to establish a wireless communication network, and (ii) each pest control device includes a human-detectable indicator to indicate establishment of the wireless communication network.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the bait includes an attractant for at least one of bedbugs and termites.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the bait includes an attractant for rodents.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a computer network in communication with the gateway,

a data management server in communication with the computer network to receive and store data based on the electronic signals from the plurality of pest control devices, and

a user access client connected to the computer network to access data stored in the data management server.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a second plurality of pest control devices, each pest control device including (i) a bait including a pest-consumable material, (ii) a sensor operable to generate a detection signal indicative of a pest presence, (iii) a controller configured to receive the detection signal and generate an electronic signal based on the detection signal, and (iv) a wireless communication circuit operable to transmit the electronic signal, and

a second wireless communication node operable to relay electronic signals to the gateway from the second plurality of pest control devices.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the human-detectable indicator is a visual indicator.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor is operable to generate the detection signal based on electrical capacitance.

8. A method comprising:

positioning a wireless communication node at a first position,

generating a first output at the wireless communication node to indicate direct or indirect communication between the wireless communication node and a data collector,

positioning a pest control device at a second position, the pest control device including a pest sensor, a bait including a pest-consumable material, and a wireless communication circuit, and

generating a second output at the pest control device to indicate direct or indirect communication between the pest control device and the data collector.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the first output includes a luminous visual output and the second output includes a luminous visual output.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating a third output different than the second output at the pest control device when the pest control device fails to establish a wireless communication link after a predefined period of time.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

installing one or more other pest control devices in response to the third output, and

after the installing of the one or more other pest control devices, attempting again to establish the wireless communication link for the selected pest control device.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

positioning additional pest control devices to form a number of pest control device groups,

providing a number of different gateways, each gateway corresponding to a respective one of the number of pest control device groups,

monitoring each of several different locations with the respective one of the number of pest control device groups, the different locations being remote from one another,

from each gateway, communicating information to a data management server, and

establishing user access with the data management server.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

transmitting sensor information from the pest sensor of the pest control device to the wireless communication node, and

relaying the sensor information from the wireless communication node to the data collector.

14. A system, comprising:

a pest control device, including;

a pest sensor operable to generate one or more signals representative of pest detection,

a bait including a pest-consumable material,

circuitry including (i) a wireless communication transceiver coupled to the pest sensor to transmit information corresponding to the pest detection, and (ii) a controller to execute operating logic to establish a wireless communication link with one or more other devices, and

an indicator coupled to the circuitry to provide a first operator output indicative of establishment of the wireless communication link, and a second operator output indicative of failure to establish the wireless communication link.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a gateway to receive the information corresponding to the pest detection from the pest control device.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a wireless communication node operable to relay the information corresponding to the pest detection to the gateway from the pest control device.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the wireless communication node includes a second pest control device.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the gateway includes means for communicating sensor status information from the pest control device to a data management server, and the data management server includes (i) means for storing and evaluating the sensor status information and (ii) means for accessing data stored with the data management server by a user.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the pest control device includes at least one of a hall effect device or a magnetoresistor.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the pest control device includes a component responsive to user input to place the transceiver in an installation mode, and the controller is configured to execute the operating logic to establish the wireless communication link with one or more other devices during the installation mode.