Systems and methods for tracking a person

• US 10,462,609 B1
• Filed: 11/02/2018
• Issued: 10/29/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Christopher Paul Carroll
• Original Assignee: Christopher Paul Carroll
• Inventors: Carroll, Christopher Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Dung
• Application Number:
  US16/179,093
• Time in Patent Office: 361 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

The application describes systems and methods for associating a person with one or more wireless devices. The system includes a first wireless reader arranged to detect a first set of wireless device identities at a first time period and at a first location. The system also includes a second wireless reader arranged to detect second set of wireless device identities at a second time period and at a second location. The system further includes a server, in electronic communication with the first and second wireless readers via a network, arranged to: receive the first set of detected wireless device identities from the first wireless reader and the second set of detected wireless device identities from the second wireless reader; compare the first set of wireless device identities with the second set of wireless device identities; identify a first matching set of wireless device identities including matching wireless device identities between the first set of wireless device identities and the second set of wireless device identities; and associate a first user identity with the first matching set of wireless device identities.

Claims

1. A system for associating a person with one or more wireless devices comprising:

a first wireless reader arranged to detect a first set of wireless device identifiers at a first time and at a first location;

a second wireless reader arranged to detect a second set of wireless device identifiers at a second time and at a second location; and

a server, in electronic communication with the first and second wireless readers via a network, arranged to;

receive the first set of detected wireless device identifiers from the first wireless reader and the second set of detected wireless device identifiers from the second wireless reader;

compare the first set of wireless device identifiers with the second set of wireless device identifiers;

identify a first matching set of wireless device identifiers including matching wireless device identifiers between the first set of wireless device identifiers and the second set of wireless device identifiers; and

associate a first user identity with the first matching set of wireless device identifiers.

2. The system of claim 1, comprising a plurality of wireless readers dispersed over a plurality of known locations, wherein the server is further arranged to track the location of the first user based on detecting at least one wireless device identifier of the first matching set of wireless device identifiers at one of the plurality of known locations.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein tracking the location of the first user includes:

comparing each of the received plurality of wireless device identifiers with at least one wireless device identifier of the first matching set of wireless device identifiers, and

determining a location of the first user based on identifying a match between one of the received plurality of wireless device identifiers and the at least one wireless device identifier of the first matching set of wireless device identifiers.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein a location includes an area of wireless coverage of a wireless reader.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein a wireless reader includes at least one of an RFID reader, a base station, an access point, a base station emulator, and an access point emulator, a wireless network emulator, a data network emulator, a data service emulator, a website emulator, a wireless network scanner, and an access point scanner.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the first wireless reader and the second wireless reader are the same and the first location and the second location are the same.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein detecting identifiers at the first and second times is performed for the duration of a time period, wherein the time period is less than or equal to one of 1 second, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 day, 1 month, and 1 year.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the second time occurs after the first time.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the first wireless reader includes a wireless interface implementing a first wireless protocol and the second wireless reader includes a wireless interface implementing a second wireless protocol different from the first wireless protocol.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the first and second wireless protocols include one of mobile telephone standard, an 802.11 standard, a Wifi-based standard, a Bluetooth standard, and an RFID standard.

11. The system of claim 1 comprising a third wireless reader arranged to detect a third set of wireless device identifiers at a third time and at a third location, the server further arranged to:

compare the third set of wireless device identifiers with the first matching set of wireless device identifiers;

identify a second matching set of wireless device identifiers including matching wireless device identifiers between the third set of wireless device identifiers and the first matching set of wireless device identifiers; and

associate the first user identity with the second matching set of wireless device identifiers.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the third time occurs after the first and second time periods.

13. The system of claim 12, comprising a plurality of wireless readers dispersed over a plurality of locations, wherein the server is further arranged to track the location of the first user based on detecting at least one wireless device identifier of the second matching set of wireless device identifiers.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more wireless devices include at least one of a handheld computer, a personal digital assistant, a cellular or mobile telephone, a network appliance, a camera, a smart phone, a media player, a navigation device, an email device, a game console, or a combination of any two or more of these data processing devices, or a data processing device including a wireless communications interface.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is further arranged to determine a type of wireless device identifier of one or more of the wireless identifiers of the first and second set of wireless identifiers.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein determining the type of wireless device identifier is based on one or more of a size of a wireless device identifier, a format of a wireless device identifier, a message containing a wireless device identifier, a wireless protocol containing a wireless device identifier, a data protocol containing a wireless device identifier, and the type of message containing a wireless device identifier.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the server assigns a weight to a wireless device identifier based on the type of wireless device identifier.

18. A server for associating a person with one or more wireless devices comprising:

a communications interface configured to;

receive, from a first wireless reader, a first set of wireless device identifiers detected at a first time and at a first location;

receive, from a second wireless reader, a second set of wireless device identifiers detected at a second time and at a second location; and

a processor configured to;

compare the first set of wireless device identifiers with the second set of wireless device identifiers;

identify a first matching set of wireless device identifiers including matching wireless device identifiers between the first set of wireless device identifiers and the second set of wireless device identifiers; and

associate a first user identity with the first matching set of wireless device identifiers.

19. The server of claim 18 comprising a memory for storing location information associated with each of a plurality of wireless readers dispersed over a plurality of locations;

wherein the communications interface is configured to receive a plurality of wireless device identifiers from the plurality of wireless readers, and wherein the processor is configured to;

compare each of the received plurality of wireless device identifiers with at least one wireless device identifier of the first matching set of wireless device identifiers, and

determine a location of the first user based on identifying a match between one of the received plurality of wireless device identifiers and the at least one wireless device identifier of the first matching set of wireless device identifiers.

20. A non-transient computer readable medium containing program instructions for causing a computer to perform the method of:

receiving, from a first wireless reader, a first set of wireless device identifiers detected at a first time and at a first location;

receiving, from a second wireless reader, a second set of wireless device identifiers detected at a second time and at a second location;

comparing the first set of wireless device identifiers with the second set of wireless device identifiers;

identifying a first matching set of wireless device identifiers by matching wireless device identifiers between the first set of wireless device identifiers and the second set of wireless device identifiers; and

associating a first user identity with the first matching set of wireless device identifiers.