Location, tracking and alerting apparatus and method

• US 20070159322A1
• Filed: 10/27/2006
• Published: 07/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Ian Griffin
• Original Assignee: Ian Griffin
• Inventors: Garratt Campbell, Thomas
• Application Number:
  US11/588,571
• Publication Number:
  US 20070159322A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/539.130
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements

Abstract

This invention describes a product that is used during emergency incidents where the location of people can be used to track who could have been involved in the incident for example Industrial Accidents, Extreme Weather, Natural Disasters, Terrorist Attacks etc. The service locates people using devices they carry with them typically their mobile phone (1). The people'"'"'s locations are compared to the location and radius of the incident and the probability that they may have been involved in the incident is determined (possible or low probability). People are also automatically contacted by a verity of means for example SMS (2) to their mobile and asked to confirm their status. Their status is automatically updated and available to people who they have linked themselves to via the service.

Claims

1. A method of determining the status of holders of mobile communications terminals during an incident, comprising determining the location of an incident;

determining the position of the mobile terminal and using the position of the mobile terminal relative to the incident to determine the state of the user of that terminal, and using that status to transmit a message concerning the user'"'"'s status to one or more selected contacts of that user.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, including a step of determining whether the terminal is within a predetermined distance from the epicentre of the incident or of the incident or not and sending an appropriate status message to the one or more contacts accordingly.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2 and if the terminal is within a predetermined distance from the incident, including the step of transmitting a message to the terminal requesting a response so that the status transmitted can be based upon this response.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a plurality of terminals are monitored, the terminals being grouped and status messages are transmitted to all or selected terminals in a group, representative of the status of one or more other terminals in said group.

5. A system for locating the user of a mobile terminal in the event of an incident and alerting one or more predetermined contacts, the system comprising, in the event of a particular incident, determining the position of the mobile terminal and its relative distance from the incident or the epicentre of an incident, and means for using this position to transmit status messages to one or more predetermined contacts.

6. A system as claimed in claim 5, comprising means for determining whether the terminal is within a predetermined distance from the incident or incident epicentre and, if so, for transmitting a message to the terminal requiring a response so that the presence or absence of a response determines the status transmitted to said one or more contacts.

7. A system as claimed in claim 5 or 6, comprising means for determining whether the terminal is greater than a predetermined distance from the incident or epicentre and, if so, for transmitting a signal to one or more contacts regarding the status of the terminal user.

8. A system as claimed in claim 5, including a plurality of monitored terminals, the terminals being grouped and wherein status messages are transmitted to terminals in a group, representative of the status of one or more other terminals in said group.

9. A system as claimed in claim 6 or 7, wherein a control centre having means for determining the location of an incident.

10. A system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the control centre includes means for receiving details of the incident from a third party.

11. A system as claimed in claim 9, including a location means for providing an indication of the location of the or each monitored terminal to the control centre at the time of the incident.

12. A system as claimed in claim 11, wherein cell-based location is used to determine the location of the or each terminal.

13. A system as claimed in claim 11, wherein GPS or other satellite-based location system is at least partly used to determine the location of the or each terminal.

14. A system as claimed in claim 5, including means for determining the relative distance of the or each monitored terminal from a comparison of the location of the incident and of the location of each terminal, and for determining from the or each terminal, dependent upon the relative distance, whether to request status information from that terminal or not.

15. A system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the messages are sent using SMS, email or other messaging protocol.

16. A system substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to, and as illustrated by, the accompanying drawings.

17. A method substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.