Marine emergency position indicating system

• US 9,384,648 B2
• Filed: 11/11/2011
• Issued: 07/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Shanghai Radio Equipment RES Institute
• Original Assignee: Shanghai Radio Equipment Institute
• Inventors: Yan, Xiaoshang, Liang, Yi, Yan, Peng
• Primary Examiner(s): Backer, Firmin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kingston, Shawna M
• Application Number:
  US13/703,540
• Publication Number:
  US 20140191865A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,698 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 11/06 using intensity measurements
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/48 the waves arriving at the antennas being continuous or intermittent and the phase difference of signals derived therefrom being measured
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0231 Emergency, distress or locator beacons
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/12 by co-ordinating position lines of different shape, e.g. hyperbolic, circular, elliptical or radial
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/088 by monitoring a device worn by the person, e.g. a bracelet attached to the swimmer

Abstract

A marine emergency position indicating system that can communicate wirelessly between beacon and search engine is provided. When someone carrying the beacon falls into the water, power supply of the beacon opens through drowning automatic switch or manual switch, therefore the beacon can emit wireless SOS signals out. Rescue boat or aircraft installed with search engine can search and receive SOS signals sent from beacons over a 5-kilometer radius along the way to accidental site. The search engine can distinguish the beacons around this area and determine the direction and approximate distance between drowning persons carrying beacons and the search engine through wireless communication technology and wireless positioning technology to help rescuers implement fixed-point rescue. Therefore, the marine emergency position indicating system can overcome the bad weather impact on marine rescue, speed up the rescue process and improve the success possibilities of fixed-point rescue.

Claims

1. A marine emergency position indicating system comprising:

a beacon, carried by marine staff, configured to send out wireless communication signals after a ship wreck, the beacon containing a power supply circuit, a signal process circuit, and an antenna, which are electrically connected;

a search engine, mounted in a rescue boat or an aircraft, the search engine receiving wireless communication signals from neighboring beacons within a certain range and having a signal demodulation module for user identification and conflict detection, and two signal process modules for calculating relative distance and direction of each beacon based on the communication signals;

modules within the search engine indicating the beacon direction, the modules containing;

a direction finding antenna array, which contains multiple antennas according to the design of a distribution array, which respectively receive the wireless communication signals matched with the same beacon'"'"'s emitting frequencies;

an antenna signal process module having a change-over switch, the change-over switch integrating multi-channel signals from the multiple antennas of the direction finding antenna array into one channel;

a mixer amplifier module, which converts the integrated one channel signal output from the antenna signal process module to a pre-set frequency and amplifies this signal in the whole signal range to a pre-set amplitude,

wherein the antenna signal process module transmits the integrated one channel signal to the mixer amplifier module through one long distance cable; and

a direction finding data process module, which samples the signals output from the mixer amplifier module on time-division base, recovers the multi-channel signals received from the direction finding antenna array, calculates phase differences of the multi-channel signals, and determines the relative direction between the sending beacon and the search engine.

2. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 1, wherein

the power supply circuit of the beacon contains power management module, signal trigger switch and battery which are respectively electrical connected to the said power management module, the signal trigger switch contains manual switch and drowning automatic switch which are respectively electrical connected to the power management module;

the battery provides working power for the beacon;

the manual switch can be used to manually open the power management module to make the beacon entering into working status;

the drowning automatic switch can automatically open the power management module to make the beacon entering into working status by the way of detecting immergence; and

the power management module can convert the supply voltage from battery into stable output working voltage when manual switch or drowning automatic switch is opened.

3. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 2, wherein, an additional power switch, which is set between the battery and the power management module, can control the beacon to switch states between low power standby and power-off.

4. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 3, wherein,

the signal process circuit of the beacon contains system control module, modulation module, power amplifier and filter, which are electrical connected in sequence;

the system control module is connected to the power management module;

the filter is electrical connected to the antenna;

the system control module transmits emitting data to the modulation module and controls the emitting timeline after receiving working voltage output from the power management module;

the modulation module converts the received emitting data into modulated signals and transfers the signals to the power amplifier;

the power amplifier amplifies the received modulated signals to the emitting power required and transmits them to filter;

the filter receives the amplified signals from the power amplifier, and filters their noise and harmonic signals.

5. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 2, wherein the beacon also contains a buzzer connected to the power management module, and the buzzer beeps when it receives the stable output working voltage from the power management module.

6. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 1, wherein

the search engine comprises:

a communication antenna, which receives the wireless communication signals matched with the frequency emitted from the beacon;

a filter amplifier module, which receives signals output from the communication antenna, filters noise from them and amplifies the required radio signals, wherein

the signal demodulation module demodulates the signals output from the filter amplifier module, determines whether the signal is sent from the beacon with simultaneously deciding on beacon ID to distinguish multi-users according to the demodulated information, and confirms validity of this communication to realize conflict detection based on correctness of transmitted data; and

the modules within the search engine indicating the relative distance include a signal detect module, which detects amplitude of the signals output from the filter amplifier module and estimates the relative distance between the sending beacon and the search engine.

7. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 6, wherein

the antenna signal process module comprises:

an interface driving module, which receives the control instruction and power output from the search engine host and forms control driving signals,

the change-over switch integrating the multi-channel received signals from the direction finding antenna array into one channel by time division based on related control driving instruction; and

a SAW-filter and amplifier, wherein the SAW-filter filters the integrated signal and the amplifier amplifies the integrated signal, and then transmits the integrated signal to the subsequent modules.

8. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 7, wherein

the change-over switch comprises:

multiple signal input end, which are connected to the multiple antennas from the direction finding antenna array respectively and receive the multi-channel signals from the multiple antennas;

several control instruction input ends, which receive related control instructions output from the search engine host through the interface driving module; and

one signal output end, which is only connected to only one received signal of the changeover switch inputs under each selected status driven by the control instruction, to make the multi-channel receiving signals exist on time-division and integrated into one channel signal.

9. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 8, wherein

the search engine further comprises:

a system control module, which receives signals respectively output from the signal demodulation module, signal detect module and direction finding data process module, and controls the working status of the whole search engine;

a display module, connected to the system control module, which directly shows the information depicting the direction and the distance of the beacon on LCD;

a buzzer, connected to the system control module, which beeps differently according to the received beacon signals to remind rescuers.

10. The marine emergency position indicating system of claim 4, wherein

the search engine comprises:

a communication antenna, which receives the wireless communication signals matched with beacon'"'"'s emitting frequency,

a filter amplifier module, which receives signals output from the said communication antenna, filters noise from them and amplifies the required radio signals, wherein

the signal demodulation module demodulates the signals output from the filter amplifier module, determines whether the signal is sent from the beacon with simultaneously deciding on beacon ID to distinguish multi-users according to the demodulated information, and confirms validity of this communication to realize conflict detection based on correctness of transmitted data; and

the modules within the search engine indicating the relative distance include a signal detect module, which detects amplitude of the signals output from the filter amplifier module and estimates on the relative distance between the sending beacon and the search engine.