WO2021140479A1

WO2021140479A1 - Electronic device for tracking the position of mobile objects

Info

Publication number: WO2021140479A1
Application number: PCT/IB2021/050124
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mauro MARCHITELLI
Original assignee: St Automotive Srl
Current assignee: St Automotive Srl
Priority date: 2020-01-09
Filing date: 2021-01-08
Publication date: 2021-07-15
Anticipated expiration: 2022-07-09
Also published as: IT202000000223A1

Abstract

The present invention relates to the field of motor vehicles and motorcars, and, more in particular, to an electronic device for tracking the position, and possibly the impact, lifting, movement of mobile objects such as, for example, vehicles, or any other mobile object. Said portable electronic device is substantially a radio beacon, which is installable on vehicles and/or parts thereof, and/or on mobile objects, which comprises: a control unit (1) with microcontroller, and Bluetooth or Wi-Fi transmission means (2) for transmitting identification data thereof, including at least the unique serial number thereof, to smartphone and/or tablet devices provided with a specific software application (App).

Description

ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR TRACKING THE POSITION OF

MOBILE OBJECTS kk:k:k:k:

DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to the field of motor vehicles and motorcars, and, more in particular, to an electronic device for tracking the position, and possibly the impact, lifting, movement of mobile objects such as, for example, vehicles, or any other mobile object.

Specifically, the invention is applicable to components or parts of vehicles and/or motor vehicles whose movements are to be tracked. In this description, reference will be made to the use on a vehicle, although, it is quite apparent that the invention is usable, with the same advantages and without modifications, on any mobile object. Applications are known, available for

Android and iOS, capable of identifying, by means of the license plate and/or chassis number and/or model, a vehicle whose theft has been reported to the authorities. In essence, this known application looks up a database in which the data of the stolen vehicles, regularly reported to law enforcement agencies, are entered.

Said prior art has some disadvantages: first, the stolen vehicle must have already been reported to the authorities in order to be in the application database. A second disadvantage of the prior art is that, in order to proceed with the verification on a vehicle, the license plate and/or the chassis number and/or the vehicle model must be entered, data which may not be immediately accessible or which may be forged.

Finally, a further disadvantage is that the applications of the prior art do not allow locating the vehicle, but only verifying whether a vehicle is present or not in the database related to the stolen vehicles.

It is the main object of the invention to obviate these issues by means of a device which is installable on a vehicle (or other mobile object) which allows automatically detecting the position of said vehicle and possibly alerting the authorities, but also the owner and all the users authorized to look up the information related to the specific vehicle, providing the last available position of the device itself (and therefore of the vehicle on which it is installed), also accompanied by date and time.

In a variant of the invention, such a device may be advantageously coupled to means capable of signaling impacts, lifting, movements of the vehicle, volumetric sensors, as well as means for signaling the attempted theft to a suitable remote server, as well as to the owner of the vehicle, providing the last recorded position of the device, and therefore of the vehicle.

In the drawings: Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the invention (hereinafter referred to as "StarBeacon") showing the microcontroller 1, the Bluetooth transmitter 2 (which may also be a transceiver), the power supply battery 3, the data transceiver antenna 4, and an external antenna 5 (optional).

Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a variant of the invention (hereinafter referred to as "MasterBeacon") showing the microcontroller 1 with eSIM GSM, the transceiver 2 (preferably Bluetooth Low Energy), the power supply battery 3, the data transceiver antenna 4, an external GSM antenna 5, and a movement sensor 6.

According to the present invention, the invention substantially consists of an electronic device, hereinafter referred to as "StarBeacon", configured to communicate with an App which is installable on a smartphone and/or tablet, hereinafter referred to as "Starblock", which App communicates, in turn, with a remote server which is constantly in connection with all the Apps installed on the smartphones and/or tablets.

The electronic device described substantially is a sort of battery-powered radio beacon provided with a unique serial number (ID); comprising a wireless transmitter, preferably Bluetooth, configured to transmit the identification data thereof at predefined time intervals, preferably of the order of seconds or minutes, to be received by at least one mobile phone/tablet on which the aforesaid App is installed.

Such a "StarBeacon" device, which is interfaceable with the "Starblock" remote application, allows the proximity signaling and identification of various types of mobile objects on which it is applicable.

According to a peculiar feature of the invention, associating/installing a corresponding plurality of StarBeacon devices to one or more components/parts of mobile objects, such as vehicles, motorcars, motor vehicles, bicycles, is provided. For example, a plurality of StarBeacons may be installed on a vehicle, in each seat, in the dashboard, in the luggage compartment, etc., so that even if one of such components of the vehicle is smuggled from the vehicle itself, it is trackable and identifiable regardless of the position of the vehicle to which it belonged.

Thereby, each object associated with a specific StarBeacon will correspond to the unique serial number of the latter.

These devices use Smart Bluetooth technology, allowing the exchange of information with all the smartphones and/or tablets, on which the "Starblock" App is installed, which are within reach of signal.

It is another peculiar feature of the invention that all smartphones and/or tablets equipped with Bluetooth technology, which are within reach of signal and on which the application (App) is installed, communicate with the available StarBeacons, storing the data related to the geographical position of the StarBeacon in question by using the GPS sensor of the smartphone, and/or the Wi-Fi position (macro localization) by using the telephone cells and the cellular network. Optionally, the App may also be set to record the data related to the "status" of the sensor in question - i.e., whether it is stolen or not - which is provided by the remote server with which said App communicates.

From an operational point of view, the smartphones and/or tablets on which the application is installed act as detectors of StarBeacon devices, allowing the mapping, and upon the tracking of said sensors, creating a network of detector cells.

In a preferred but non-limiting embodiment, the StarBeacons transmit, at (programmable) intervals, exclusively the serial code thereof, and the App, in communication with the remote server, sends to the remote server the serial codes received from the StarBeacons within reach of signal.

In fact, the application communicates with a remote server in which the statuses of all the StarBeacon devices are recorded and updated.

It is also preferable, although not essential, to provide that each StarBeacon device sends, in addition to the unique serial number thereof, also an additional identification data, common to all StarBeacons, whose sole purpose is to distinguish the serial numbers of the StarBeacons from those of all Bluetooth devices which are active and within reach of the signal of the mobile device (e.g., smartphone/tablet) on which the App is installed. By doing so, the App may advantageously immediately exclude all the serial numbers which do not have that distinctive identifier, such as, for example, a prefix or suffix of the serial number itself.

The tracking of the position of the vehicle (on which at least one StarBeacon is installed) is thus carried out by detecting the signal of the device from multiple software applications (Apps) which communicate the data detected to the server, also allowing the analysis of the movements of the vehicle if this is in motion.

The data flow from the devices to the software application and from the latter to the remote server is normally not "visible" to the user, i.e., the application does not warn the user that it has detected a device which is stolen, but for each of these it transmits the acquired data to the remote server.

In fact, the remote server, for reasons also related to privacy, is programmed to alert exclusively the owner/user of the stolen vehicle and the law enforcement agencies (or supervisory institutions) with the aforementioned data reporting the last detected position, both spatially and temporally, of the stolen vehicle.

Said remote server, may notify the software application of the serial numbers of the stolen sensors, and updates the statuses of those found, making this information available to the application as well.

Furthermore, said server, in the preferred embodiment, does not communicate continuously, but only upon request, notifying the serial numbers of the stolen StarBeacons and updating those found.

Optionally, the electronic device described up to now may be provided with further components which give it additional functions: in this case the device is referred to as "MasterBeacon" (Figure 2).

Said device referred to as MasterBeacon, is also a portable, battery-powered, radio beacon device, provided with at least one lifting/movement/crash sensor, an eSIM and a hyperfrequency transducer. The MasterBeacon is configured to operate both in beacon (radio beacon) as well as in Bluetooth (bidirectional) mode.

The hyperfrequency sensor is like a volumetric sensor, but it operates much better, since it identifies the presence of moving objects inside the vehicle even if it is of the cabriolet type. In essence, it is more immune to false alarms.

Unlike the StarBeacon, the MasterBeacon device is provided with means for communicating in connected mode, directly and exclusively with the application installed on the smartphone and/or tablet of the owner of the vehicle (and therefore of the MasterBeacon).

Thereby, if the MasterBeacon installed on a vehicle is not close to the smartphone of the owner, and a theft or a movement due to other causes (e.g., forced removal) is ongoing, the MasterBeacon itself provides, by means of the eSIM thereof, to send an alarm to both the owner and the remote server, and possibly to the law enforcement agencies.

The "Starblock" application is preferably installable on Android or iOS devices or devices provided with other operating systems. In a preferred but non-limiting embodiment, such an application communicates with the StarBeacon and MasterBeacon devices via the Bluetooth signal, and with the remote server via the cellular network; however, it is possible to implement other communication methods by means of Wi-Fi or SMS or even on the voice channel.

The owner of the StarBeacon/MasterBeacon device (s), or whoever has the requirements to access the status of these devices, may change the status of such devices by means of the application; thereby, the remote server is notified about the change of status of the StarBeacon/MasterBeacon device.

The data, collected and transmitted to the remote server by the applications installed on the various smartphones/tablets of the users, are advantageously usable to provide a plurality of services, such as the processing of statistics related to big data.

It is useful to note that said unique serial code of the StarBeacon device may be advantageously formed by the MAC address of the StarBeacon, since, being a unique value, as it is issued by an international body (so as not to have conflicts of value), it may advantageously be directly used as an identifier.

Furthermore, in a variant of the invention, it is also possible to provide that the identifiers of the devices associated with stolen vehicles are stored on the App of the smartphone/tablet, so that when the App receives one of such identifiers (for example, the MAC address) it immediately sends the alert to the server, with the position, time, and other data of the "stolen" StarBeacon. The server will communicate with the appropriate entities, law enforcement agencies, user, etc.

Finally, it should be noted that, although in the present description reference has been made, for the sake of brevity, to communication systems of the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi type, the same invention is applicable, without substantial modifications, also using other wireless technologies. Similar considerations apply to smartphones or tablets, or to other mobile devices and the operating systems thereof, which may be Android, iOS, or another type.

KEY

1.Control unit with CPU microcontroller (optionally provided with GSM in Figure 2) 2.Transmitter or transceiver

3.External or internal power supply battery

4.Data transceiver antenna connected to the transmitter/transceiver

5.GSM antenna (optional in Figure 1). 6.Movement sensor

Claims

1. A portable, electronic radio beacon device which is installable on vehicles and/or parts thereof, and/or on mobile objects, which is usable for tracking the position of such vehicles, characterized in that it comprises: a control unit (1) with microcontroller, as well as Bluetooth or wireless transmission means (2) for transmitting identification data thereof, including at least the unique serial number thereof, to smartphone and/or tablet devices provided with a specific software application (App).

2. A device according to the preceding claim, characterized in that it is provided with at least one battery.

3. A device according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that it further comprises: at least one lifting and/or movement and/or crash sensor (6), at least one eSim.

4. A device according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises at least one volume transducer to detect break-ins.

5. A system for tracking the position of vehicles or mobile objects, comprising:

- one or more portable electronic devices according to at least one of the preceding claims, which are installable on said vehicles and/or mobile objects; - one or more smartphones and/or tablets;

- at least one remote server; characterized in that said smartphones and/or tablets are provided with means for implementing a software application (App) configured to exchange data with said electronic devices and transmit, to said remote server, the data related to the unique serial number received by each device, together with the geographical position thereof - detected upon the reception by means of a GPS sensor of the smartphone and/or tablet, and/or the Wi-Fi position (macro-location) detected by using the telephone cells of the cellular network of the same smartphone and/or tablet - as well as the date and time of such a detection.

6. A system according to the preceding claim, characterized in that each portable, electronic radio beacon device is provided with means configured to transmit the identification data thereof to all smartphone and/or tablet devices within reach of a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signal.

7. A system according to claim 5 or 6, characterized in that the application installed on the smartphones and/or tablets is configured to transmit the received data to said remote server, updated with the sensor "status", wherein said server is provided with means for notifying the owner alone and/or law enforcement agencies and/or supervisory institutions of the sensor identification data along with geographical position, date and time only if the sensor status corresponds to that of the stolen vehicle.

8. A device according to claim 3 or 4, characterized in that it further comprises at least one hyper-frequency sensor/transducer.