METHOD FOR THE REMOTE MONITORING OF PERSONS THROUGH SMART MOBILE TERMINALS AND WEB SERVICES

Abstract

A method for the remote monitoring of a person by another person through smart mobile terminals (A, D) connected to the web via a data network (B) and provided with a geo-localization device, a gyroscope and a dedicated application includes the installation on a cloud infrastructure of an articulated set (C) of web services and backend applications connected via the data network (B) to the applications installed on the terminals (A, D) so as to act as an interface between them, and the triggering of an alarm procedure by the application of the person to be monitored upon occurrence of one or more alarm conditions provided in a configuration present on the relevant terminal (D), the activation and configuration of the application installed on the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored being carried out by the application installed on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, by sending the configuration to the articulated set (C) via the data network (B) for storage and subsequent sending of the configuration, again via the data network (B), to the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored.

Claims

1. Method for the remote monitoring of a person by another person through smart mobile terminals (A, D) connected via a data network (B) and provided with a geo-localization device, a gyroscope/accelerometer and a dedicated application, said method including the steps of: a) installation on a cloud infrastructure of an articulated set (C) of web services and backend applications connected via said data network (B) to said applications installed on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person and on the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored, said articulated set (C) being able to carry out predefined operations on the basis of environmental variables and of data received from the applications installed on the terminals (A, D) so as to act as an interface between them; b) triggering of an alarm procedure by the application of the person to be monitored upon occurrence of one or more alarm conditions provided in a configuration present on the relevant terminal (D), through sending of an alarm to said articulated set (C) that depending on said alarm performs a series of programmed operations among which at least a notification to the application of the monitoring person on the relevant terminal (A); wherein the method further including the steps of: a) activation and configuration of the application installed on the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored by the application installed on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, by sending said configuration from the latter terminal (A) to said articulated set (C) via the data network (B) for storage and subsequent sending of the configuration, again via the data network (B), to the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored; and a) sending to the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, via the data network (B) and said articulated set (C), by the application of the person to be monitored of a set of information collected by the relevant terminal (D), said sending being carried out at pre-set intervals and/or at the request by the application of the monitoring person.

2. Method according to claim 1, in which in step a) one or more of the following features/functions of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored are configured: the phone book and/or the appointment book; the alarm and notification levels and modes; the audio messages to be associated to events; the definition of an area inside which the person to be monitored can be defined safe or unsafe; the definition of geo-located places with control functions on arrival and departure; the definition of the maximum travel time to reach a destination; the calibration of the sensitivity of the movement sensors; the definition and configuration of the contacts to be notified in case of emergency; the selection of groups of pre-configured contacts that can intervene in case of need; and the configuration, activation and deactivation of an alarm button (F), if any, provided with a triaxial accelerometer and a short-range radio link (E) to the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored.

3. Method according to claim 1, in which in step a) one or more of the following information are sent to the terminal (A) of the monitoring person: latest geo-located position; latest detection of the horizontal and vertical speed; battery status of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored and of the alarm button (F), if any, associated therewith; and general status and timestamp of detection.

4. Method according to claim 1, in which in step b) the alarm procedure is triggered upon occurrence of one or more of the following conditions: a prolonged pressure of a virtual button present on the user interface on the terminal (D) or of the alarm button (F) if it is provided with a pressure sensor operatively connected to the terminal (D) to trigger the sending of a request for help when said pressure sensor is activated for a prolonged period of some seconds; the detection of a free fall state from the reading of the accelerometer of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F); an excursion of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored outside of a safe area or inside of an unsafe area defined upon configuration; and a battery level of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F) below a pre-set threshold.)

5. Method according to claim 4, in which in the condition of low battery level a weak alarm is sent through a push message only to the application on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, whereas in the other cases a strong alarm is sent that in addition to said push message also includes the notification to the numbers defined upon configuration through a text message with the latest geographical coordinates of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored and the time of alarm, as well as voice calls with pre-recorded messages and possibly the activation of the microphone and/or the camera of the terminal (D).

6. Method according to claim 2, in which in step a) one or more of the following information are sent to the terminal (A) of the monitoring person: latest geo-located position; latest detection of the horizontal and vertical speed; battery status of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored and of the alarm button (F), if any, associated therewith; and general status and timestamp of detection.

7. Method according to claim 2, in which in step b) the alarm procedure is triggered upon occurrence of one or more of the following conditions: a prolonged pressure of a virtual button present on the user interface on the terminal (D) or of the alarm button (F) if it is provided with a pressure sensor operatively connected to the terminal (D) to trigger the sending of a request for help when said pressure sensor is activated for a prolonged period of some seconds; the detection of a free fall state from the reading of the accelerometer of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F); an excursion of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored outside of a safe area or inside of an unsafe area defined upon configuration; and a battery level of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F) below a pre-set threshold.

8. Method according to claim 3, in which in step b) the alarm procedure is triggered upon occurrence of one or more of the following conditions: a prolonged pressure of a virtual button present on the user interface on the terminal (D) or of the alarm button (F) if it is provided with a pressure sensor operatively connected to the terminal (D) to trigger the sending of a request for help when said pressure sensor is activated for a prolonged period of some seconds; the detection of a free fall state from the reading of the accelerometer of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F); an excursion of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored outside of a safe area or inside of an unsafe area defined upon configuration; a battery level of the terminal (D) and/or of the alarm button (F) below a pre-set threshold.

9. Method according to claim 7, in which in the condition of low battery level a weak alarm is sent through a push message only to the application on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, whereas in the other cases a strong alarm is sent that in addition to said push message also includes the notification to the numbers defined upon configuration through a text message with the latest geographical coordinates of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored and the time of alarm, as well as voice calls with pre-recorded messages and possibly the activation of the microphone and/or the camera of the terminal (D).

10. Method according to claim 8, in which in the condition of low battery level a weak alarm is sent through a push message only to the application on the terminal (A) of the monitoring person, whereas in the other cases a strong alarm is sent that in addition to said push message also includes the notification to the numbers defined upon configuration through a text message with the latest geographical coordinates of the terminal (D) of the person to be monitored and the time of alarm, as well as voice calls with pre-recorded messages and possibly the activation of the microphone and/or the camera of the terminal (D).

Description

[0021] These and other advantages and features of the method according to the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

[0022] FIG. 1 is a general structural scheme of the system that implements this method;

[0023] FIGS. 2 to 8 are diagrams of cases of system usage;

[0024] FIG. 9 is a flow chart of the Master and Agent app configuration process;

[0025] FIG. 10 is a system operating scheme in the Master and Agent app configuration process; and

[0026] FIG. 11 is a system operation scheme in the case of activation of an alarm condition.

[0027] Referring to FIG. 1, there is seen that the system implementing the method according to the present invention is articulated on different planes and uses sensors in an asymmetric Master/Agent architecture, where a Master terminal A is connected via a data network B to a set C residing on a cloud computing infrastructure that connects it, again via data network B, to an Agent terminal D that is preferably associated via a short-range radio link E (typically Bluetooth) to an alarm button F equipped with a triaxial accelerometer.

[0028] The Master terminal A has a function of control over the Agent terminal D that has sensors (in the smartphone and in the Bluetooth button F) which collect the data that terminal D sends to preconfigured network services (web services WS) which process and analyze them to verify that these data are within the threshold established when the Agent terminal D is configured by the Master terminal A.

[0029] In particular, this system consists of:

a set of apps for major operating systems for smartphones loaded on terminals A, D with mobile networking connection services, WI-FI, Bluetooth 4.0 LE or above, enabled and working GPS (apps may be installed on devices with different operating systems);
an articulated set C of web services (WS) and backend applications installed on a cloud infrastructure;
a Bluetooth 4.0 LE or higher/iBeacon hardware with triaxial accelerometer (optional alarm button F) that works in conjunction with the apps and Agent terminals D on which they are installed.

[0030] The app installed on the Master terminal (smartphone) A is the activation and configuration tool of the app installed on the terminal (smartphone) D of the person to be monitored, i.e. the Agent. From the Master terminal A you can configure and manage:

the Agent's phone book and/or appointment book;
the alarm and notification levels and modes;
the audio messages recorded by the Master to be associated with events in the Agent's appointment book;
the definition of an area within which the Agent can be defined as safe or unsafe (so-called geo-fencing);
the definition of geo-localized locations with controls on arrival and departure (check-in and check-out);
the definition of the maximum travel time to reach a destination;
the calibration of the sensitivity of motion sensors (horizontal and vertical speeds);
the configuration, activation and deactivation of the alarm button F possibly associated with the Agent terminal D.

[0031] The data networks B are those that allow terminals A and D to communicate with set C of web services developed and activated for this purpose and, as already mentioned, terminals A and D can use any communication protocol made available by their respective providers of connectivity (currently GPRS, GSM, 3G, 4G and WI-FI). The heart of the system and where its intelligence resides consists in an architecture installed on a cloud infrastructure both in public and in private or hybrid configuration where a set C of functions/services are active and perform predetermined operations based on environmental variables and data received from the apps installed on terminals A and D. This set C of functions are available as web services through specific application interfaces (API=Application Program Interface).

[0032] In general, the apps of terminals A and D do not communicate directly between them but through a standard interface that activates these functions, the most common use cases being illustrated in FIGS. 2 to 8 which are self-explanatory and include acronyms having the following definitions:

MCPMaster Control Program, is the main app management program;
SNSSimple Notification Service, is a communication interface between the various application components;
FCAFeatures of Cloud Application, represents application features installed and configured as web services WS within the cloud infrastructure;
DBDatabase, represents the system database;
JSONJavaScript Object Notation, indicates the type of data being transmitted
MdMare mass memories where large system messages (audio/video) are recorded;
MSMedia Server, is the system for managing multimedia streams.

[0033] The Agent terminal D is the sensor for the person to be monitored that communicates with set C on the cloud infrastructure, the minimum requirements of Agent terminal D being:

data connection (GPRS, GSM, 3G, 4G and WI-FI)

GPS/AGPS

[0034] Bluetooth LE 4.0 or higher
triaxial accelerometer
gyroscope

[0035] As already mentioned, the Agent app is configured and activated by the Master app and has a simplified interface to facilitate the adoption of terminal D by the person being protected. The alarm button F is connected via connection E to this terminal D, and terminal D collects and sends all the relevant information for control and safety to set C.

[0036] Specifically, at pre-set intervals or at the request of the Master app, the Agent app sends to the web services WS a collection of information gathered from terminal D and from button F:

last geo-localized position;
last detection of horizontal and vertical speed;
battery status of terminal D and possible alarm button F;

[0037] general state of the subsystem (operational, yellow alarm, red alarm);

detection timestamp.

[0038] As mentioned above, the presence of the alarm button F is not strictly indispensable but is definitely preferable to improve and expand the monitoring service functions. In fact, the alarm button F is intended to be worn by the monitored user (e.g. at the belt or on the chest) and allows to avoid false alarms and/or to report a dangerous situation more easily and discreetly. For example, if terminal D is dropped by the Agent this could be interpreted as a fall of the Agent resulting in a false alarm, but if the accelerometer of button F does not indicate the same situation such a false alarm can be avoided. Conversely, the Agent may fall at home at a time when terminal D is resting on a support and therefore does not detect the acceleration that however is detected by button F worn by the user thus triggering the alarm.

[0039] Similarly, if the Agent is in dangerous situation in which he/she cannot access terminal D (e.g. a robber who grabs a woman's purse containing her smartphone), it is still possible for the Agent to trigger the alarm through button F. The main functions of the alarm button F are therefore the following:

the fall alarm procedure, which is activated if terminal D receives via connection E the signal that the accelerometer of button F has suddenly undergone a strong acceleration [>2,5 g] with high angular velocity [>65/s] (free fall detection), which is interpreted as a hypothesis that the Agent may have fallen or is in a state of danger;
the help request alarm procedure, that is activated if terminal D receives via connection E the indication that button F has been pressed for a prolonged time, for example with a threshold that can be set between 2 and 8 seconds, and also in this case it can be assumed that the Agent is in a state of danger.

[0040] In addition to these main functions other system functions/services related to button F are provided as optional, such as:

automatic pairing of button F for initial association with terminal D;
reading of battery status;
turning on a LED and/or a buzzer of button F when searching for the button;
automatic connection in the event of a temporary interruption of communications, if button F goes out of the Bluetooth connection range and then returns within connection radius;
Agent activity detection (e.g. pedometer)
outdoor temperature detection;
audio-localization of the smartphone by having it ring by pressing button F.

[0041] By way of non-limiting example, the preferred technical features of button F are as follows:

Operating mode: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
Frequency range: 2402-2480 MHz (40 channels with 2 MHz separation)
Data transmission rate: 1 Mbps

Modulation: GFSK

[0042] Antenna type/gain: PIFA, 0,21 dBi
Power supply: 3V DC (battery included with guaranteed 1 year life)
Range: 25 m in interior/100 m in exterior
Rugged plastic housing

Weight: 12 g

Waterproof: IP 67

[0043] Triaxial accelerometer

LED/loudspeaker

[0044] Software development platform (js, java, c, c #)
iBeacon compatibility
Temperature sensor

[0045] Before being active, the Agent and Master app system must be configured as in the flow diagram of FIG. 9 and scheme of FIG. 10. The configuration covers various settings such as:

a geo-localized area within which the Agent is free to operate or vice versa must not operate;
a series of places;
a list of personal contacts and contacts to be notified in case of emergency (ICEIn Case of Emergency);
a list of groups of social contacts that can intervene when needed (safety net);
a list of events (appointment book) to which a customized audio message can be associated;
an operating mode of the Agent terminal interface.

[0046] At the end of the configuration phase that is performed on terminal A where the Master app is installed, the configuration is sent to the web services WS on the cloud infrastructure where set C resides, via the data network B, for storage and subsequent sending, again via the data network B, to the Agent app on terminal D. Once the configuration is received, the Agent terminal D is configured according to the instructions contained therein.

[0047] For the Agent monitoring function, at pre-set intervals, the Agent app sends to set C information about various terminal D parameters such as the status and location of the terminal, the battery level of the terminal and alarm button F, and other useful information. This information is temporarily recorded on mass memories and made available on request to the Master app that displays them on terminal A.

[0048] As mentioned earlier, the triggering of alarm procedures can take place for various reasons, such as:

a prolonged pressure on the alarm button F or on a virtual button on the user interface on terminal D;
detection of the fall condition from the reading of the accelerometer of terminal D and/or alarm button F;
an excursion of terminal D, detected by geo-localization services managed by the Agent app, outside of the safe area or inside of the dangerous area defined in the configuration;
a battery level of terminal D and/or button F below a pre-set threshold.

[0049] Alarms sent from the Agent app on terminal D are handled by web services WS and backend applications of set C that perform a number of scheduled operations according to pre-set configurations. Alarms are divided into two main categories:

weak (yellow) alarm that does not require immediate attention but detects a state of necessity by the Agent and is notified with a push message only to the Master app on terminal A via the data network B; and
strong (red) alarm that involves an emergency situation triggered by the Agent that requires immediate intervention and therefore in this case the notification is performed to the numbers defined in the configuration by means of: [0050] SMS with the latest geographic coordinates of Agent terminal D and alarm time (via normal mobile network); [0051] voice calls with pre-recorded messages (via the normal mobile network); [0052] push notification on Master terminal A via data network B.

[0053] In light of the above, it is clear that compared to the known systems and the simple apps currently available on the market, this solution is a major improvement covering the various aspects of the Agent's control, safety and well-being through a more sophisticated architecture with splitting of the Master/Agent functionalities and intelligence not in the apps installed on the terminals but in the backend on the cloud infrastructure.

[0054] The monitoring method according to the present invention can thus be summarized in the following steps:

a) installation on a cloud infrastructure of an articulated set C of web services and backend applications connected, via a data network B, to corresponding applications installed respectively on the A and D terminals of the Master and Agent subjects;
b) activation and configuration of the application installed on the Agent terminal D by the application installed on the Master terminal A by sending the configuration to said set C via the data network B, for storage and subsequent sending of said configuration, again via said data network B, to the Agent terminal D;
c) sending to the Master terminal A, via the data network B and set C, by the Agent application of a set of information collected by terminal D, said sending being carried out at pre-set intervals and/or at the request by the Master application;
d) triggering of an alarm procedure by the Agent application upon occurrence of one or more alarm conditions provided in the configuration present on terminal D, through sending of an alarm to set C that depending on said alarm performs a series of programmed operations among which at least a notification to the Masters application on terminal A.