Patent Issued for Monitoring systems and methods for personal safety (USPTO 11743372): United Services Automobile Association

2023 SEP 15 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Altman, Timothy (Bulverde, TX, US), Benton, Terry (Celina, TX, US), Braun, Florian (San Antonio, TX, US), Buentello, Andre Rene (San Antonio, TX, US), Gingrich, Jess W. (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on November 10, 2020, was published online on August 29, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11743372 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Traditional monitoring systems require manual initiation by a user in order to send an emergency signal to a monitoring body (e.g., police, a subscription monitoring service). However, certain emergency circumstances do not allow for a user to manually indicate an emergency condition (e.g., in a surprise assault). Also, traditional systems are limited to indication of an emergency condition that notifies the monitoring body. Improvements to monitoring systems would be beneficial.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The purpose and advantages of the below described illustrated embodiments will be set forth in and apparent from the description that follows. Additional advantages of the illustrated embodiments will be realized and attained by the devices, systems and methods particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof, as well as from the appended drawings. To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the illustrated embodiments, in one aspect, a computer-implemented method for monitoring a condition of a person includes receiving, at a computerized device, at least one signal from a condition sensor and determining if a condition is an emergency condition of a user based on the at least one signal.

“The condition sensor can be a sonic device configured to ping surroundings to indicate at least one of location, velocity, or acceleration of at least one object relative to the user within a predetermined area. The at least one object can include at least one of people, vehicles, or animals.

“The condition can be determined to be an emergency condition if the location of the at least one object is within a predetermined personal space of the user. The computerized device can be a mobile phone. The method can further include transmitting a signal to a monitoring body if an emergency condition is determined.

“The method can further include notifying the user if an emergency condition is determined. Notifying the user can include activating a tactile, auditory, and/or other alarm to indicate an emergency condition to the user for the user to take emergency action.

“The method can further include transmitting an emergency signal to one or more non-user electronic devices within a monitoring network to notify the non-user electronic devices of an emergency condition.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A mobile phone device for determining the proximity of objects to the mobile phone device, comprising: a thermal sensor component configured to transmit a thermal signal from the mobile phone device and to receive a return signal associated with the transmitted thermal signal; a processor having instructions to: analyze the received return signal associated with the transmitted thermal signal to determine if the received signal deviates from a threshold value; determine an emergency condition exists for a user of the mobile phone device based on if the received signal deviates from the threshold value by a prescribed amount; and provide a signal indicative of an emergency condition to a drone aircraft if it is determined an emergency condition exists whereby the drone aircraft is caused to 1) activate; 2) take flight; and 3) locate a user of the mobile phone device.

“2. The mobile device as recited in claim 1, wherein the mobile phone device further includes a sonic sensor configured to ping surroundings of the mobile phone device with at least one sonic signal and to receive a return signal indicative of movement of at least one object in proximity to a mobile computer device.

“3. The mobile device as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one object includes at least one of people, vehicles, or animals.

“4. The mobile device as recited in claim 2, wherein the condition is determined to be an emergency condition if the location of the at least one object is within a predetermined proximity of the user.

“5. The mobile device as recited in claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to send an activation signal to a second electronic device when an emergency condition is determined whereby the activation signal activates a camera component associated with the second electronic device.

“6. The mobile device as recited in claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to transmit a signal to a remote monitoring system if an emergency condition is determined.

“7. The mobile device as recited in claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to notify the user if an emergency condition is determined.

“8. The mobile device as recited in claim 7, wherein notifying the user includes activating a tactile alarm in the mobile phone device to indicate an emergency condition to the user.

“9. The mobile device as recited in claim 7, wherein notifying the user includes activating an audible alarm in the mobile phone device to indicate an emergency condition to the user.

“10. A computer-implemented method for determining the proximity of objects to a user, said method comprising: transmitting a thermal signal from a thermal signal element integrated in a mobile computer device; receiving a return signal associated with the transmitted thermal signal; analyzing the received return signal associated with the transmitted thermal signal to determine if the received signal deviates from a threshold value; determining an emergency condition exists for a user of the mobile device based on if the received signal deviates from the threshold value by a prescribed amount; and providing a signal indicative of an emergency condition to a drone aircraft if it is determined an emergency condition exists whereby the drone aircraft is caused to 1) activate; 2) take flight; and 3) locate a user of the mobile phone device.

“11. The method of claim 10, further includes pinging the surroundings of the mobile computer device with at a sonic signal and receiving a return signal associated the sonic signal indicative of movement of at least one object relative to the mobile computer device.

“12. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one object includes at least one of people, vehicles, or animals.

“13. The method of claim 11, wherein the condition is determined to be an emergency condition if the location of the at least one object is within a predetermined proximity to the user.

“14. The method of claim 10, wherein the mobile device is a mobile phone.

“15. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting a signal from the mobile computing device to a remote monitoring system if an emergency condition is determined.

“16. The method of claim 11, further comprising the mobile computing device being configured to notify the user if an emergency condition is determined.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein notifying the user includes activating a tactile alarm in the mobile device to indicate an emergency condition to the user for the user to take emergency action.

“18. The method of claim 16, wherein notifying the user includes activating an audible alarm in the mobile device to indicate an emergency condition to the user for the user to take emergency action.

“19. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting an emergency signal from the mobile computing device to one or more non-user electronic devices within a monitoring network to notify the non-user electronic devices of an emergency condition.

“20. The method of claim 19, wherein the non-user electronic devices includes a camera device wherein an activation signal to the camera device when an emergency condition is determined whereby the activation signal activates a camera component associated with the camera device.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Altman, Timothy. Monitoring systems and methods for personal safety. U.S. Patent Number 11743372, filed November 10, 2020, and published online on August 29, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11743372)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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