CN217693330U - Activity monitoring system - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model discloses an activity monitoring system relates to wireless modularization network system technical field. Comprising a plurality of wireless units, wherein a first wireless unit comprises a wireless transceiver for broadcasting at least one timing signal; the second wireless unit includes: a wireless transceiver for receiving at least one signal, a monitoring device for generating monitoring data, a memory for storing the monitoring data, a processor for synchronizing time with the correspondingly generated monitoring data; wherein the second radio processes the timing signal received from the first radio, synchronizes the monitoring data with the timing signal, thereby generating a time-synchronized data stream.

Description

Activity monitoring system

Technical Field

The utility model relates to a wireless modularization network system technical field specifically is an activity monitoring system.

Background

Monitoring devices are becoming increasingly popular in many industries. With the proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones, such applications are only becoming more widespread. Today, many monitoring devices have the ability to couple or wirelessly connect with a mobile device, thereby providing more insight to the user. At the same time, the device size and cost are significantly reduced, which allows smaller monitoring devices to incorporate multiple types of sensors to collect data.

Monitoring devices are transforming a number of industries. The health and fitness industry is one exemplary industry that is accepting such technological changes. Exercise and fitness have many benefits, including improved health, extended life, and shape retention. There are many reasons for people to exercise, including stress relief, staying alive or reaching new milestones, e.g., run a mile faster than ever before. In order to obtain the greatest benefit from sports, people need to be able to receive information about their movements quickly, accurately and simply. Therefore, in the health and fitness industry, such sensors are used to analyze various data records of a user, such as heart rate, body temperature, various pressure indicators, and the like. In other areas of health sciences, sensors are used to analyze a patient's sleep patterns, breathing rate, and nocturnal movement to determine whether the patient is in deep sleep, or whether the patient has some sleep disorder, such as apnea.

Another area that is receiving such monitoring device modifications is the mobile video industry. Photographers and movie makers are constantly looking for new ways to fix cameras and/or video equipment on any number of moving objects in order to monitor and capture events from multiple perspectives, unprecedentedly.

Currently available monitoring devices typically consist of a single fixed device with a single or multiple sensors. One simple example is from pedometers and similar wearable devices that can track and count steps taken by a user based on sensor readings on internal micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) inertial sensors. Similar monitoring devices may be used to track other activities depending on their placement and the type of sensors contained therein. By adding more sensors, these monitoring devices can collect multiple types of data in one unit. For example, some modern devices (e.g., digital cameras) are now equipped with both photo sensors and GPS sensors — these devices are also capable of recording GPS location data while collecting image data. Thus, such devices not only allow a user to review the contents of the image sensor, but also allow the user to find out where the device was when the image was captured.

The monitoring devices described above have certain limitations in terms of use and analysis capabilities. While such single devices can provide multiple accurate data points, they are limited to collecting data from a single location, and thus, the analysis of such data is limited-this is particularly the case in fitness monitoring devices, where only one wearable device is typically used. However, setting up and initializing a plurality of monitoring devices is troublesome for the user, and thus this method is not desirable.

Furthermore, it is not easy to provide such a system. This is necessary because the data sets collected from each monitoring device are in the form of a time series, requiring that all input data must be time dependent. Relying solely on the internal clock of each monitoring device is not sufficient because in practice most timing devices (e.g., crystal oscillators) often drift at a rate of about 40 microseconds/second, making these internal clocks unusable after a few minutes. There is no disclosure of prior art systems and methods of how to time synchronize multiple monitoring devices-in order to correlate useful data-without using an expensive "absolute clock", such as GPS, in each device. The currently available systems also fail to provide a method for automatically triggering all devices in a given topology.

Therefore, there is a strong need for a system that can provide time synchronized data without using an absolute clock in each monitoring device. There is also a need for a low power system that can provide robust and highly accurate monitoring data that can be coupled with a mobile device to provide an output for a given activity.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The present invention is directed to solving these problems, and describes a method and system for wirelessly connecting a plurality of "slave" monitoring devices to a "master" device in a star topology. The "master" device may itself be a monitoring device, or alternatively a mobile device such as a smartphone, tablet, laptop or any other device with a wireless connection. The utility model provides an efficient time synchronization, it needs less resource and consumption in every monitoring facilities department.

An activity monitoring system includes a plurality of wireless units,

a first radio unit comprising:

a wireless transceiver for broadcasting at least one timing signal;

the second wireless unit includes:

a wireless transceiver for receiving the at least one timing signal;

an activity monitoring device for generating monitoring data;

a memory for storing the monitoring data;

a processor for synchronizing a time stamp from the second wireless unit with the correspondingly generated monitoring data, thereby producing time-stamped monitoring data; and is provided with

Wherein the second radio:

processing the at least one timing signal received from the first radio;

synchronizing the time-stamped monitoring data with the at least one received timing signal to produce a time-synchronized data stream that is time-synchronized with the first wireless unit.

Preferably, said activity monitoring means in said second wireless unit is a motion sensor.

Preferably, said activity monitoring means in said second wireless unit is a light detector.

Preferably, said activity monitoring means in said second radio unit is an infrared detector.

Preferably, the second wireless unit comprises a plurality of different activity monitoring devices.

Preferably, the first wireless unit is a mobile phone.

Preferably, the second radio unit broadcasts a signal when the activity monitoring device receives monitoring data exceeding a threshold.

Preferably, the activity monitoring means in the second radio unit creates a trigger signal to send a notification to the first radio unit in response to a sensor output satisfying a predetermined trigger condition, wherein the sensor is located in the second radio unit.

Preferably, the trigger signal causes all wireless units to collect monitoring data.

Preferably, the first radio unit transmits a time synchronisation data packet to one of the plurality of radio units.

Preferably, the first radio unit transmits a time synchronisation data packet to one of the plurality of radio units.

Preferably, the monitoring data is compressed by sampling based on time asynchronous displacement.

Preferably, the timing is based on the bluetooth protocol.

Preferably, the timing is based on a bluetooth low energy protocol.

An activity monitoring system comprising a plurality of wireless devices, comprising a plurality of wireless units, wherein a first wireless unit comprises:

a wireless transceiver for broadcasting at least one timing signal;

a first mode providing unidirectional control of at least one second radio unit d;

a second mode in which the first wireless unit may be controlled by any one of a plurality of wireless devices within the activity monitoring system;

a local memory for data collection;

a wireless transceiver;

an activity monitoring device; and is

Wherein the first wireless unit may send and receive messages to one of a plurality of wireless units to begin collecting data;

wherein the second radio:

receiving and processing the at least one timing signal from the first radio;

generating and storing activity monitoring data from the activity monitoring device;

synchronizing a time stamp from the second wireless unit with the correspondingly generated monitoring data, thereby producing time-stamped monitoring data; and

synchronizing the time-stamped monitoring data with the at least one timing signal.

Preferably, the first wireless unit is a mobile phone.

Preferably, the first wireless unit comprises a plurality of motion sensors.

Preferably, the second radio unit broadcasts a signal when the activity monitoring means receives activity monitoring data exceeding a threshold.

Preferably, the activity monitoring means in the second radio unit creates a trigger signal to send a notification to the first radio unit in response to a sensor output meeting a predetermined trigger condition, wherein the sensor is located in the second radio unit.

A method of monitoring activity using a plurality of wireless units,

wherein the first radio broadcasts at least one timing signal;

wherein the second radio:

receiving and processing the at least one timing signal from the first radio;

generating and storing activity monitoring data;

synchronizing a timestamp from the second wireless unit with the correspondingly generated activity monitoring data, thereby producing timestamped monitoring data; and

synchronizing the time-stamped monitoring data with the at least one timing signal.

Drawings

FIG. 1A illustrates various elements of a wireless system used in a star topology;

FIG. 1B illustrates a slave device triggering a master device of a wireless system used in a star topology;

FIG. 2 illustrates the use of the CLK field of a Frequency Hopping Synchronization (FHS) packet in the classic Bluetooth protocol to communicate the clock timing of a master device to a slave device;

FIG. 3 illustrates the utilization of the timing instant of an anchor point in each connection event for communicating the clock timing of a master device to a slave device in Bluetooth Low energy;

FIG. 4 shows sensors at various parts of a human subject to provide 3-D tracking of body motion;

FIG. 5 shows multiple cameras taking video of an event from different locations, with a phone as the master providing time synchronization to provide multiple viewpoints of the event;

fig. 6 shows multiple devices (1 master and 3 slaves) recording concurrent data using asynchronous clocks, the 3 slaves receiving and storing timestamps from the master. When data from all devices are aggregated, the recorded data may be associated using a common timestamp;

FIG. 7A further illustrates a mismatch between data from the plurality of devices;

FIG. 7B illustrates the benefits of using a common timestamp;

FIG. 8 illustrates a wireless unit housing and the various components and modules present within the housing;

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary mobile device that may act as a master device for multiple slave monitoring devices.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be described clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present invention, not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments in the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by a person skilled in the art without creative efforts all belong to the protection scope of the present invention.

Synchronous topology

Specifically, in FIG. 1A, the present invention provides a plurality of slave devices 110a-d that are wirelessly coupled to a master device 100 in a star topology. The slave device 110/2 is time synchronized 105 to the master device 100 for real-time collection and correlation of sensor data. The master device 100 is used for time synchronization 105 and optionally for collecting data from the plurality of slave devices 110n to the central master device 100. Sensor data may be wirelessly transmitted from at least one of the slave devices 110w to the master device 100 in real time or stored locally on slave device 110n for later transmission to master device 100.

Further, in some applications, it may be advantageous for one of the slave devices 110n to "wake up" the other slave devices when it detects that the sensor reading exceeds a certain threshold. In an example case, the user has multiple motion sensors 400n on the body (paired in a star topology as described in fig. 1), as shown in fig. 4. In such an example, left hand swing may first cause the sensor readings on motion sensor 400e to vary significantly, and after a while, the sensor readings on motion sensors 400n, 400c may even vary significantly on 400 a. In such an application, this is useful because if one device 400e has sensed a reading that changes significantly, then it is likely that the other device 400n will also need to be ready to sense a reading that changes significantly — thus this will be a good opportunity to ping the master and synchronize the timing on all slaves.

Notably, in fig. 1B, the synchronization data collection by slave device 110n may be triggered by any slave device, such as slave device 110a. The slave device 110a sends a trigger signal 115 to the master device 100. The master device 100 then responds with a timestamp 105 for synchronizing with the multiple devices within the star topology. The host device 100 may simply be a sensor or an external mobile device such as a smartphone 910, tablet 920 or laptop 930, as shown in fig. 9.

This topology provides an intelligent sensor network that requires less user intervention to use and, unlike currently available systems, does not require each slave device 110 to be individually or physically engaged.

Wireless protocol implementation

The time synchronization 105 can be achieved in several ways. In one embodiment, the time synchronization 105 may be achieved through efficient use of implicit messages and procedures inherent in wireless communication protocols.

In one example, referring to FIG. 2, using the classic Bluetooth protocol, the clock of the master device 100 is transmitted to the slave device 110n through the CLK field 210 of a Frequency Hop Synchronization (FHS) packet 200, and the slave device 110n is time synchronized with the master device 100 during connection establishment.

The FHS packet 200 is a special control packet that contains the bluetooth device address and the sender's clock. The payload contains a total of 144 bits of information, 26 of which have clock information. The FHS data packet is used for page master control response, inquiry response and role switching.

The FHS packet contains real time clock information that is updated before each retransmission. The retransmission of the FHS payload is different from the retransmission of the normal data payload, using the same payload for each retransmission. The FHS packet is used for frequency hopping synchronization before piconet channel establishment or when an existing piconet is changed to a new piconet.

The real time clock information in the FHS packet is contained in CLK 210 bits. This 26-bit field contains the value of the local clock of the device sending the FHS packet, which is sampled at the beginning of the access code transmission of the FHS packet. The resolution of the clock value is 1.25ms (two slot interval). This field is updated for each new transmission to accurately reflect the real time clock value.

Similarly, in another example, as shown in figure 3, using the low power consumption (BLE) bluetooth protocol, the timing of the master device 100 may be communicated to the slave device 110 at a timing instant through the anchor point 310 during each BLE connection event 300. In the case of a BLE implementation, such "time synchronized" packets may be transmitted by the clock setting information of the master device 100 and the slave device 110 together without the need for an explicit synchronized clock, as is required in the classical bluetooth protocol.

In the connected state 330, a first Protocol Data Unit (PDU) 320a sent by the master determines the anchor point 310 for a first connection event 300, and thus the timing of all future connection events in the connection. Thus, once the slave devices are synchronized, no further "time sync" packets are required unless the slave devices require resynchronization because they cannot autonomously maintain clock accuracy.

The main benefit of using such a timing scheme is that it does not require each slave device 110 to have an accurate absolute clock (as is required in other time sensitive applications such as GPS, for example). The relative time provided by the wireless protocol can be very accurate. For example, the classical Bluetooth protocol requires a clock resolution of 312.5us with a drift of +/-20ppm. In BLE, the timing accuracy is within 2us with a drift of +/-50ppm.

This dual use of the wireless protocol may save space and power since no additional circuitry for clock synchronization is required. This space saving is particularly useful in sensor network applications. In such applications, smaller device sizes are generally required. Furthermore, wireless protocols that utilize synchronous sensors will require less energy and will consume less power resources, thereby extending battery life.

Sensor data

Each slave device 110 is automatic and is capable of locally storing the recorded data and the corresponding time stamp. After connection establishment or first "time synchronization" packet transmission, no communication with the master device 100 is required. As shown in fig. 6, the stored data may have additional annotations (or tags) in addition to the time stamp to clarify the data type to facilitate time association, processing, and presentation of subsequent data.

Examples of such data types may include, but are not limited to, the following: sensor readings from an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, a heart rate detector, a temperature sensor; GPS coordinates: latitude/longitude; still image data, audio data, and moving image data. Thus, each slave device may include one or more types of monitoring devices. The monitoring devices within the slave device may include, but are not limited to, multi-axis accelerometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes, light sensors, microphones, and even pressure sensors. The present invention may utilize each data collected from the device to provide a useful record of data for the user, including but not limited to, number of steps taken, distance traveled, time spent, number of calories burned, and altitude.

As previously mentioned, time synchronization is critical to associating data from multiple devices with an asynchronous clock. For example, as shown in fig. 6, in a first step 601, one master device 600 and three slave devices 610abc may record concurrent data with an asynchronous local clock duration of 10 seconds. As shown in fig. 7A, data recorded in this manner will not be able to be analyzed because the simultaneously recorded data cannot be arranged when plotted together and therefore are not usable. In a second step 602, to correct this lack of association problem, the three slave devices 610abc receive and store timestamps from the master device 600. In a third step 603, when the data from all devices are aggregated together 620, the recorded data may be associated using a common timestamp. Thus, the benefit of using a common timestamp is apparent when the existing relevant data from each device is plotted together, as shown in FIG. 7B.

In some cases, data compression may be achieved by sampling based on time asynchronous displacement, in particular, displacement vector magnitudes are accumulated and samples are collected only when a threshold is exceeded, along with a timestamp. In one embodiment, the timing may be based on automatic time synchronization via wireless protocol local timing, such as a bluetooth clock from a master device in a bluetooth piconet. The timestamp may be the number of time samples skipped since the last sample. This achieves the intended goal of uniformly quantizing motion vectors over a 3-dimensional space, thereby smoothly maintaining spatial resolution in the event of speed variations.

To reduce power consumption, data preprocessing is performed by analog signal processing. The goal of the motion sensor is to determine a time-varying displacement vector. The invention thus provides processing in the analog domain to generate estimates to allow sampling of the sensed quantities, resulting in lower power consumption than if the various sensors were sampled directly and the sampled data were subjected to equivalent DSP operations.

Applications of

One of the main advantages of the present system is scalability. Currently available devices are used for single purpose calculations such as the number of steps walked or the distance traveled. With current systems, other motions and events can be tracked by expanding the number of slave device 110 sensors connected to the master device 100. For example, if a user goes to a gym to weight, he would like to count the number of repetitions of the weight, as well as the speed. The user may place sensors on his arm to obtain these values, but also other indicators, such as his heart rate, and even blood flow velocity.

In one embodiment, referring to fig. 4, the slave device 400 may be wearable. The slave device 400 may be worn at various parts of the body to sense, track and store user activity data. The slave device may be worn by a clip, rubber band, ring or other attachable means, depending on where it is attached to the body. Such an arrangement may be used to provide 3-D tracking of body movements.

In another embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, the slave device 510 may be a camera or video recorder synchronized at all times to collect data, pictures or video of the event 520. Such an arrangement would provide multiple viewpoints for a particular scene or event 520. For example, such housings may be placed at multiple angles with respect to a particular moving object (e.g., a vehicle).

In one embodiment, the slave devices may be pressure sensors placed on various portions of the submersible, which may provide time-synchronized data regarding pressure and/or other useful statistical data.

Fig. 8 illustrates a wireless unit housing 800 and the various components and modules present within the housing. The wireless unit housing 800 may include a wireless transceiver 810, a monitoring module 820, a memory 830, and a processor 840. The monitoring module 820 may include a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, and the like.

It should be noted that, in the description of the present invention, the terms "upper", "lower", "left", "right", "front", "back", etc. indicate the orientation or position relationship of the structure of the present invention based on the drawings, and are only for the convenience of describing the present invention, but do not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and thus, should not be construed as limiting the present invention.

In the technical scheme, the terms "first" and "second" are only used for referring to the same or similar structures or corresponding structures with similar functions, and are not used for ranking the importance of the structures, or comparing the sizes or other meanings.

In addition, unless expressly stated or limited otherwise, the terms "mounted" and "connected" are to be construed broadly, e.g., the connection may be a fixed connection, a removable connection, or an integral connection; can be mechanically or electrically connected; the two structures can be directly connected or indirectly connected through an intermediate medium, and the two structures can be communicated with each other. To those skilled in the art, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood in relation to the present scheme in specific terms according to the general idea of the present invention.

Claims (10)

1. An activity monitoring system comprising a plurality of wireless units, characterized in that:

a first radio unit comprising:

a wireless transceiver for broadcasting at least one timing signal;

the second wireless unit includes:

a wireless transceiver for receiving the at least one timing signal;

an activity monitoring device for generating monitoring data;

a memory for storing the monitoring data;

a processor for synchronizing a time stamp from the second wireless unit with the correspondingly generated monitoring data, thereby producing time-stamped monitoring data; and is provided with

Wherein the second radio:

processing the at least one timing signal received from the first radio;

synchronizing the time-stamped monitoring data with the at least one received timing signal to produce a time-synchronized data stream that is time-synchronized with the first wireless unit.

2. An activity monitoring system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the activity monitoring device in the second wireless unit is a motion sensor.

3. An activity monitoring system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: said activity monitoring means in said second radio unit is a light detector.

4. An activity monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein: the activity monitoring device in the second wireless unit is an infrared detector.

5. An activity monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein: the second wireless unit includes a plurality of different activity monitoring devices.

6. An activity monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein: the first wireless unit is a mobile phone.

7. An activity monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein: the second wireless unit broadcasts a signal when the activity monitoring device receives monitoring data that exceeds a threshold.

8. An activity monitoring system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the activity monitoring means in the second radio unit creates a trigger signal that sends a notification to the first radio unit in response to a sensor output that satisfies a predetermined trigger condition, wherein the sensor is located in the second radio unit.

9. An activity monitoring system according to claim 8, wherein: the trigger signal causes all wireless units to collect monitoring data.

10. An activity monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein: the first wireless unit transmits a time synchronization packet to one of the plurality of wireless units.

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