CA2992778A1 - Off-road wireless tether switch monitor with communication integration - Google Patents

Abstract

"Electronic system for monitoring off-road vehicle tether cord/switch state to detect and alert of conditions where potential injury may have occurred from the operator being thrown from the vehicle. The system interacts with the operator's smartphone via wireless communication and alerts a designated emergency contact with the operator's location in the event of a sustained tether disconnection."

Description

Patent Applicant: Aaron M. Suek Patent Application Title: "Off-road Wireless Tether Switch Monitor with Communication Integration"
Patent Application Summary:
"Electronic system for monitoring off-road vehicle tether cord/switch state to detect and alert of conditions where potential injury may have occurred from the operator being thrown from the vehicle. The system interacts with the operator's smartphone via wireless communication and alerts a designated emergency contact with the operator's location in the event of a sustained tether disconnection."
1. Patent Description The electronic system described herein is intended to aid in the detection and assessment of scenarios where potentially life-threatening injuries (e.g., spinal injury) may occur after being thrown off of an off-road vehicle, and to communicate this potential condition with the operator's location to a predetermined emergency contact. This would then allow for further investigation into the potential injury, contact with other nearby operators, and/or mobilization of emergency rescue services to the operator's location.

2. General Operational Flow 2.1. A smartphone app for monitoring and communicating with the tether monitoring system is configured with an emergency contact's information and other notification preferences (see section 5.1);
2.2. A tether cord with cap is attached to the vehicle's tether switch; this switch, in typical form, provides engine shutdown functionality upon disconnection (out of scope for this patent);
2.3. The wireless communication module, in its implemented form, is paired and connected to the operator's smartphone via wireless connection (e.g., Bluetooth) and armed for monitoring the connected or disconnected state of the tether cord's cap on the vehicle's tether switch through the associated smartphone app;
2.4. Upon disconnection of the tether cord's cap, an audible and/or visual warning is enabled to notify of a disconnected tether while the system was being monitored, and the module notifies through wireless communication to the smartphone that the tether cord cap has been disconnected from the switch;
2.5. If the operator has not reconnected the tether cord cap to the vehicle-mounted switch within a pre-specified time duration, the system identifies this as a potential injury situation (e.g., thrown from the vehicle), enables and/or verifies location services (e.g., GPS radio enabled), retrieves the operator's location, and sends a message with the operator's location to the operator's pre-specified emergency contact in the form of a text message and/or email communication;
2.6. If the operator returns the tether cord cap onto the switch prior to the pre-specified time duration that would indicate a possible injury condition, the system will cancel the alarm prior to sending the communication to the emergency contact and will continue monitoring for the next disconnect scenario (step 2.4).

3. Hardware Implementation Options System implementation may take two primary forms depending on the application.
The first described method incorporates the hardware, other than the smartphone, as part of the tether cord and cap assembly. The second method incorporates the hardware, other than the smartphone, into the vehicle's electrical and control systems, either via original equipment manufacturer (OEM) implementation or a compatible add-on kit.

VEHICLE-MOUNTED ¨
MODULE GENERIC TETHER CO
TETHER SWITCH GENERIC TETHER VEHICLE-MOUNTED
EXTERNAL MONITORING,' CORD CAP TETHER
SWITCH
COMMUNICATION \ RD
VEHICLE WIRING FROM
1TNErTeHRENRA LS Wm 01 T DC ul .4 i TEO

4 INTEGRATED SWITCH
t*/ TETHER CORD WITH VEHICLE CONTROL MODULE
WITH __....r¨ 1040 INTEGRAL WIRING FROM INTEGRATED MONITORING AND
.
SWITCH TO MODULE COMMUNICATIONS TO
SMARTPHONE
Fig. 3-1 Modified Tether Cord and External Module Fig. 3-2 Onboard Monitoring and Communication Note: As the fundamental operation is via electronic communication and control, the physical construction attributes (e.g., form factor of case or specific internal control module used) may vary considerably in application. As such, it is the general methods of implementation for monitoring, the control logic approach, and the associated resulting communication to the emergency contact that are to subject to this patent.
3.1. Modified Tether Cord and External Module This option implements a modified tether cord that includes an additional built-in switch at the cap end. This switch, herein referred to as the 'cap switch', changes electrical state ('open' or 'closed') as tether cord cap is connected or disconnected from the vehicle-mounted switch. The cap switch is connected to a battery-powered microcontroller module that, when powered on and activated by the smartphone app, monitors the state of the cap switch and communicates its status via a wireless connection, on an ongoing basis, to the smartphone. If a disconnected state is encountered, represented by a change of electrical state of the cap switch, while the app is monitoring the state, a disconnection warning (e.g., audible tone) is expressed from the external module. This modified tether cord option is most applicable to retrofit applications where the vehicle-mounted tether switch already exists for engine shutdown purposes and no modification to the vehicle is desired.
3.2. Onboard Monitoring and Communication as Part of Vehicle Electronic and Control System The tether switch monitor and communications may be accomplished via OEM
equipment by extending the capabilities of the onboard electronics (e.g., engine control module). In this case, a standard, unmodified tether cord with cap is used. The vehicle-mounted switch state is monitored by one of the vehicle's onboard electronic control modules, which subsequently communicates the vehicle-mounted switch state via wireless connection to the smartphone. If a disconnected state is encountered while monitoring, the disconnection warning originates from the vehicle rather than an external module such as the one noted in section 3.1.
3.3. Considerations for Hardware Implementation Options 3.3.1. The onboard monitoring and communication system implementation option utilizes the vehicle's battery as the power supply for the switch state monitoring system (i.e., no concern for external battery charging and eventual replacement), whereas the external module system requires a separate power source subject to regular depletion and degradation;
3.3.2. The onboard system option may include the ability to incorporate the state of other system components that may decrease the probability of 'false positive' assessment of a dangerous disconnected tether state; for example, if the onboard control module has the ability to detect the state of the vehicle's ignition switch, it may automatically disable the monitoring system when the operator manually turns off the ignition;

3.3.3. The onboard system option may facilitate OEM upgrading via programming as part of standard service and warranty programs, while the external module option may require a hardware programming port (e.g., Universal Serial Bus [USI3]) or wireless software upgrading via the smartphone app;
3.3.4. The onboard system design option may require minimal modification or extension of the control module hardware to incorporate the necessary monitoring and communication capabilities if addressed at the time of OEM research and design development;
3.3.5. The onboard system option requires factory fitment or aftermarket upgrade and installation of the tether switch monitoring and control system, which reduces the options for existing vehicles not set up for internal implementation (i.e., limits the opportunity for retrofit applications) when compared to the external tether cord cap/switch option;
3.3.6. The onboard system option has an inherent dependence on the maintained integrity of the vehicle's electrical system and control module during a crash event in order to facilitate reliable communication with the smartphone app; this may be mitigated with the application of robust components suitable for sustaining strong impact forces and the possible use of a short-time backup power source.
4. Hardware Implementation Example Below is a schematic representation of one implementation option. As the monitoring and communication may be accomplished with various components, the following represents just one example of various possible hardware configuration options. In this specific example, an external modified tether cord/cap is used with the following implementation methodology:
= An 8-pin microcontroller monitors the state of the cap switch;
= Wireless communication is via two-way Bluetooth serial commands from the microcontroller to a basic Class 2 (10 m range) Bluetooth slave module, which subsequently communicates with the smartphone/app;
= 3 x 1.5 V battery cells are used to power the control and annunciation circuits;
= Audible and visual warning is provided by a low voltage electronic buzzer and LED, respectively.
eLUETOOTH
CAPABLE

SMARTPHONE
MODULE
Id 5V 32k MICROCONTROLLER
(4.5V) __ V C C* 1 8/41 MICRO TO ST
SVik TO I
2 (SER41 ISER-Co 7 RX
_________________________________________________ 36k .. 87 70 MICRo 3 IIN(OUT 4) ON I) 6 ____________________________________ E Tx C:3 4 IN 3( (KOUT 2) 5 IN4007z, 330 BUZZER
ik i =
COILED k, TETHER CORD ______________________________ TETHER CAP
SWITCH
Fig. 4-1 Hardware Implementation Example

5. Software Functionality The smartphone application ("app") is critical to the operation of the system.
As most modern smartphones are of physically rugged design, the hardware has been considered sufficient for effective communication with the monitoring system and with the emergency contact during a crash or operator ejection event, particularly if the device is kept within enclosed storage during use.
5.1. Operator-Preset Information The smartphone app, as the main interface, requires input of general preferential information from the operator in order to effectively monitor and communicate to an emergency contact. Operator input may include, but not be limited to the following basic settings:
a) Approved app permissions ¨ required for the smartphone to connect to location services, control Bluetooth and/or other wireless communication functions, and send text messages and/or emails on behalf of the operator to the third party emergency contact;
b) Operator's name ¨ to include in the automatic communication to the third party contact;
c) Emergency contact details and preferred communication method ¨ cellular phone number for text message and/or email address as applicable, as well as primary versus backup communication method in the event of failed message sending by one method due to network unavailability;
d) Emergency message format and general content not impacted by event data (e.g., location);
e) Alert delay time ¨ the time between disconnection of the tether cord to the time that a possible injury condition is considered to have occurred; the value of this delay would need to be applicable to the nature of the vehicle use (e.g., continuous high speed trial riding versus regular short-time departures for activities such fence integrity checking where full disabling of monitoring for each departure may not be practical);
f) Repeat frequency and interval' ¨ if the operator has not reconnected the switch after the first message is sent to the emergency contact, should it send an additional number of alert messages to the emergency contact, and how often is this this occur;
g) Automatic alert cancellation message format and general content ¨ if the tether cord cap is returned to the vehicle-mounted switch and the smartphone is made of aware of such a state change via wireless communication after a message has already been sent to the emergency contact, what message content should be conveyed to the emergency contact;
h) Depleted battery action2 ¨ whether or not to send a notification to the emergency contact noting a loss of battery charge and that the status will no longer be monitored.
'A repeated message with updated location may serve as additional validation for the third party emergency contact where an unsafe condition may not or may not be likely if the position is still changing. For example, the third party contact may judge a received message with position as a false positive if repeated messages note that the operator's position is continually changing while traveling over terrain known to be flat, which may indicate a tether cord that was inadvertently disconnected or incorrectly reconnected without the operator's knowledge. However, it would not be advised to ignore the aforementioned alert if an operator's location specified in subsequent messages is shown to have changed in an area where a known highly-variable grade in the terrain may have caused the physical location change. An advanced system with terrain-type input may be used to extend the monitoring of false positives for this aspect.
2Depleted battery action applies only to the external modified tether cord implementation option where an external battery can be depleted and no longer allow for monitoring of the tether cord's cap switch.

= =
5.2. Example Monitoring Logic The following figure is an example logic block diagram of general operation of the software and its integration with the hardware switch for monitoring.
'User downloads and installs app,'' sets emergency contact and delay Logic Diagram Notes preferences, and powers on the ,... Bluetooth monitoring module. , 1. The wireless communication interface is shown as Sluetooth for descriptive purposes only. Actual implementation would not be limited to this communication ed "-Is the smartphone protocol. This includes the use of the term "Bluetooth app opened and N
monitoring module" which is intended to represent the communicating module. be it external or part of the OEM equipment, that is with et ____________________________ N
used to monitor the tether cord cap connection state and the Bluetooth moniloring module?, communicate to the user's smanphone.
I I
No / ______ Open arm, enable = 2. The logic diagram is meant to depict basic functionality and Yes k, _________ Bluetooth and is not Inclusive of all possible logic inputs and dependencies I
connect to Bluetooth (e.g., ignition switch state, battery level, manual intervention =
,., monitoring module. through app) that may be used for additional and/or enhanced ' control as applicable Co the method of implementation and Is the tether cord cap.' connected and the ..,, app monitoring its -=
connected state? = specific application.

No , Connect tether cord 'is cap to vehicle-mounted 151sable local audible and tether switch and visual alarms, send 7A enable monitoring in L ___________________________________________________ cancellation message to Yes the app. i . emergency contact and ,,, restart monitoring. ..,,.
e _____________________ =
Monitoring for disconnected 4 _________________ /
/ ______ Ye state with continuous 2-way communication. 4¨, lc _______________________________________________________ .
. _____________________ , r -=
Is a repeat message to be iv sent according to the user's r \ repeat message/interval Has a tether cord cap preferences?
disconnected state \ _______ /
, I been detected? .. yes .. No =
1 idi 4.
Yes No Has the repeat message interval duration/frequency elapsed since the last et ________________ = , ______ e me Enable audible/Visual was sent?
essag I
...., alert of disconnect r 1 tion yes No f - arid begin/continue 1 __ le + = ,.., message delay timer =.. l Inable full audible/visual alarm, retriev.aN
current physical location (GPS and/or cellular location), assemble message =
e w with user and location information, and , N send via preferred method (e.g.. SMS
Has emergency contact message \.. text) to emergency =dee!.
delay timer expired? r __ ) = / w *Y V V
i I , N, =
No Yes Has the primary Has the tether cord I l,.. __ i communication method failed? cep been reconnected?
=. / _______ = , Has the tether cord 1 1 I
Yes No cap been Yes No reconnected?
if 1. ___ , ..
1 _____________ 1 Resend message No Yes with secondary I communication method (e.g., email).
= ____________________________________________________ ) __ = .../
r _________________ =
Disable local W
audible/visual alert of Has the secondary disconnection.
communication = / = /
method failed?
= / I I
Yes No Fig. 5-1 Logic Block Diagram Example