CN111148041A

CN111148041A - Low-power-consumption position monitoring device, system and method

Info

Publication number: CN111148041A
Application number: CN201911382811.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王辰宇
Original assignee: Gaoshu Anfu (hangzhou) Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Gaoshu Anfu (hangzhou) Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-12-28
Filing date: 2019-12-28
Publication date: 2020-05-12

Abstract

The invention discloses a low power consumption position monitoring device, system and method, the monitoring device includes: a plurality of sensors for sensing position and/or motion parameters for estimating the position and/or behaviour of a subject to which the position monitoring device is attached; a low power controller for activating the respective sensor in accordance with the tracking and monitoring task; a shared memory for storing the sensed position and/or motion parameters. The invention activates corresponding sensors according to the tracking and monitoring tasks, and does not need to activate all sensors every time of tasks, thereby reducing the power consumption of the position monitoring device. Meanwhile, different controllers are arranged, and the processing requirements of monitoring at different positions are met.

Description

Low-power-consumption position monitoring device, system and method

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of location services, in particular to a low-power-consumption location monitoring device, system and method.

Background

Tracking and monitoring of items and people is very difficult. Existing tracking and monitoring methods require a trade-off between the accuracy of the devices being tracked and monitored and the power consumed by the devices being tracked and monitored. The same positioning calculation accuracy is typically used for processing for different tracking and monitoring requirements, and the trade-off between positioning calculation accuracy and power consumption of the mobile device cannot be adaptively controlled. That is, when the system power consumption is reduced, there is a problem that the high-precision positioning requirement cannot be satisfied, and when the high-precision positioning is adopted for all the tracking and monitoring requirements, the system power consumption is excessively high. Therefore, how to adaptively control the tradeoff between the accuracy of the mobile device location calculation and the power consumption for different tracking and monitoring requirements is a problem to be solved in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a low-power-consumption position monitoring device, a system and a method aiming at the defects of the prior art. The invention activates corresponding sensors according to the tracking and monitoring tasks, and does not need to activate all sensors every time of tasks, thereby reducing the power consumption of the position monitoring device. Meanwhile, controllers with different powers are arranged, so that the power consumption of the device is reduced, and meanwhile, the processing requirements of monitoring at different positions are met.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:

a low power consumption location monitoring device, comprising:

a plurality of sensors for sensing position and/or motion parameters for estimating the position and/or behaviour of a subject to which the position monitoring device is attached;

a low power controller for activating the respective sensor in accordance with the tracking and monitoring task;

a shared memory for storing the sensed position and/or motion parameters.

Further, the low power consumption position monitoring device further comprises a high power controller.

Further, the low power controller senses the information sensed by the sensor, and powers on the high power controller when the intensity, intensity or duration of the sensed information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or the difference in the sensed information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or the sensed information matches a particular pattern, and otherwise powers off the high power controller, wherein the difference comprises a short-term instantaneous difference or a long-term average difference.

A power controller controls the power on and off of the high power controller.

Further, the low power controller is further configured to:

managing the sensed position and/or motion parameters; continuously collecting sensor data, processing and analyzing the collected sensor data; receiving instructions from the high power controller and updating the sensor data collection process according to the received instructions.

Further, the high power controller may be configured to: retrieving a portion of the stored sensed information; processing the partially stored sensed information.

Further, a plurality of the position monitoring devices form a local area network.

Further, a plurality of the position monitoring devices share one high power controller.

Further, a plurality of the location monitoring devices communicate through a low power controller.

Further, the plurality of sensors includes a high power sensor, a medium power sensor, a low power sensor.

Further, the low power sensor is activated first, the new sensor is deactivated when the information sensed by the low power sensor comprises all the information required for determining the position and/or the behaviour, otherwise the medium power sensor is activated, the new sensor is deactivated when the information sensed by the low power sensor, the medium power sensor comprises all the information required for determining the position and/or the behaviour, otherwise the high power sensor is activated.

Further, the location monitoring device includes a sleep mode, a medium power mode, and a high power mode.

The invention also provides a low-power consumption position monitoring system, which comprises the low-power consumption position monitoring device, and further comprises: an upstream server.

Further, the low power position monitoring device communicates with an upstream server through a low power controller.

Further, the low power consumption location monitoring system further includes a second upstream server, the high power controller in communication with the second upstream server.

Further, after receiving a request from the upstream server, the master monitoring device is reprogrammed, tasks received from the location monitoring device and the behavior and operation of the low power controller are reset.

Further, the high power controller performs a portion of the upstream server functions when the network connection of the upstream server falls below a performance threshold or exceeds a cost threshold, and returns processed information to the server.

The invention also provides a low-power consumption position monitoring method, and the low-power consumption position monitoring system based on the invention comprises the following steps:

s1, the low-power controller activates corresponding sensors according to the tracking and monitoring tasks;

s2, sensing the position and/or the motion parameter by the activated sensor;

s3, the low power controller transmits the position and/or motion parameters to the shared memory for storage and management.

Further, still include:

and S4, the low-power controller judges whether the intensity, the intensity or the duration of the sensing information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or whether the difference of the sensing information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or whether the sensing information is matched with a specific mode, if so, the high-power controller is powered on, otherwise, the high-power controller is powered off, and the difference comprises a short-term instantaneous difference or a long-term average difference.

Further, still include:

s5, the high power controller can retrieve the partial sensing information stored in the shared memory and process the partial sensing information stored in the shared memory.

Further, still include:

s6, the high power controller of the master position monitoring device communicates with the low power controller of the slave position monitoring device via the low power controller, and the master position monitoring device communicates with the low power controller of each master position monitoring device and the slave position monitoring device.

Further, still include:

s7, the low power controller of the master position monitoring device sends the position and/or motion parameters to a server to determine the position and/or behavior of the subject to which the position monitoring device is attached, for point of interest detection.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following advantages:

first, the present invention reduces power consumption of the position monitoring device by introducing a low power controller that activates the corresponding sensors based on tracking and monitoring tasks, rather than requiring all sensors to be activated each task.

The invention leads the position monitoring device to complete all tasks without being always in a high-power running state by introducing different power modes, particularly sleep modes, thereby further reducing the power consumption of the device.

Third, the position sensing device with high power controller and low power controller provided by the invention provides high processing capability and realizes low power consumption. A high power Controller (CPU) can wake up on demand to analyze data, while a low power controller (MPU) can collect data without consuming a large amount of power.

The invention improves the precision of the position monitoring device by combining a plurality of position monitoring devices. Meanwhile, the high-power controllers are shared by the position monitoring devices, so that the problem of high power consumption of the high-power controllers is solved.

The low-power-consumption position monitoring system comprises a low-power-consumption position monitoring device, and provides online processing capacity for position monitoring through a remote server while realizing low power consumption. Meanwhile, the accuracy and the calculation efficiency of position monitoring are greatly improved.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a location monitoring device networked to an upstream server according to one embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a location monitoring device according to one embodiment, wherein a low power controller manages operation of a high power controller;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a location monitoring device according to one embodiment, where both a high power controller and a low power controller have radios for establishing wireless connections with upstream servers;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a location monitoring device networked to a high power controller according to one embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a position monitoring device according to another embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a plurality of location monitoring devices networked to an upstream server according to one embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a schematic view of a plurality of subjects/devices being monitored by a plurality of position monitoring apparatuses according to one embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram of a location monitoring method according to an embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a plurality of location monitoring devices monitoring the location and behavior of a plurality of subjects, wherein the location and behavior are presented to an end user, according to one embodiment.

Detailed Description

The embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to specific embodiments, and other advantages and effects of the present invention will be easily understood by those skilled in the art from the disclosure of the present specification. The invention is capable of other and different embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways, and its several details are capable of modification in various respects, all without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. It is to be noted that the features in the following embodiments and examples may be combined with each other without conflict.

It should be noted that the drawings provided in the following embodiments are only for illustrating the basic idea of the present invention, and the components related to the present invention are only shown in the drawings rather than drawn according to the number, shape and size of the components in actual implementation, and the type, quantity and proportion of the components in actual implementation may be changed freely, and the layout of the components may be more complicated.

Example one

The present embodiment proposes a low-power-consumption position monitoring apparatus, including:

for tracking and monitoring subjects (e.g. vehicles or persons), it is common to associate with each subject a respective position monitoring device, the position and/or behaviour of which the subject is attached being indicated by the movement of the position monitoring device. The position monitoring device may be a mobile terminal carried by a user, which estimates the position, motion, etc. of the user based on the position or motion parameters sensed by the sensor.

Sensors are often used to acquire the position or motion of a position monitoring device. For example, motion sensors may be used to monitor the motion of the device, such as tilt, roll, rotation, or oscillation. The position monitoring device of the invention comprises a plurality of sensors for sensing position or motion parameters.

As shown in FIG. 1, the first position monitoring device 100 includes one or more high power sensors (HP sensors) 130, one or more medium power sensors (MP sensors) 132, and one or more low power sensors (LP sensors) 134. The high-power sensor, the medium-power sensor and the low-power sensor are divided by the consumed power of the sensors, and the consumed power is decreased gradually.

the position monitoring device according to the invention comprises a plurality of sensors, but the information that needs to be collected is different for different tracking and monitoring tasks, i.e. when performing different tracking and monitoring tasks, it is not necessary to activate all sensors for information collection at the same time. Based on this, the low power consumption position monitoring device of the invention comprises a low power controller which is used for activating the sensors with the least quantity and the lowest power as much as possible according to different requirements so as to reduce the power consumption of the position monitoring device. The present invention detects the location of a subject/device based on an estimated location, the condition of the subject/device, and sensed information of a plurality of selectively activated sensors of a corresponding mobile device. Including tracking and/or monitoring the location of a mobile device that acts as a tracking device for tracking the location of a subject/device. For example, tracking devices track the progress of a transport vehicle (such as a rail vehicle or vessel traveling along a rail or along a river). Selectively activating the plurality of sensors of the mobile device includes selecting a sampling rate of one or more sensors of the plurality of selectively activated sensors. Estimating the location of the mobile device by one or more of the selectively activated plurality of sensors of the mobile device comprises: the position is estimated at a rate set by the sampling rate.

As shown in FIG. 1, the first position monitoring device 100 includes a low power controller (e.g., MPU)120 for managing a plurality of sensors 130,132, 134. To conserve power, low power controller 120 activates the respective sensors as needed to determine the location and behavior of the subject attached to or associated with the first location monitoring device. For example, the low power controller manages the sensed position and/or motion parameters and determines when to activate the various sensors 130,132, 134. If the information sensed by low power sensor 134 includes all of the information needed to determine location and/or behavior, then low power controller 120 will only activate low power sensor 134. If more sensed information is needed, mid-power sensor 132 may be activated. If the medium power sensor is still unable to sense all of the required information, the high power sensor 130 may be activated.

A shared memory for storing the sensed position and/or motion parameters.

The shared memory is mainly used for storing the operation related information of the position monitoring device. The low power controller receives the position and/or motion parameters sensed by the sensor and transmits the parameter information to the shared memory process for storage. In FIG. 1, the shared memory 140 is coupled to the first low power controller 120 to receive 120 the incoming position and/or motion parameters. The present invention is not limited to a particular type of shared memory and may be a non-volatile memory that retains the information stored therein when power is removed.

Furthermore, in order to further save power consumption of the position monitoring device, the position monitoring device also comprises different power modes to activate the respective sensors as required, i.e. the position monitoring device operates in different power modes. The power mode is associated with activating each of the high power sensor, the medium power sensor, and the low power sensor. Specifically, the power mode includes a sleep mode, a medium power mode, and a high power mode. In practice, the position monitoring device may cycle through different power modes, that is, the position monitoring device cycles through a sleep mode, a medium power mode, and a high power mode while continuously recording and reporting position and/or behavior information.

In the sleep mode, the position monitoring device is capable of activating one or more motion sensors and also capable of sensing and recording wireless signal reception. The sleep mode uses a minimum power (less than a predetermined threshold), and a sensed sleep mode signal to activate the position monitoring device to activate the high power sensor. The sleep mode comprises a timer with lower time precision and lower power consumption and a timer with higher precision and higher power consumption. The sleep mode is set to save power consumption as much as possible while maintaining sufficient processing power of the position monitoring device to accomplish the desired position and/or motion monitoring.

In the medium power mode, the position monitoring device is able to sense motion indicative of movement of the subject or change in the wireless signal (subject changing position or someone/something approaching the subject). The location monitoring system wakes up from sleep mode (turns off the timer, starts an alarm) and collects more data (and takes more samples of movement and radio) and triggers the network location even for short periods of GPS (if available). The goal is to check whether it should go into a high power mode or go back to a sleep (low power) mode.

In the high power mode, the location monitoring device is able to perform processing of high power tasks, such as activating a GPS sensor at a selected time and submitting location data to the controller for POI (point of interest) detection. The high power mode may include turning on the sonar and/or radar to view the surrounding environment to detect a moving state of an approaching object or inspection object. After the task is completed, the position monitoring apparatus 100 may return to the sleep mode to sleep.

Thus, the present invention reduces the power consumption of a position monitoring device by a low power controller for activating the respective sensors according to tracking and monitoring tasks without the need to activate all sensors per task. Meanwhile, through the introduction of different power modes, particularly sleep modes, the position monitoring device is not required to be in a high-power running state all the time when finishing all tasks, and the power consumption of the device is further reduced.

Example two

Unlike the first embodiment, the low power consumption position monitoring apparatus proposed in the present embodiment further includes a high power controller.

The present invention selectively activates the respective sensors by introducing a low power controller that consumes less power but has limited processing power. For example, a low power controller can only upload/download and process simple data (which does not mean data size, but complexity), but some complex tasks do not have corresponding processing power. For example, one or more location monitoring devices compute location based on received wireless signals by accessing an offline LBS (cellular network and Wi-Fi network) database (rather than accessing a server), which tends to be large and complex and difficult to construct. Such complex processing operations may require additional RAM (random access memory). For at least some embodiments, the RAM of the high power controller is greater than the RAM of the low power controller. Therefore, on the basis of the low-power controller, the invention also introduces a high-power controller (such as a CPU) to control the position monitoring device. The high power controller has high processing capability but large power consumption. The low power controller 120 may operate for a longer time than the high power controller 110 under the same power supply conditions. The high power controller supports a wireless standard having a greater bandwidth than the low power controller. Thus, a high power controller may support access to a high speed internet for upload/download, while a low power controller may only be able to support a 2G (second generation) or similar low power consumption internet. For some large data sets, uploading/downloading using 2G or other low power internet of things may consume more power (due to longer duration) than high speed internet access provided using high power controllers. Furthermore, the low power controller may not be able to directly use the high speed internet, as the upload/download speed may exceed the processing speed of the low power controller. However, the coverage of 2G networks is much larger than high speed (4G/5G/LTE) networks, and thus, the 2G functionality of the low power controller may still be desirable and useful.

Control of the sensor may be achieved by the low power controller 120 activating the high power controller 110 when the processing task complexity of the controller is higher than the processing capability of the low power controller. For example, the low power controller 120 monitors a motion parameter of the first position monitoring device 100 and controls the power supply of the high power controller based on the motion parameter. When the complexity of the motion parameter exceeds the processing capability of the low power controller 120, the high power controller 110 is activated to process the motion parameter. That is, the low power controller (MPU)120 may also control power-on and power-off of the high power controller 110. As shown in fig. 2, low power controller 120 sends or receives wireless signals over radio 480 and power on and power off management for the high power controller.

The low power controller 120 may control the high power controller 110 to power on and off based on the determination of the sensed motion state by the first position monitoring device 100. For example, including powering on the high power controller 110 when more than a threshold amount of motion is sensed and powering off the high power controller 110 when less than the threshold amount of motion is sensed. Motion greater than a threshold amount refers to sensing that the intensity, or duration of the motion exceeds a certain threshold.

The low power controller 120 may also control the powering on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensing a motion pattern of the first position monitoring device. That is, rather than activating (powering) the high power controller based on the motion just sensed, a motion pattern may be sensed that is indicative of the activity or task of the object or device to which the position monitoring apparatus is attached. For example, the motion pattern may indicate that the object or device is in vehicular transit, rather than being manually moved. The high power controller 110 may need to be activated when a particular motion pattern is detected. Further, for example, where the object or device is a person, the high power controller may be activated when it is sensed that the person is driving, but not when it is determined that the person is walking. Some detected motion patterns (e.g., driving) may wake up the high power controller without wireless signal analysis, but for other motion patterns captured (e.g., walking), the low power controller may need to further analyze the wireless pattern to decide whether to wake up the high power controller. For one embodiment, the motion signature is generated by monitoring motion over a period of time to identify a motion pattern. The motion signature can be compared to known motion signatures to identify motion patterns for known activities. As described, the low power controller activates the high power controller upon identifying a particular motion pattern.

The low power controller 120 may also control the power on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensing multiple scans of wireless signal reception. For example, low power controller 120 may establish a wireless link with a device via a radio within first location monitoring apparatus 100. When the first position monitoring device 100 changes its position, the wireless signals that the first position monitoring device 100 may receive also change. All wireless signals relating to one time reception by the first position monitoring apparatus 100 are scanned. By monitoring different scans at different times, the first position monitoring device 100 can determine the motion of the first position monitoring device 100. Thus, by comparing the similarity of the differences between wireless electronic signal (e.g., cellular wireless signal, WiFi wireless signal, bluetooth) scans, the first position monitoring device 100 can determine the level of motion of the first position monitoring device 100, and the low power controller 120 can control the powering of the high power controller accordingly. The difference between the wireless signal scanning information includes a short term transient difference or a long term average difference.

The low power controller 120 may also control the powering on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensing motion greater than a threshold, sensing one or more particular motion patterns, and/or a differential combination of sensed wireless signal reception scans. For one embodiment, the high power controller 110 is powered on when any two or more of sensing motion greater than a threshold, sensing one or more particular motion patterns, and/or sensing a wireless signal reception scan are combined. The high power controller 110 powers on when any two or more of sensing motion greater than a threshold, sensing one or more particular motion patterns, and/or sensing a difference in wireless signal scanning are combined. Sensing is performed by one or more of the plurality of sensors 130,132, 134. The low power controller 120 controls the power on and off of the high power controller 110 based on the plurality of sensors 130,132,134 collecting enough data (greater than a threshold) that the sensors 130,132,134 collect and store in the shared memory 140. When the low power controller 120(MPU) has collected enough data but if the high power controller 110 does not process it, the data will overflow. That is, in the present invention, some motion analysis may be processed by the low power controller 120. Motion analysis (e.g., pattern recognition) may be performed by the high power controller 110 if the complexity of the motion processing is greater than a threshold, and the high power controller may be activated for some motion processing if the processing includes motion pattern recognition and the pattern processing complexity is greater than the threshold. The low power controller 120 activates the high power controller 110. More complex motion pattern processing may include sensing characteristics of a received wireless signal and comparing the received wireless signal to previously received wireless signal measurements. That is, past measurements of received wireless signals are compared to past receptions of wireless signals to help identify motion and motion patterns.

As shown in fig. 3, the high power controller may also communicate with the outside world via radio 585 and the low power controller with the outside world via radio 580. For example, radios 480, 580 comprise long range low power radios that support long range wireless communications (e.g., LoRa). The high power controller communicates with the low power controller via the internal bus and retrieves and processes at least a portion of the sensed information stored by the shared memory via the low power controller. The low power controller 120 communicates with the high power controller only when the high power controller is powered and operational. In order to guarantee the normal operation of the location monitoring device, the low power controller 120 may process the sensed information even when the high power controller 110 is not powered and cannot operate, but the processing efficiency is low. The high power controller 110 may reset or restart the low power controller 120 by an instruction and may also trigger the low power controller 120 to provide the sensed data to the high power controller 110, which may also access the sensed data in the shared memory device 140. The high power controller 110 may cause the position monitoring device 100 to wake up and turn power on, or cause the position monitoring device 100 to go to sleep or turn power off, by sending instructions.

The low power controller (MPU)120 may continuously collect sensor data, process and analyze the collected sensor data. The sensor data collection process is updated by receiving an indication of the instruction from the high power controller. The collected data includes data from low power sensors 134 including motion sensed by one or more motion sensors, sensed gyroscope motion, sensed electronic wireless signals (e.g., WiFi, bluetooth, and/or cellular wireless signals). The low power sensor data is collected and processed immediately by the low power controller 120 and the high power sensor data is collected after the high power controller is awakened (activated). The high power controller 120 then processes all data (low/high power sensors) and performs high power tasks (processing) such as "position detection", "arrival/departure detection", "off-track alarm", "abnormal behavior alarm", etc. That is, the position monitoring device can directly perform positioning, state determination, and the like based on the acquired sensor data, and realize offline processing.

Furthermore, low power controller 120 has a much lower quality timing reference than high power controller 110 in order to maintain low power operation. Thus, the low power controller can be reset and recalibrated by the high power controller 110 to compensate for the clock difference of the low power controller 120. If the low power controller 120 is not reset, timing errors accumulate, causing the low power controller 120 to degrade in performance. For calibration of the low power controller, the calibration may be triggered when the high power controller 110 is powered on, when the low power controller determines that the reset is necessary, or periodically, and is not limited herein.

The high power controller 110 need not be directly connected to the high power sensor 130, but the high power controller 110 may instruct the low power controller 120 to control or connect to the high power sensor 130. The calculations or processing performed by high power controller 120 may directly or indirectly reduce the power consumption of low power sensor 130 and reduce the power consumption of the overall system. High power sensor 130 may consume a large amount of power. For example, high power sensor 130 may utilize a satellite link for data communication and analysis results that are passed through high power controller 110 may indicate that satellite-based data communication is necessary before high power controller 130 is activated. In this manner, the high power controller 110 can directly control the high power sensors (via the low power controller 120). In other cases, high power controller 110 only provides a control strategy by which low power controller 120 can indirectly control the sensors.

Thus, the present invention proposes a position sensing device with a high power controller and a low power controller that provides both high processing power and low power consumption. A high power Controller (CPU) can wake up on demand to analyze data, while a low power controller (MPU) can collect data without consuming a large amount of power.

EXAMPLE III

Since a single position monitoring device may have a problem of low positioning accuracy, the present embodiment can also combine a plurality of position monitoring devices to achieve position monitoring with high accuracy and low power consumption. The single position monitoring device is the position monitoring device described in the first embodiment or the second embodiment.

A plurality of position monitoring devices form a local area network. The position monitoring device containing the high power controller is a master position sensing device, the position monitoring device including the low power controller, but not including the high power controller, is a slave position monitoring device.

Taking two position monitoring devices as an example, as shown in fig. 1, the

position monitoring devices

100, 102 communicate via a wireless network and communicate with a second low power controller (MPU)122 of the second position monitoring device 102 via a low power controller 120 of the first position monitoring device 100. The first position monitoring device 100 includes a high-power controller as a master position monitoring device, and the second position monitoring device 102 does not include a high-power controller as a slave position monitoring device.

The second position monitoring device 102 also includes sensors (high power sensor 142, medium power sensor 144, low power sensor 146) and a shared memory device 150. The high power controller 110 accesses data of the shared memory 150 of the second location monitoring device through the low power controller 120 and the second low power controller 122. The plurality of position monitoring devices reduce overall power consumption by sharing a high power controller.

Both low power controller 120 and second low power controller 122 consume less power than high power controller 110. As described above, the high power controller may reset or restart the low power controller via an instruction, and thus, for a plurality of location monitoring devices, the high power controller may reset the behavior and operation of other low power controllers located downstream of the high power controller 110, such as the low power controller 122, via the low power controller 120 in addition to the reset of the master location monitoring device low power controller. In addition, the high power controller can also access the sensing data in the shared memory device 150 through the low power controller 120 and the low power controller 122. The

low power controller

120, 122 and the high power controller 110 of each of the

location monitoring devices

100, 102 may control the shared

memory

140, 150. The high power controller 110 may cause the position monitoring device 102 to wake up and power on, or cause the position monitoring device 102 to go to sleep or power off, by sending instructions.

One or more of the low power controllers in the plurality of position monitoring devices controls the powering of the high power controller based on the sensed motion of the first position monitoring device. I.e. the high power controller may be woken up (activated) by one or more low power sensors of one or more location monitoring devices. Each low power controller (e.g., low power controller 122) downstream of the first position monitoring 100 device may control the powering on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensed motion of the downstream position monitoring apparatus (e.g., second position monitoring apparatus 102), including powering on the high power controller 110 when more than a threshold amount of motion is sensed and powering off the high power controller 110 when less than the threshold amount of motion is sensed. In addition, the low power controller 122 may also control the powering on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensing the motion pattern of the second position monitoring device 102, and the low power controller 120 may also control the powering on and off of the high power controller 110 based on sensing multiple scans of wireless signal reception.

In addition, in the case where a plurality of position monitoring apparatuses share one high power controller, as shown in fig. 4, the high power controller 250 may be placed outside the position monitoring apparatuses. First position monitoring device 200 includes a direct link (shown as a wireless link) to high power controller 250, but high power controller 250 is not integrated into first position monitoring apparatus 200. The second position monitoring device 202 communicates with the high power controller 250 through the first position monitoring device 200. The operation of the

monitoring devices

200, 202 is similar to that of the

position monitoring devices

100, 102 and will not be described again.

Fig. 6 shows a plurality of

position monitoring devices

301, 302, 303, 304. As shown, the first position monitoring device 301 includes a high power controller 310, a first low power controller 320, and a shared memory 340. In addition, the first position monitoring device 301 includes a radio that remains wireless. Further, the first position monitoring device 301 comprises further sensors, similar to the sensors 130,132,134 of fig. 1. A second position monitoring device 302, a third position monitoring device 303 and an nth position monitoring device 304. The location monitoring means 302, 303, 304 comprise a

low power controller

321, 322, 323 and a shared

memory

341, 342, 343, respectively.

The location monitoring devices 302, 303, 304 maintain a connection between the

low power controllers

321, 322, 323 of the location monitoring devices 302, 303, 304 and the high power controller 310 of the first location monitoring device 301. Thus, the high power controller 310 of the first position monitoring device 301 maintains some control over each of the

low power controllers

321, 322, 323 and the high power controller 310 of the position monitoring devices 302, 303, 304. The high power controller 310 of the first position monitoring device 301 maintains access to the data (sensor data) stored within the shared

memory

341, 342, 343 of the

low power controllers

321, 322, 323.

The high power Controller (CPU)310 has a stronger computing power and can save and process more data than the low power controllers (MPUs) 320, 321, 322, 323. The high power Controller (CPU)310 operates as a remote server and can perform more complex computational tasks than the

low power controllers

320, 321, 322, 323, such as "site/access detection". It is not practical to operate modern database systems using

low power controllers

320, 321, 322, 323, but it is possible to use a high power Controller (CPU) 310. High power Controller (CPU)310 may act as a mini-server. The high power Controller (CPU)310 is connected to a power source and has no limitation on a specific power source, such as a battery, and collects sensor data without additional cost. High power Controller (CPU)310 does not limit the power supply available to mitigate power consumption by low power controllers within the connection range of high power Controller (CPU) 310. This saves power or cost of the position monitoring device within wireless range of the high power Controller (CPU) 310. Further, the high power Controller (CPU)310 can more accurately (due to greater processing power) detect the condition of the location monitoring device low power mode and notify the low power controllers within range to enter the low power mode.

As previously described, the low power controller 320 will maintain control of the power on or off of the high power controller 310. The power control is based on the motion sensing result of the first motion sensing means 301. Motion sensing of the location monitoring devices 302, 303, 304 downstream of the high power controller 310 may control the powering of the high power controller 310 based on sensed motion, motion patterns, and/or electronic scanning results of wireless signal reception.

Powering up the high power controller to monitor the state of the position monitoring device (e.g., a change in position, a change in motion pattern, etc.) consumes power. However, the low power controller may wake up (power on) and check the surrounding environment (e.g., location change, motion pattern change, etc.) with minimal power cost. When power is limited (i.e., the high power controller is not powered enough), the high power controller will not be able to check and determine if/when to exit the low power mode. The low power controller has a longer runtime than the high power controller and consumes less power when waking up to check the surroundings of the location monitoring device.

Example four

As described above, the position monitoring apparatus can determine the position and/or behavior of the subject to which the position monitoring apparatus is attached based on the acquired sensor information, and realize offline processing of the sensor information. However, the position monitoring device is usually a mobile terminal or the like, and has limited processing capability, and information such as a map required for positioning is not updated in time, which results in inaccurate information such as the position of the subject being determined. Therefore, the present invention also provides an online position monitoring system, which includes the position monitoring device described in the first embodiment, the second embodiment, and the third embodiment. In addition, an upstream server is also included.

As shown in fig. 1, the

position monitoring apparatuses

100, 102 are connected to an upstream server 250 through a network. Specifically, the location monitoring device communicates with the upstream server through a low power controller, the communication of low power controller 120 with upstream server 250 is through a wireless link, and the low power controller (MPU) can upload data directly to the upstream server and download simple requests from the upstream server. Thus, the location monitoring apparatus 100 also includes a radio to support wireless connections, such as cellular wireless connections, WiFi (802.11) wireless connections or to receive wireless signals from other wireless devices over Bluetooth wireless connections. The position monitoring apparatus transmits the acquired sensor data to an upstream server to determine the position and/or behavior of a subject to which the position monitoring apparatus is attached, and to perform POI (point of interest) detection.

Further, for a location monitoring device that includes a high power controller, the high power controller can also communicate with a second upstream server, such as over a wireless link. As shown in fig. 5, the high power controller is connected to the upstream server by radio. All low power controllers in all location monitoring devices connected or controlled by a high power controller can be connected to an upstream server through the high power controller. The communication channel between the high power controller and the second server has a greater bandwidth than the communication channel between the low power controller and the upstream server. The high power controller may receive a request from a second upstream server, reprogram the first position monitoring device 100 after receiving the request, receive tasks for the first position monitoring device 100, and reset the behavior and operation of the low power controller 120. If the connection with the upstream server is too expensive to fund, or the quality of the connection with the upstream server 250 is below a threshold, the high power controller may provide some or all of the functionality provided by the upstream server 250.

As shown in fig. 6, for a system comprising a plurality of location monitoring devices, a "daisy-chain" wireless link connection L1, L2, …, LN is maintained between each

location monitoring device

301, 302, 303, 304 and the upstream server 350. The master position monitoring device provides some of the functions of the server. The master location monitoring device provides some remote server functionality, such as performing vehicle location calculations, when the connection to the server drops below a performance threshold or exceeds a cost threshold.

Fig. 7 shows a plurality of objects/devices monitored by a plurality of position monitoring apparatuses. As shown, each of the plurality of objects/

devices

611, 612, 613, 614, 615 has associated location monitoring apparatus (shown as a mobile device) 621, 622, 623, 624, 625 that can be used to sense motion, location, and/or a motion pattern of the object/

device

611, 612, 613, 614, 615. Each location monitoring apparatus (shown as a mobile device) 621, 622, 623, 624, 625 may be connected to an upstream server 640 via a network 660.

The low-power-consumption position monitoring system comprises a low-power-consumption position monitoring device, and provides online processing capacity for position monitoring through the remote server while realizing low power consumption. Meanwhile, the accuracy and the calculation efficiency of position monitoring are greatly improved.

EXAMPLE five

As shown in fig. 8, based on the foregoing location monitoring apparatus and system, the present embodiment provides a low power consumption location monitoring method, which specifically includes:

the information that needs to be collected is different for different tracking and monitoring tasks, i.e. when performing different tracking and monitoring tasks, it is not necessary to activate all sensors for information collection at the same time. Thus, in performing position monitoring, the low power controller first activates the respective sensor according to the tracking and monitoring task.

S2, sensing the position and/or the motion parameter by the activated sensor;

sensors are often used to capture the position or movement of a position monitoring device after activation. For example, motion sensors may be used to monitor the motion of the device, such as tilt, roll, rotation, or oscillation. The position monitoring device of the invention comprises a plurality of sensors for sensing position or motion parameters.

The sensor sends the collected parameter data to the low power controller. The low power controller receives the position and/or motion parameters sensed by the sensor and transmits the parameter information to the shared memory process for storage.

The low power controller can only upload/download and process simple data (which does not mean data size, but complexity), but some complex tasks do not have corresponding processing power. Therefore, the low power consumption location monitoring method further includes:

After activating the high power controller, the low power consumption location monitoring method further comprises the steps of:

For a plurality of location monitoring devices forming a local area network, the low power consumption location monitoring method further comprises:

For a positioning system including a remote server, the low power consumption position monitoring method further includes:

The position and/or motion parameters are used to estimate the position and/or behavior of the subject to which the position monitoring apparatus is attached, as shown in fig. 9, several subjects/

devices

911, 912, 913, 914, 915. Each subject/

device

911, 912, 913, 914, 915 has a corresponding associated location monitoring apparatus (mobile device) 921, 922, 923, 924, 925. The location monitoring apparatuses (mobile devices) 921, 922, 923, 924, 925 are used to select the conditions of their respective associated subjects/

devices

911, 912, 913, 914, 915. By selecting the conditions of the associated subject/device, the mobile device adaptively controls the trade-off between computational accuracy and power consumption of the mobile device.

The position monitoring device (mobile device) 921 receives a set of predetermined tasks of the subject/device 911 associated with the position monitoring device (mobile device) 921. The location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 selectively activates a plurality of sensors of the location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 based on the set predetermined task. Further, the location of the location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 is estimated by one or more sensors of the plurality of selectively activated sensors of the location monitoring device (mobile device) 921. Once activated, the sensed information of the location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 is sensed by a plurality of selectively activated sensors. The location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 or the upstream network 960 (or a combination of the location monitoring device (mobile device) 921 and the upstream network 960) is used to select a condition of the subject/device 911 based on the estimated location, a set of predetermined tasks, and sensing information of a plurality of selectively activated sensors. Each of the plurality of

mobile devices

921, 922, 923, 924, 925 selects the condition of its corresponding associated subject/

device

911, 912, 913, 914, 915. The conditions of the plurality of subject/

mobile devices

911, 912, 913, 914, 915 are selected by the plurality of mobile devices or

devices

921, 922, 923, 924, 925 in conjunction with the upstream server 940 or by the upstream server 940 based on information received from the plurality of

mobile devices

921, 922, 923, 924, 925.

Multiple

mobile devices

921, 922, 923, 924, 925 monitor and coordinate each subject or multiple devices. For at least some embodiments, monitoring and coordination of subjects/devices includes monitoring and coordinating prisoners or mental patients remaining in a controlled area (e.g., safe area 930) and unable to escape. The sensors may include absolute coordinate tracking (GPS) for outdoor use and relative (e.g., beacons with accurately known locations relative thereto) coordinate tracking for indoor locations. Monitoring and coordination also includes monitoring and coordinating vehicle stopping on the track as planned, monitoring and coordinating lifting or moving boxed or palletised goods by authorized personnel or machinery.

A system formed by

mobile devices

921, 922, 923, 924, 925 and/or network 960 and/or upstream server 940, the system comprising a network of heterogeneous devices that may cooperate among themselves (in master-slave or peer-to-peer mode) to monitor and communicate the location and status of each principal/device in order to provide monitoring 950 of certain principal/devices to a group of end users.

The monitored subjects/

devices

911, 912, 913, 914, 915 include machines or devices managed by property and logistics (e.g., containers, generators, expensive minerals/resources) or persons requiring monitoring (e.g., workers for safety, outdoor prisoners, or patients treated with medications) or high value animals and live stock. Reporting the condition of the subject or device is also included, including determining whether the subject or device successfully performed a particular set of tasks, including reporting whether the subject or device is safe, whether the subject or device is on schedule, and whether the subject or device is still within control. Data for each subject/device is monitored and collected to determine the condition of the subject in order to determine whether the subject successfully performed certain tasks. Also included are whether the subject is in a safe environment, whether the subject is on schedule, and whether the subject is still within a controlled area or controlled range. At the same time, it is also possible to monitor how long a subject or device is operating in one or more tasks of a predetermined set of tasks. An operator or user is presented with a sequence of one or more tasks monitored in a predetermined set of tasks for a subject or device.

The status of a subject or device is reported to the user by presenting the subject/device status to the end user. Further, feedback is received from the user regarding the accuracy of the selected condition and a false positive identification of the reported condition of the subject or device is determined. The condition of the subject or device may also be selected based on sensed acceleration, magnetic field, received RF signal (WiFi), received GPS signal, or rotation of the mobile device. An exemplary list is shown in fig. 9, which includes sub/dev1 OK, sub/dev2 OK-, and Feedback (FB) from the end user indicating that the OK status of sub/dev2 is yes, indicating that the OK status is correct, sub/dev3OK, sub/dev4 OK-, and Feedback (FB) from the end user indicating that the OK status of sub/dev4 is yes, indicating that the OK status is correct, sub/dev5 OK-, and Feedback (FB) from the end user indicating that the OK status of sub/dev4 is no, indicating that the OK status is incorrect. While dynamically updating the selected sensing information based on the condition of the subject or device, one or more locations of the mobile device may also be determined based on the condition of the subject or device.

As shown in fig. 9, a false positive identification is included in the human validation (e.g., observed from the command center or from a host device capable of validating and recording ground truth). To improve overall detection accuracy, separate tools and systems are also required to allow false negative observations. Feedback for a group of users may be provided for the mobile device and account for both false positives/false negatives. True positives may be sampled to improve overall system detection accuracy.

The low-power-consumption position monitoring device, the low-power-consumption position monitoring system and the low-power-consumption position monitoring method have the advantages that the low-power controller is introduced, corresponding sensors are activated according to tracking and monitoring tasks, all the sensors are not required to be activated every time the tasks are performed, and the power consumption of the position monitoring device is reduced. The invention leads the position monitoring device to complete all tasks without being always in a high-power running state by introducing different power modes, particularly sleep modes, thereby further reducing the power consumption of the device. The position sensing device with a high power controller and a low power controller proposed by the present invention provides both high processing power and low power consumption. A high power Controller (CPU) can wake up on demand to analyze data, while a low power controller (MPU) can collect data without consuming a large amount of power. The invention improves the precision of the position monitoring device by combining a plurality of position monitoring devices. Meanwhile, the high-power controllers are shared by the position monitoring devices, so that the problem of high power consumption of the high-power controllers is solved. The low-power-consumption position monitoring system comprises a low-power-consumption position monitoring device, and provides online processing capacity for position monitoring through the remote server while realizing low power consumption. Meanwhile, the accuracy and the calculation efficiency of position monitoring are greatly improved.

It is to be noted that the foregoing is only illustrative of the preferred embodiments of the present invention and the technical principles employed. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the particular embodiments described herein, but is capable of various obvious changes, rearrangements and substitutions as will now become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, although the present invention has been described in greater detail by the above embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and may include other equivalent embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is determined by the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A low power consumption position monitoring apparatus, comprising:

a shared memory for storing the sensed position and/or motion parameters.

2. The low power consumption position monitoring device of claim 1, further comprising a high power controller.

3. The low power consumption position monitoring device of claim 1, wherein the low power controller controls power on and off of the high power controller.

4. A low power consumption position monitoring apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the low power controller senses the information sensed by the sensor, and when the strength, intensity or duration of the sensed information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or the difference in the sensed information exceeds a certain threshold, and/or the sensed information matches a particular pattern, the high power controller is powered on, and otherwise the high power controller is powered off, the difference comprising a short term instantaneous difference or a long term average difference.

5. The low power consumption location monitoring device of claim 3, wherein the low power controller is further configured to:

6. The low power consumption position monitoring apparatus of claim 3, wherein the high power controller is operable to: retrieving a portion of the stored sensed information; processing the partially stored sensed information.

7. The low power consumption location monitoring device of claim 2, wherein a plurality of said location monitoring devices form a local area network.

8. The low power consumption position monitoring device of claim 7, wherein a plurality of said position monitoring devices share a high power controller.

9. The low power consumption location monitoring device of claim 8, wherein a plurality of said location monitoring devices communicate through a low power controller.

10. The low power consumption position monitoring device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sensors includes a high power sensor, a medium power sensor, and a low power sensor.

11. A low power consumption location monitoring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the low power sensor is activated first, the new sensor is deactivated when the information sensed by the low power sensor includes all information required for determining the location and/or the behaviour, otherwise the medium power sensor is activated, the new sensor is deactivated when the information sensed by the low power sensor, the medium power sensor includes all information required for determining the location and/or the behaviour, otherwise the high power sensor is activated.

12. The low power consumption location monitoring device of claim 1, wherein the location monitoring device comprises a sleep mode, a medium power mode, and a high power mode.

13. A low power consumption location monitoring system comprising the low power consumption location monitoring apparatus of any one of claims 1-12, further comprising: an upstream server.

14. The low power consumption location monitoring system of claim 13, wherein the low power consumption location monitoring device communicates with an upstream server through a low power controller.

15. The low power consumption location monitoring system of claim 14, further comprising a second upstream server, the high power controller in communication with the second upstream server.

16. A low power consumption location monitoring system according to claim 15, wherein the master monitoring device is reprogrammed after receiving a request from an upstream server or a second upstream server, receiving tasks from the location monitoring device and resetting the behaviour and operation of the low power controller.

17. The low power consumption location monitoring system of claim 16, wherein the high power controller performs a portion of the upstream server function and returns processed information to the server when the network connection of the upstream server or the second upstream server falls below a performance threshold or exceeds a cost threshold.

18. A low power consumption location monitoring method based on the low power consumption location monitoring system of any one of claims 13 to 17, comprising:

s2, sensing the position and/or the motion parameter by the activated sensor;

19. The low-power consumption location monitoring method of claim 18, further comprising:

20. The low-power consumption location monitoring method of claim 19, further comprising:

21. The low-power consumption location monitoring method of claim 19, further comprising:

22. The low-power consumption location monitoring method of claim 21, further comprising: