EP0544277B1 - Time-keeping apparatus for sporting events - Google Patents

Description

The invention relates to a timing device according to the preamble of claim 1.

Such a device is known from DE-A-39 29 048 as the so-called automatic timekeeper with remote-controlled measuring device for individual performance evaluation for participants in sporting mass events. For this purpose, each participant is equipped for the current competition with a high-frequency transmitter, the frequency of which individualizes the participant according to the current assignment and which is modulated with an identifier for designating the upcoming competition. Each transmitter is assigned a receiver tuned to its frequency with a timer (timer) which is to be started when passing the start line and is to be stopped when passing the finish line; which, however, is not feasible in practice because the receiver picks up the radio frequency from the transmitter even before it actually passes the marking line. With such a facility, therefore, neither the correct running-in sequence nor the correct running-in time of each participant can be documented. In addition, only a comparatively small number of participants would be customizable, because there is no arbitrarily wide frequency band available for such radio transmissions and the individual individualization frequencies cannot be staggered as densely as desired due to the effort involved. Since the transmitter carried by the athlete remains in operation during the entire competition in order to also be able to control checkpoints along the competition route to document the passage (not the time of the passage), the energy requirement that a built-in battery must cover is considerable. This leads to a voluminous and heavy identification transmitter, which therefore cannot be given to small animals such as racing pigeons in particular. A combination display is used for the digital timing display and the symbolic display of control points that have already passed. This information can be stored in parallel to the display, for which intermediate times are recorded at checkpoints along the competition route and assigned to a code for this checkpoint. The memory content can be read out and combined with a code for the competition, to which this memory content is assigned, are emitted via a transmitter to a central evaluation point.

EP-A-0 257 688 introduces the state of the art with regard to the use of passive transponders in animal husbandry (for example for individual control of the feed supply) or for access control systems (for example for automatically opening a door when an authorized person approaches). From publications of the zoological garden of the city of Cologne it is known that such passive transponders are implanted in selected animals to monitor the result of breeding efforts, for example injected into poultry near the right breastbone. Such manipulations are unthinkable in the field of racing pigeons because the health and flight performance of the sensitive animals could be sustainably damaged. For the rest, the cited prior publication is about specifying the positional accuracy when detecting the transponder by means of a query device for tasks in industrial logistics by means of a crossed antenna coil. Such a transponder contains a resonance circuit and a memory with a binary-coded identifier which is read out when the resonance circuit is excited by the high-frequency field of the transmitter coil of an interrogation device. The information is transmitted from the transponder to the interrogator by damping the interrogation field in the rhythm of the binary-coded memory content read out in the transponder.

In the introductory part of DE-C-25 08 201, various contactlessly operating detection devices with an active reading device and passive answering device are described, in which the operating energy of the answering device is transmitted by the reading device in the course of its query. So z. B. the passage of an object marked by means of the answering device can be detected by a control point in order to register, for example, the fact (and of course also the point in time) of the passage of a freight wagon at a certain route point.

Specifically for racing pigeon sport that is of interest in the context of the present invention, it is known from EP-A-0 064 787 to use selected auxiliary personnel to create the racing pigeons that have been brought in for an upcoming price flight, the identification of which identifies the currently pending competition. In accordance with the then generally applicable pigeon price flight rules (cf. "Travel Regulations of the Association of German Pigeon Lovers eV" in the version from February 1991, printed in "The Pigeon" 108/1991, No. 13, pages 583 ff) After the return of the pigeon participating in the competition at the home beat, the ringing is manually (or automatically) removed from the pigeon's foot and transferred to a watch box for verification. An electronic (contactless) The competition identification is recognized in connection with a registration of the arrival time, and this information can be shown on a display and can be registered in a memory.

The invention has for its object to open an objective performance assessment in pigeon racing with the exclusion of manipulation possibilities and thereby simplify the organization of competitions and in particular thus make the pigeon sport more attractive.

This object is achieved in a timekeeping device of the generic type in that it is designed according to the characterizing part of the main claim.

According to this solution, each pigeon that is a potential participant in races is provided with a unique registration number that is then individualized, which is contained in an identifier that remains with this pigeon permanently - not only characterizing the current competition - and for life. A ring-shaped identification carrier placed around the leg of a leg is equipped with a micro-miniature circuit which dampens a resonant circuit in chronological order according to the encoded identification pattern when it is in the interrogation field of the transmitter coil of a reading device. Such energy deprivation can be determined on the transmitter side as amplitude modulation (in the form of the binary-coded sequence of damping phenomena), which is demodulated and converted (decoded) for the visual representation of the number identifying the identification ring. The identifier is transferred to a buffer along with at least the current time of its decoding. This point in time is absolute, in other words comparable to points in time registered in other readers, since the clock from which this point in time is queried, e.g. B. is controlled by the transmitter DCF 77 and thus holds the official time. The stored information about the register number and its decoding time, i.e. about the entry of a competition pigeon when returning to its home field, can be used immediately to create price lists e.g. B. by means of a club-owned evaluation computer or by remote connection to a service computer.

To ensure that a pigeon selected for the competition and registered when it is removed from the field is actually handed over to the transport cage at the place of use, the feeding can take place via a tunnel antenna. This has at least two coaxial antenna antennas, which the pigeon must pass through, so that their direction of movement (towards the transport cage) is clearly detected.

If several pigeons do not come back to the home beat one after the other but practically at the same time and often remain crouched next to each other on the flight plate for a short period of time, then they are detected by transmitter coils formed next to each other or in the flight plate, which are queried in rapid succession via a multiplexer so that unambiguous information about the practically identical arrival times of the individual participants is also transferred into the memory of the reading device.

Compared to the conventional course of the racing pigeon price flight, the use of the timing device according to the invention therefore changes that separate identification rings no longer have to be created for each competition and have to be removed again after returning to the home beat of the pigeon. The removal of pigeons from their loft can also be registered automatically and then combined with wagering on the reader, which also eliminates the labor-intensive list creation (sections 7 and 17 of the travel regulations cited above). The arrival time of the returning pigeon is registered automatically and absolutely on time, without the breeder having to wait for the return of his pigeons at the field and keep watch boxes ready to confirm the race rings of the returned pigeons after removal from the pigeon foot. Flight performance until arrival at the field is now measured precisely, even if the breeder is not present, and flight performance-independent surcharge times are no longer included in the result, as they were previously unavoidable, because the breeder initially still catches his returned pigeon and does it for her Ring had to be removed. This eliminates the risk that the pigeon will be exposed to a stress-reducing stress or damaged pigeon plumage when ringing and taking off the ring, because each pigeon is only equipped once in its life with an identifying ring that will be uniquely identifiable in the future .

Fig. 1

einen Taubenfuß mit ringförmig umgelegtem elektronischen Kennungsträger,

Fig. 2

im Prinzip-Blockschaltbild die Abfrage des Kennungsträgers nach Fig. 1,

Fig. 3

den Ablauf eines Brieftaubensport-Preisfluges in schematischer Vereinfachung unter Einsatz der erfindungsgemäßen Zeitnahmeeinrichtung und

Fig. 4

die Anzeige der Kennungsnummer einer Taube in Zuordnung zu wettbewerbsabhängigen weiteren Informationen.

Additional alternatives and further training can be found in the subclaims. Further advantages of the solution according to the invention emerge from the description below of a preferred exemplary embodiment, outlined in the drawing and restricted to the essentials, for the racing pigeon sport which now runs according to the invention. The drawing shows:

Fig. 1

a pigeon foot with a ring-shaped electronic identification carrier,

Fig. 2

in principle block diagram the query of the identifier according to Fig. 1,

Fig. 3

the course of a racing pigeon price flight in a schematic simplification using the timing device according to the invention and

Fig. 4

the display of the identification number of a pigeon in association with competitive information.

The drawing illustrates an exemplary embodiment and use example of the letter arbor timing device 11 according to the invention in the case of price flights. Contestants 12 are the carrier pigeons, which are permanently equipped on one lower leg with a ring-shaped identification carrier 13, which here also bears a visually readable register number 14, under which the respective pigeon is led by the association. The subscriber 12 retains the register number 14 stored in the identification carrier 13 unchanged as long as he remains admitted to participating in price flight competitions at all; after the initial configuration with an identification carrier 13, an exchange or even a modification of this data content of the identification carrier 13 is no longer provided. The identification ring 13, made of unbreakable plastic, contains, in miniature circuit technology, a receiving coil 15 which is tuned by means of a capacitor 16 to a specific receiving frequency in the order of magnitude of 100 kHz is. This resonant circuit 17 can be damped by an ohmic load 18 when it is switched on via an electronic switch 19. This is controlled from a read-only semiconductor memory as an identifier 20 in accordance with a stored binary pattern, so that the rhythm of the damping of the resonant circuit 17 represents the binary-coded register number 14 of this identifier carrier 13. The connection of the coil 15 to the circuit is destroyed and thus the identification carrier 13 becomes ineffective when the ring is mechanically stressed, for example in order to manipulate it.

The identifier 20 itself is operated via a rectifier 21 with the AC voltage which is present at the resonant circuit 17 when its receiving coil 15 is in the electromagnetic high-frequency field 22, which is matched to the resonance condition of the identifier carrier 13 by an antenna in the form of a transmitting coil 23 Broadcasting circle 24 is broadcast. At the transmitter 25, the level dip is censored in accordance with the attenuation of the receiver resonant circuit 17 and converted via a level-controlled flip-flop into a pure binary signal, which is shown numerically by a conventional decoding circuit in a display 26, as shown in Fig. 4 top right for the example 1 indicated. The reader 27 also contains a radio-controlled timer 28 for registering and displaying that absolute point in time (according to date and time) at which the coupling between the transmitting coil 23 and the receiving coil 15 recorded the register number 14 (lower line on the display 26 in FIG. 4), A memory 30 is used to keep the displayed information about the competition result available for later awarding evaluations via an evaluation computer 31, which can be a personal computer of the club equipped with a corresponding program or a central service computer 31 accessible by telephone.

The drawing takes into account the fact that expediently counts via a sensor 29 built into the reader 27 (and shown in the display 26 at the top left) how many participants 12 have already been recorded. The data of past entries stored in the memory 30 can be called up one after the other via a multi-function switch 40 in order to show them again on the display 26.

For a competition, in this case a carrier pigeon price flight according to FIG. 3, the participant 12 is removed from his stroke 32. In this case, its identification carrier 13 passes through at least one transmitter coil 23 integrated into the flight plate 33, with which the reader 27 automatically registers at least the fact which subscriber 12 has just been removed; or the breeder queries the identification carrier 13 with a movable hand spool, which can also be connected to his reader 27. For each of these participants 12, he can make bet entries via the switch 40 (guided by font displays in the display 26). The selected participants 12 are then brought by the breeder to the place of use 34, where everyone has to pass a so-called tunnel antenna 36 in order to be brought into the transport cage 35, again where price flight terms can still be entered. In the tunnel antenna 36, two receiving coils 15 'are arranged one behind the other, preferably coaxially to the tunnel axis, which are cyclically controlled by the multiplexer 39'. As a result, it can be seen in the reading device 27 that a subscriber 12 was not only brought into the vicinity of a transmitter coil 23 ', only to be registered and then possibly taken back again; rather, the successive response of a plurality of antenna coils 23 ′ ensures that the subscriber 12 has been brought directly into the transport cage 35 through the tunnel antenna 36. For this purpose, the tunnel antenna 36 is equipped with fastening means in order (in contrast to the basic illustration in FIG. 3) to hang it in succession directly in front of the entrance openings of the individual transport cages 35 to be fitted.

The participants 12 registered in this way are brought by means of the transporter 37 to the place of release 38, where, as such, all the transport cages 35 are opened and thus the Participants 12 are released for the flight home. This time can be logged; however, it is not particularly relevant since, according to the assumption, all participants 12 are released at the same time and are only interested in their arrival times in the home field 32. There, each arriving participant 12 passes through at least one of the transmitter coils 23 integrated next to one another in the flight plate 33 in order to query his identifier 13, with which the data records shown in FIG. 4 are stored in the reader 27 and are visually displayed on his display 26. If several participants 12 do not reach the home blow 32 one after the other, but at the same time, or if they only remain side by side on the flight plate 33 for a certain period of time before they retreat into the interior of the blow 32, then the individual participants 12 move into the flight plate 33 side by side built-in transmitter coils 23, which are very quickly successively evaluated via a multiplexer 39. Thus, all transmitter coils 23 are always interrogated quickly one after the other when the impact 32 comes in, but now the information of an identifier 13 is only recorded once by the reader 27, even if the participant 12 has not yet left the flight plate 33 or the receiver coil 15 its identifier 13 is detected by two adjacent transmitter coils 23.

If the breeder participating in the price flight competition knows all of his participants 12 again at home 32, he can use his reader 27 in the club's own evaluation computer 31, for example in the club house, to have the winners ranked in comparison with the competitors of other breeders. A printer 41 in FIG. 3 symbolizes that it is expedient to enter the bets and the passage sequences of the participants 12 when removing them from the field 32, when loading the transport cage 35, when returning to the field 32 and finally in terms of to permanently record the association's evaluation for later documentation and control purposes, because the memory 30 integrated in the reader 27 generally before each new competition, but possibly only after a few successive competitions, due to capacity reasons.

Claims (6)

1. Timekeeping device (11) having a display (26) for the evaluation of sporting events with participants (12), in particular homing pigeons, which are in each case fitted with a coded identification carrier (13) which can be interrogated without contact by way of a high frequency field (22) by means of a reading device (27) which delivers related participant and time information into a memory (30),
   characterized in that,
   in pigeon racing, in the case of every pigeon which is a potential participant (12) in a race, one leg is permanently fitted with a ring which contains a passive identification carrier (13), whose coded register number (14) individualizes this pigeon, and which is designed to be activated by the high frequency field (22) which the reading device (27) emits by way of at least one transmitting coil (23) and thus, by damping modulation of this field, to transmit its register number (14) to the reading device (27) for delivery of the register number (14) with the actual absolute time of its detection into the memory (30), when the identification carrier (13) of a pigeon returning to its loft is detected by one of several transmitting coils (23) which are located side by side at the loft and can be interrogated by way of a multiplexer (39), and with representation, which can also be called up in reverse order from the memory (30), of the decoded register numbers (14), their absolute time of detection and their position in the sequence of the successively detected identification carriers (13).
2. Timekeeping device according to Claim 1,
   characterized in that
   the reading device (27) stores the register number (14) contained in the detected identification carrier (13) together with that absolute decoding time which is supplied by a radio-controlled clock (28).
3. Timekeeping device according to Claim 1 or 2,
   characterized in that
   the participant (12) successively passes by several transmitting coils (23') with interrogation of the direction of movement by way of a multiplexer (39').
4. Timekeeping device according to one of the preceding claims,
   characterized in that
   the reading device (27) is also designed to receive manual competition inputs for register numbers (14) just detected.
5. Timekeeping device according to one of the preceding claims,
   characterized in that
   the data records stored in association with register numbers (14) can be printed out on a record printer (41) and/or on a central evaluation computer (31).
6. Timekeeping device according to one of the preceding claims,
   characterized in that
   the high frequency field (22) in the rhythm of the register number (14) stored in binary code in the detected identification carrier (13) is damped, for which purpose an identification transmitter (20) in the identification carrier (13) receives its operating energy from the high frequency field (22) by way of the receiving coil (15) of a resonant circuit (17).

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