EP1544803B1 - Detection system for carrier pigeons - Google Patents

Description

The invention relates to a carrier pigeon constellation system according to the preamble of claim 1.

Carrier pigeon constellation systems are used to detect the arrival times in flight competitions used pigeon tamper-proof to determine the distance between Auflaßort and home beat in conjunction with the required flight time, the airspeed. This size determines the placements of the used pigeons.

Usually, flying competitions with carrier pigeons are carried out as follows. Each breeder transports his pigeons equipped with electronic pigeon rings to the clubhouse, where the pigeons are "used" for the flight competition. This is done contactlessly by a deployment device, at its insert antenna the pigeons with their attached to the feet electronic pigeon rings one after the other be brought so that transponder data can be read and / or exchanged and stored.

Subsequently, the used pigeons are "basketed", d. H. put into transport cages and transported to the starting point with transport vehicles. At the starting point, also called Auflaßort, the pigeons are "left open". All transport cages are opened by assistants or by mechanical devices at a start time simultaneously, so that all pigeons leave their transport cages and can begin the flight to the home beat.

After the arrival in the home beat the carrier pigeons are stated, d. H. Their arrival time is recorded and stored linked with their ring number in the electronic pigeon ring. The contactless by a detection device of the breeder, whose reading antenna is located in the entry area of the home beat and reads the transponder data as soon as the returning homing pigeon passes the entry area.

Subsequently, the breeder transmits the data of the returning homing pigeons to the Einsatzgerät of the association. This can be done by remote data transmission or by transport the detection device or at least a mobile memory to the deployment device of the association and data transfer done locally. Finally, the entire data of the club for themselves or together with other competing clubs evaluated and determined the placements.

Since all breeders pay entry fees, from which the breeders of best-placed carrier pigeons receive high profit premiums in some countries and the value of their animals is highly prized, there is an incentive for breeders of less successful pigeons to manipulate, in order to finally be able to collect high profit premiums , These manipulations are directed to pretend the detection device in the home beat an earlier arrival of the carrier pigeon as they actually arrives.

If the breeder may use his carrier pigeon on the club's own use device itself, he could, for. B. carry the electronic pigeon ring hidden on his own body and bring together with the carrier pigeon in the vicinity of the insert antenna, so that the deployment unit read data from the memory of the transponder and write to memory, without that the electronic pigeon ring is attached to the foot of the carrier pigeon.

Later, the breeder can manually bring the electronic pigeon ring to the reading antenna of the detection device on the home beat and simulate the arrival of his carrier pigeon in supposed record time.

This manipulation should be prevented by the fact that the breeder is no longer allowed to use his own pigeons, but only foreign carrier pigeons. However, this may result in malicious breeders using the power of potential favorite pigeons to deliberately injure or even kill the animals at deployment to prevent their participation in the flight competition.

If the breeder is not allowed to use his carrier pigeon on the club's own deployment device, he could try to use a copy of the transponder data of the used pigeon to describe the memory of the transponder of an identical second electronic pigeon ring and then manually to the reading antenna of the detection device at the home beat introduce. This could also simulate the arrival of his carrier pigeon in supposed record time.

Against these attempts manipulation numerous measures have been developed that complicate the making of copies, such. B. encryption, control reading and modified writing back or authenticating data electronic pigeon ring. However, these measures increase the cost of software and hardware in the deployment equipment, electronic pigeon rings and detection devices as well as the transmission time of the data when inserting and detecting. Therefore, economic and technical limits are set here.

The pigeon travel regulations of some countries also provide additional controls. For example, after the arrival of a carrier pigeon, the breeder in the Netherlands must announce the arrival by calling his club within 10 minutes. As a result, in case of suspected manipulation timely checks of the breeders information are possible. In Taiwan, after the arrival of a carrier pigeon, the breeder must even bring it to the clubhouse within 10 minutes to prove the return of the carrier pigeon.

The previously published citation EP-A-0 660 271 describes a pigeon constellation system consisting of an insert device, electronic pigeon rings and a detection device in the home beat. The disclosed electronic pigeon rings comprise transponders with memories which are contactlessly readable and writable in the deployment device and contactlessly readable in the detection device. The detection device shown comprises a reader, a timer and a memory, which is described with the read transponder data and the associated arrival times.

The invention has for its object to perform a carrier pigeon constellation according to the preamble of claim 1 against manipulation attempts safer.

This object is achieved in a pigeon constellation system according to the preamble of claim 1 by the features of this claim.

Further developments and advantageous embodiments will become apparent from the dependent claims.

The invention is based on the consideration that the above-mentioned manipulations are made more difficult if valid Konstatierdaten must obtain proof that in addition to the electronic pigeon ring and the pigeon itself has passed the entry area in the home beat. This happens here by additional image data of the carrier pigeon, which can then be compared in association with image data of the used carrier pigeon. Since racing pigeons can be clearly distinguished by the colors of their plumage and their eyes, images are an appropriate way to identify. These could also make the short-term transport to the clubhouse as proof of arrival in the home beat dispensable.

Preferably, the detection device comprises an encryption system with which the transponder data, arrival times and image data are inseparably linked to each other.

This should make it difficult to manipulate attempts to exchange or edit individual data later.

In addition, the detection device may additionally comprise integrally a geographic coordinate analyzer from received data of a satellite navigation system, and the memory of the detection device may additionally be describable with the geographic coordinates.

The additional consideration of geographical coordinates should make it more difficult to manipulate further. So there are breeders who maintain a distant side impact besides the home beat. If the secondary punch is closer to the place of infliction than the main punch, the breeder could use carrier pigeons from the secondary punch, but identify them to the club as carrier pigeons from the main punch. Such a manipulation attempt will only be revealed if the geographical coordinates of the place where the return of the carrier pigeon is recorded are also recorded becomes. If this is not the home beat, but the auxiliary strike, the coordinates inevitably diverge from the coordinates of the home beat.

These supplementary data can also be inseparably linked with the other data by the encryption system, so that an exchange or a subsequent processing and modification of the data is made more difficult.

Furthermore, the at least one camera can be connected to the detection device via a bus system or a wireless interface.

It can thereby be commercially available components, eg. As web cameras, use their image data can be supplied to the detection device in a similar manner as the read via the reading antennas transponder data and these data can all be linked together in a timely manner.

In the case of several reading antennas and cameras on the same reading device, this can be done by providing the image data with time stamps during the generation and / or temporary storage, the transponder data during reading and / or the intermediate storage are also provided with timestamps and the image data and transponder data are finally linked via identical or similar timestamps. The timestamps may be relative timestamps or real time marks. Relative time stamps are still linked to real-time tags provided by a timer. By combining image data with time stamps, it is also possible to assign image sequences from a plurality of individual images in the correct order to the time of reading of the transponder data.

Preferably, the camera is attachable to a bracket, which is arranged on a reading antenna of the detection device receiving landing board.

By this device, the attachment and positioning of the camera is facilitated and also given a uniform recording direction and a uniform recording distance, so that the distinguishing criteria of the used pigeons are detected safely and reproducibly and show the image data uniform images and are better comparable.

The camera on the holder is preferably already pre-aligned on the landing board.

This facilitates the assembly for the breeder and ensures that the images actually contain the distinguishing criteria of the carrier pigeon at the time of acquisition. The brackets can be arranged on both sides of the landing board to arrange the camera so that it is not affected by direct sunlight by adapting to the orientation of the entry area to the sun.

Furthermore, a lighting device can be fastened to the holder.

This allows illumination of the image field to produce impeccable images even at dusk or cameras that are located inside the home beat to be better protected against sunlight or weather.

With several landing boards equipped with reading antennas and cameras facing them, the landing boards can be optically enhanced Means for the association between reading antennas and cameras include.

This simplifies installation and setup for the breeder, as the mapping between reading antennas and cameras can then be performed automatically by the acquisition device.

In addition, cameras can be used which are connected to the acquisition device via a serial bus and receive dynamic addresses. In fact, with such cameras, there is no fixed assignment to the reading antennas to which they are directed, and the assignment of the cameras must therefore be newly recorded every time the carrier pigeon design system is started.

Fig. 1

eine schematische Anordnung der Komponenten des Heimatschlages eines Brieftaubenkonstatiersystems und

Fig. 2

eine mögliche Darstellung sämtlicher Daten auf einem grafischen Bildschirm.

The invention will be explained in more detail with reference to an embodiment which is shown in the drawing. In the drawing show:

Fig. 1

a schematic arrangement of the components of the homing of a pigeon constellation system and

Fig. 2

a possible representation of all data on a graphical screen.

The components of the home beat of a pigeon constellation system comprise a detection device 10, to whose one interface 12 a plurality of reading antennas 14, 14 ', 14' ', 14' '' and at the other interface 16 a plurality of cameras 18, 18 ', 18' ', 18 " 'are connected.

The acquisition device 10 itself includes a computer 20 with a memory 22, transmitting and receiving components 24 and multiplexer 26 for the reading antennas 14, 14 ', 14'', 14 "', a timer 28 and a geographic coordinates evaluator 30 from received data Since the complex data of the satellite navigation system also includes the time of day, a separate timepiece for the provision of real-time tags can also be dispensed with and the geographical coordinates evaluator 30 can take over this task The timer 28 and the evaluator 30 are integral in the recording device 10, so that manipulation is made much more difficult.Only the satellite antenna is arranged externally In addition to controlling the individual components, it is also possible to undertake the encryption and linking of all the data that is written to the memory 22.

In order to transport the data of the memory 22 to the deployment device of the association, an interface 50 is further provided. In addition, the data of the memory 20 can be transmitted by remote data transmission or even when taking the entire reader 10 by direct data transmission to the unit of use of the association. A third possibility is to load the data via the interface 50 in a mobile memory 52 and then read this out after transport to the club in the deployment device. However, the interface 50 can also be used to transmit the data via a communication network to a mobile terminal of the breeder in the absence of the home beat. Finally, the detection device 10 also has a display device 32 for optically displaying the acquired and stored data.

According to the embodiment Fig. 1 There are four read antennas 14, 14 ', 14 ", 14"', which may also be implemented as dual antennas with two loops that are switched alternately, but only one entry hole at a time assigned. Except the in Fig. 1 shown connection option via the interface 12 reading antenna with active components can also be connected via a serial bus system to an interface 48. These reading antennas with active components generate their own time stamps with which the transponder data are linked before they are transmitted to the computer 20 where they are again linked to real-time data from the timer 28 or real-time data from the evaluation device 30 obtained from satellite signals.

On the landing boards next to the reading antennas 14, 14 ', 14' ', 14' '' optical means 34, 34 ', 34' ', 34' '', in this case light-emitting diodes, arranged in the system set up successively at the time of Reading a reading antenna are activated to allow the use of multiple cameras, the camera to the respective reading antenna.

The four cameras are connected via a hub 36 via a USB interface to the reader 10. Again, the image data when created in the camera 18, 18 ', 18'', 18 "' and / or caching in the camera 18, 18 ', 18", 18''' or the hub 36 associated with their own timestamps , For the processing of these timestamps the explanations apply to the reading antennas analog. The timestamps are used to account for and delay time delays on the serial buses or the data processing in order to be able to specify real-time values during the determination.

In addition, light sources 38, 38 ', 38' ', 38' '' of a lighting device can also be provided which are switched on when a homecoming carrier pigeon is detected in order to obtain sufficiently illuminated images.

In order to set up the reading device to identify homecoming pigeons, the assignment of the cameras 18, 18 ', 18 "and 18"' to the reading antennas 14, 14 ', 14 "and 14"' must first be established. This is done by a set-up mode controlled by the computer 20, in which the optical means 34, 34 ', 34' 'and 34' '' are turned on one after the other, the camera images are then identified on the basis of their image data representing the optical means, and thus with the reading antennas, to which they are directed are automatically linked.

Alternatively, this process can also be performed manually by successively pigeon dummies with electronic Wrestling be led to the reading antennas zoom. By reading the reading antenna is then identified and then manually assigned the camera of the respective reading antenna to which it is directed from the comparison of the camera images with and without doves dummy. Then the reader is ready.

If a carrier pigeon returns after a race, then the passage is made by passing the jump-in area by recording the transponder data via the corresponding reading antenna via the electromagnetic coupling of the transponder in the electronic pigeon ring and temporarily storing it in the computer. At the same time, the geographical data as well as the time and date are recorded and buffered. Furthermore, the images captured by the camera are provided with time stamps and buffered.

Subsequently, all the data is then inseparably linked or encrypted by the computer 20 and written to the memory 22. From there you can then via the interface 50 in the manner already described above to the deployment device of the club and / or the mobile terminal transmitted by the breeder. Images of the used racing pigeons are also stored in the deployment device of the club or other storage media of the association, so that a comparison is possible to match the stated with the used pigeons.

Fig. 2 shows a possible representation of all collected data on a graphical screen. In a captured image of a carrier pigeon at the four corners of the image following data are included: geographic coordinate of homeland shock in field 40, flight number or Auflaßort in field 42, transponder data, such as ID number of the carrier pigeon, pigeon ring number, association number of the carrier pigeon in box 44 as well as arrival time and arrival date of the carrier pigeon in field 46.

Claims (13)

1. Carrier pigeon verification system, consisting of at least one operations unit, electronic pigeon rings and also at least one recording unit (10) in the home loft, wherein the electronic pigeon rings comprise transponders with memories, which can be read and written to in a contactless manner in the operations unit and can be read in a contactless manner in the recording unit, and the recording unit comprises a reader (14), a timer (28) and a memory (22), to which the read transponder data and associated arrival times are written, characterised in that the recording unit is additionally connected to at least one electronic camera (18), by means of which images of the returning carrier pigeons are recorded, and the image data of the recorded carrier pigeons are additionally written to the memory of the recording unit.
2. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 1, characterised in that the image data in association with the arrival times are written to the memory of the recording unit.
3. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the recording unit comprises an encryption system, by means of which the transponder data, the arrival times and the image data are inseparably associated with one another.
4. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterised in that the recording unit additionally comprises an integral evaluation unit (30) for evaluating geographical coordinates from received data of a satellite navigation system, and the geographical coordinates are additionally written to the memory of the recording unit.
5. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 4, characterised in that the transponder data, the arrival times, the image data and the geographical coordinates are inseparably associated with one another by the encryption system.
6. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterised in that the at least one camera is connected to the recording unit via a bus system or a wireless interface.
7. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 6, characterised in that the camera is fixed to a mount which is arranged on a landing shelf which holds a read antenna of the reader.
8. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 7, characterised in that the camera is pre-installed on the mount on the landing shelf.
9. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 7 or 8, characterised in that an illumination device (38) is fixed to the mount.
10. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 9, characterised in that, in the case of a plurality of landing shelves equipped with read antennas and cameras installed thereon, the landing shelves comprise optical means (34) for automatic matching of the read antennas and cameras.
11. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 10, characterised in that time tag generators are provided in the case of a plurality of landing shelves equipped with read antennas and cameras installed thereon, in that the time tag generators are assigned to the read antennas for associating transponder data with time tags and/or are assigned to the cameras for associating image data with time tags, and in that the transponder data associated with time tags and/or the image data associated with time tags are additionally associated with real time tags or reference time tags from a timer and are written to a memory.
12. Carrier pigeon verification system according to claim 11, characterised in that, in the case of transponder data associated with time tags and image data associated with time tags, the transponder data and the image data are matched via the time tags and the matched transponder data and image data are jointly associated with real time tags or reference time tags from a timer and are written to a memory.
13. Carrier pigeon verification system according to one of claims 1 to 12, characterised in that the recording unit comprises an interface (50), via which the data stored in the memory are transmitted to an operations unit of the club and/or to a mobile terminal of the breeder.

Images