WO2006072880A1

WO2006072880A1 - Anti theft, anti robbery and alert call system for transportation vehicles using biometric unit

Info

Publication number: WO2006072880A1
Application number: PCT/IB2006/000018
Authority: WO
Inventors: Fabrizio Jemma
Original assignee: Voisec S.R.L.
Priority date: 2005-01-10
Filing date: 2006-01-09
Publication date: 2006-07-13
Also published as: ITSA20050001A1

Abstract

The system of the present invention is composed of a server farm and of an integrated interface functionally composed of 3 modules, the communication module, the localization module and the verifier module. The communication module consist of a series of integrated circuits the provide for the functionality of a GSM cellular phone. The chip set defined in such way that allows to handle incoming and outcoming calls, performing only the telephone functionality. The system is, moreover, able to receive or send SMS messages. The localization module consists of a chip set with GPS functionality. The server farm consists of a server array that are in telephone with the subscribers. In the serve farm there operates an application that reacts to incoming calls comparing the incoming data with the stored information such as vocal prints, the anagraphic data and the pre-set answers with the user. These data are used both in sequence of in random mode to avoid intrusions.

Description

ANTI THEFT, ANTI ROBBERY AND ALERT CALL SYSTEM FOR

TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES USING BIOMETRIC UNIT The subject of present application is an anti theft, anti robbery and alert call system for transportation

vehicles composed by an electronic box installed into the vehicle able to send, receive and manage data, including biometric data, both exchanged and originated inside the vehicle, and a central server farm that have to send and receive data and voice calls from the vehicle electronic box and ensure overall system functionality.

There currently are several antitheft and emergency alert system for transportation vehicles in the market based on satellite networks that are manually activated in the event of robbery or automatically in case of alert caused by sensors that detect attempt of intrusion or infringement of the vehicle . Most advanced systems send trough GSM network a pre recorded or automatically generated voice message to pre determined phone numbers informing about the intrusion or infringement and/or sending an emergency

message to ambulances , police and technical assistance specifying the vehicle position for a prompt rescue .

In general most of the alarm systems work in this way: if the vehicle is moved, with the engine switched on or off ( lift or dragged) without the

correct password is inserted, the telematic system on board sends to the operative centre an alarm with data concerning the position (even speed) of the

vehicle, taken by the satellite constellation of GPS which orbits to 20.000 km in height .

The operative centre locates on digitalized maps vehicle location and informs the police enabling them

to get back it , as it happens in a significant percentage of cases .

Concerning the assault , medical and mechanic help request the driver itself activates the push button

control . Even if these systems are effectives they don' t guarantee an absolute security when they are activated as anti robbery and anti theft , because the operative centre is in connection with the vehicle and is not in connection with the driver, recognizes alpha numeric codes (password) requested and filled even by the thief who has in any way discovered the

code .

The aim of this invention is to realize a system for transportation vehicles , able to exceed actual limits

for the identification of one or more people allowed to drive that vehicle, and to provide, in the meantime multiple services which can be realised by the system, in particular : anti theft and anti

robbery, medical assistance, technical assistance, vehicle tracing, remote vehicle blockage, alert call

to specific people . In order to meet such obj ectives it has been invented an anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as described in the following figure n . 1 , based on hardware and software biometric voice verifier module able to identify authorized people to use the vehicle through the verification of the driver voice print . The invention will be also explained with reference to the following figures : Figure 1 , which represents the system main elements ,

and

Figure 2 , which represents an anti theft : system sequence of event scheme . The system, as shown in figure 1 , is based on a electronic box installed into the vehicle which main elements are :

- A mother board to manage data communication between the electronic box itself , the engine control unit as

well as other vehicle control units and the mobile phone module - A mobile phone module able to transfer voice and

data with a remote server farm and the electronic box mother board

- A bluetooth interface for communicating with other electronic devices available inside the vehicle featured with the same interface such as cellular

phones , PC ' s , PDA' s , etc .

- A GPS module able to localize the vehicle position through the GPS satellite network - A microphone and speakerphone system able to process voice data form/to the vehicle and a remote server farm able to provide the overall system operation and provided services . Communication flow involving the parlor/owner is managed through voice while other communications from/to the electronic box are operated trough data . All the data communication are managed through non proprietary methods and protocols both inside the

vehicle and from the vehicle to the server farm and vice versa, where the communication flow is managed trough a common mobile phone .

The electronic box installed inside the vehicle is also connected to two push button located one by the foot and the other by the hand which allow driver to

place a call to the Server Farm. This option is useful just in case one has to abandon rapidly his vehicle, for instance in case of an

assault .

The Server Farm is composed by a server system which

main characteristics are :

- On line in Internet

Connected to Mobile phone networks for communicating with electronic boxes installed into

vehicles - Vocal verification, recognition and check algorithm software installed. They are able to guarantee that communication is personalized and secure

- Database in which are located the vocal prints , the questions which can be casually generated and the pre-defined answers .

In brief the system works in this way: during the ignition or during the driving phase, automatically and in pre-defined conditions , a speakerphone mode call phone is received in which it has been requested to driver to declare himself (vocal print check) .

In the positive case, the system communicates to driver only a courtesy message (ex . Good Morning Mr . Smith ... have a nice day) . On the contrary, in case

the driver is not recognised by the system (vocal

print check failure) , there will be other checks on the diver before vehicle will be blocked ( through the sending of a tone DMTS order signal to microprocessor located in the engine interface control ) , according

to the law specific and widely used by standard devices on market . The declaration of the driver is made trough the automatic request of a numeric code made by 7 digits or through the request of some every time different questions who requires just an answer known only by the owner . For each vehicle is possible to allow the use one or more persons , they only have to register their vocal print in the system prior to use the vehicle .

The applications of the system are the following : a) Anti theft (described in Fig . 2 ) - The Server Farm is alerted by a phone call generated by the vehicle, automatically, every time the driver lights on the engine or at any other time chosen by the owner . Server Farm provides , after few seconds to call back the vehicle in order to check if the diver is allowed to use that vehicle . In the case in which there will not be communication network coverage the system re¬

tries until the call has been answered. At this moment the electronic box send its code to server farm that start searching the file containing the

list of registered users and begins the vocal print driver check. After that, the system, during the same

call , sends a code to block or to not block the vehicle engine . The system can be easily customised by the specific needs of the vehicle owner, (ex. The server Farm in alerted at every first switching on of the vehicle daily, when vehicle doors are opened and people get in, or if the vehicle is parked in a outside coverage GSM, for example in a garage, the phone call is generated as soon as the vehicle is covered by GSM signal ) .

With reference to Figure 2 , namely to the anti theft function and to the system sequence of event scheme, it is being noted the following , b) Anti robbery/anti infringement - The Server Farm provides automatically to check the driver trough

predefined procedures as already described. The system can be easily customised by specific needs of the vehicle owner, ( ex . : server Farm alerted by pressing a hidden button inside the vehicle, meanwhile a robbery is in act . In this case Server Farm provides to call the vehicle predefined times in

order to verify if the vehicle is driven by the authorized person) .

In the anti robbery and anti theft function, after

the vocal print has been negatively checked, and after having provided to all the predefined verifying procedures , Server Farm calls the vehicle and communicates to thief that the geographical position has been located and invites him to stop and abandon the vehicle, specifying that in negative case the vehicle will block itself in a few period. The blockage will happen, under law, when the vehicle will stop for a while (in order to avoid any danger to the vehicle, its occupants as well as others) . c) Assistance - (HELP) The user who subscribed the service, and/or other owner predetermined people, if they are not driving the vehicle at the moment, can connect the Server Farm, trough a phone call , request a vehicle help and/or assistance or even the vehicle block. This feature is important, of course, when the

vehicle has just been robbed or for other reasons such as , for examples : mechanical assistance; vehicle localisation for knowing where is it; call for help

in case of assault , etc . The user has , in any case, at his disposal an emergency phone number for managing all the communications with server farm and

system functionalities . The emergency number, from server farm side, can be managed both in automatic, through a virtual operator that drive the user

through various functionalities and trough human operators , as it happens by calling a traditional call center . In such way it is possible to manage all

the cases where users for obj ective reasons (system or service) or for subj ective reasons (emotions or others ) are not able to go trough an automatic system and need a human help . d) Vehicle user profiling

The electronic box installed inside the vehicle is able to interface with all the vehicle control units and, trough its mobile phone module, to communicate with the server farm that , at its turn, is in communication with vehicle owner trough a common cellular phone . Thanks to such system functionalities it is possible for the owner to set different usage profile for the various drivers allowed to use the vehicle . For instance, a father can determine the maximum engine power as well as other parameters such as the maximum speed when the vehicle is driven by its son or daughter . In fact the owner can store such limitations into the server farm database that , when the driver, in the example owner son or daughter,

turn on the engine, recognize its voice and send instructions to the electronic box and

consequentially to the engine control unit for limiting power and speediness .

Such functionality is a real "vehicle parental control " . e) Navigation

The electronic box have a bluetooth interface, currently the main wireless standard protocol in electronic devices , and it is then able to communicate with any other device equipped with the same protocol .

The box can communicate, among the others , with PC ' s or hand PC ' s having bluetooth functionality and, when such devices have installed navigation maps , receiving from the vehicle electronic box the GPS vehicle positioning, they can provide full navigation functionality showing to driver the position, the best route to follow to reach destination, etc . Considering also the connection between electronic box and server farm, a further functionality is , when

needed, the maps downloading by the electronic box trough its connection with system centre and, sending of both GPS positioning and maps to PC ' s or hand PC ' s in the vehicle for navigation, it is also avoided the necessity of having pre installed maps in such devices . The core of the system is the biometric application of recognition and automatic check of the vocal

prints .

Voice recognition is obtained comparing sentences or words pronounced in natural language by the parlor and a database containing:

- Basic phonemes of the spoken language and all their combinations

- Words to be recognized - Most common combination of words to be recognized among themselves

All the above data are collected on a significant percentage of population of the specific language . Such data collection must be done for each language that has to be recognized.

Voice recognition, in fact , is parlor independent but language dependent . Any parlor speaking the same language, including regional language differentiations , will be recognized. There are not included in the population to be recognized non mother tongue parlors , they have to be recognized in their own native language .

The voice recognizer software has as an output a parameter list that is compared with collected data

in the database and allows a more reliable recognition.

It may happen that the same family members select as a password their name and surname and that such names are very similar (such as John and Joanna) , in such

cases the software have specific ways to solve the issue.

Voice verification is obtained by comparing the voice of the parlor (generated by the physical shape of the throat) , the so called "voice printing" , and the data

available in the database previously generated by the same parlor . Sentences and/or words in the database have not to necessary be the same pronounced every time by the parlor, what is recognized is the voice print and not the sentences and/or words . Voice verification then require the so called "enrollment" of the parlor, a phase where voice print is collected and stored into the database, from that moment on the parlor can be recognized ant any time . Following you can find examples of dialogue between parlor and system:

EXAMPLE 1 : (Anti theft and anti robbery) :

-System: "Hello this is security system, please say your name and surname"

-Parlor : "John Smith"

-System (after recognizing the voice printing) : " Have a nice trip Mr . John Smith"

EXAMPLE 2 : (Anti theft and anti robbery) :

- System: "Hello this is security system, please say your seven digit code" - Parlor : "3482159 " "

- System (after verifying the voice printing and the

code stored in the databases ) : "Have a nice trip Mr . John Smith"

EXAMPLE 3 : (Anti theft and anti robbery) : - System: "Hello this is security system, please say your name and surname"

- Parlor : "Al Capone"

- System: "I am sorry but your password is not valid. Please say your unlocking code or the vehicle will be shortly stopped and the owner will be informed" EXAMPLE 4 : (alert) :

- System: "Hello, this is the security system, please say your name and surname"

- Parlor : "John Smith" - System: "How can I help you? "

Parlor : He explains what the problem is using system functionality having the possibility to ask for a human operator .

The automatic voice, selected among many collected

vocal samples , is very nice and friendly in order to help a pleasant and comfortable conversation.

Since parlor can be very diversified the system, similarly to an human operator, will be able to manage typical behavior such as :

- To stay silent

To provide additional not requested and not necessary information

- Repeated words and sentences such as : "Yes , yes" or

"Yes , exactly" , etc Expert parlors will tend to shorten the dialogue with the system optimizing time where eventual theft will tend to have prolonged dialogues .

In the event of such diversifications of dialogues the system will be able to drive the parlor and to

manage interruptions .

Claims

1. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for

vehicles characterized by the fact of being based on a hardware and software biometric voice verifier module able to identify authorized people to use the vehicle through the verification of the parlor voice print .

2. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 , where the voice verification is obtained comparing sentences or words pronounced in natural language by the parlor and a database containing :

- Basic phonemes of the spoken language and all their combinations

- Words to be recognized

- Most common combination of words to be recognized among themselves

In practice the voice verifier has as an output a parameter list that is compared with collected data in the database and allows a solid and reliable recognition .

3. Anti theft, anti robbery and alert call system for

vehicles , as per claim 1 , where the voice

verification is obtained through the comparison between the parlor voice print , determined by the geometrical structure of the throat , unique for any human being, and the parlor voice print stored into

the database and previously recorded by the same parlor .

4. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 and 3 , where the verification is obtained not necessary trough the comparison with the data stored into the database of

the same words and sentences but trough the comparison of the parlor voice print and the same voice print data stored into the database and previously recorded by the same parlor even pronouncing different words or sentences and obtained a fully reliable verification.

5. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 and 2 , where, since the parlors can be very diversified, the system, similarly to an human operator, will be able to manage typical behavior such as :

- To stay silent

To provide additional not requested and not necessary information

- Repeated words and sentences such as : "Yes , yes" or

"Yes , exactly" , etc Expert parlors will tend to shorten the dialogue with

the system optimizing time where eventual theft will

tend to have prolonged dialogues . In the event of such diversifications of dialogues the system will be able to drive the parlor and to manage interruptions .

6. Anti theft, anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 , where the system is based, among the others , on a electronic box installed into

the vehicle where the main elements are :

- A mother board to manage data communication between

the electronic box itself , the engine control unit as well as other vehicle control units and the mobile phone module - A mobile phone module able to transfer voice and data with a remote server farm and the electronic box mother board

- A bluetooth interface for communicating with other electronic devices available inside the vehicle featured with the same interface such as cellular phones , PC ' s , PDA' s , etc .

-A GPS module able to localize the vehicle position through the GPS satellite network

-A microphone and speakerphone system able to process

voice data form/to the vehicle and a remote server farm able to provide the overall

system operation and provided services .

7. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for

vehicles , as per claim 1 and 6 , where, the parlor communicate through its voice and the communication flow between the vehicle and the server farm is managed as data .

All the data communication are managed through non proprietary methods and protocols both inside the vehicle and from the vehicle to the server farm and vice versa, where the communication flow is managed trough a common mobile phone .

8. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 , 6 and 7 , where the electronic box installed inside the vehicle manages also two bottons , the first operated by hand and the second by foot, that allow the driver to open a call with the server farm

9. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 , 6 , 7 and 8 , where the server farm is composed by servers , where are installed phone modules , connected to internet as well as other telematic networks that are in an enough number to :

- Manage the phone data flow - The very solid and reliable verification software

- The databases where are stored the parlor voice prints and pre defined questions and answers

10. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system for vehicles , as per claim 1 , 5 and 6 , where the system is also able to offer to vehicle owner a user

profiling . In fact the electronic box installed inside the vehicle is able to interface with all the vehicle control units and, trough its mobile phone module, to communicate with the server farm that , at its turn, is in communication with vehicle owner trough a common cellular phone .

Thanks to such system functionalities it is possible for the owner to set different usage profile for the various drivers allowed to use the vehicle . For instance, a father can determine the maximum engine power as well as other parameters such as the maximum speed when the vehicle is driven by its son or daughter . In fact the owner can store such limitations into the server farm database that, when the driver, in the example owner son or daughter,

consequentially to the engine control unit for limiting power and speediness . Such functionality is a real "vehicle parental

control" .

11. Anti theft , anti robbery and alert call system

for vehicles , as per claim 1 , 5 and 6 , where The electronic box have a bluetooth interface, currently the main wireless standard protocol in electronic devices , and it is then able to communicate with any other device equipped with the same protocol . The box can communicate, among the others , with PC ' s or hand PC ' s having bluetooth functionality and, when such devices have installed navigation maps , receiving from the vehicle electronic box the GPS vehicle positioning, they can provide full navigation functionality showing to driver the position, the best route to follow to reach destination, etc .

Considering also the connection between electronic box and server farm, a further functionality is , when needed, the maps downloading by the electronic box trough its connection with system centre and, sending of both GPS positioning and maps to PC ' s or hand PC ' s in the vehicle for navigation, it is also avoided the necessity of having pre installed maps in such devices .