Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60R—VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • B60R25/00—Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles
  • B60R25/10—Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles actuating a signalling device
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G08—SIGNALLING
  • G08B—SIGNALLING OR CALLING SYSTEMS; ORDER TELEGRAPHS; ALARM SYSTEMS
  • G08B13/00—Burglar, theft or intruder alarms
  • G08B13/22—Electrical actuation
  • G08B13/24—Electrical actuation by interference with electromagnetic field distribution
  • G08B13/2402—Electronic Article Surveillance [EAS], i.e. systems using tags for detecting removal of a tagged item from a secure area, e.g. tags for detecting shoplifting
  • G08B13/2451—Specific applications combined with EAS
  • G08B13/2462—Asset location systems combined with EAS
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60R—VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • B60R25/00—Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles
  • B60R25/10—Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles actuating a signalling device
  • B60R2025/1013—Alarm systems characterised by the type of warning signal, e.g. visual, audible
  • B60R2025/1016—Remote signals alerting owner or authorities, e.g. radio signals
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60R—VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • B60R2325/00—Indexing scheme relating to vehicle anti-theft devices
  • B60R2325/10—Communication protocols, communication systems of vehicle anti-theft devices
  • B60R2325/101—Bluetooth
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B60—VEHICLES IN GENERAL
  • B60R—VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • B60R2325/00—Indexing scheme relating to vehicle anti-theft devices
  • B60R2325/20—Communication devices for vehicle anti-theft devices
  • B60R2325/205—Mobile phones

Definitions

• the present invention relates to the field of motor vehicles and motorcars, and, more in particular, to an electronic device for tracking the position, and possibly the impact, lifting, movement of mobile objects such as, for example, vehicles, or any other mobile object.
• the invention is applicable to components or parts of vehicles and/or motor vehicles whose movements are to be tracked.
• reference will be made to the use on a vehicle, although, it is quite apparent that the invention is usable, with the same advantages and without modifications, on any mobile object.
• Applications are known, available for
• Said prior art has some disadvantages: first, the stolen vehicle must have already been reported to the authorities in order to be in the application database.
• a second disadvantage of the prior art is that, in order to proceed with the verification on a vehicle, the license plate and/or the chassis number and/or the vehicle model must be entered, data which may not be immediately accessible or which may be forged.
• such a device may be advantageously coupled to means capable of signaling impacts, lifting, movements of the vehicle, volumetric sensors, as well as means for signaling the attempted theft to a suitable remote server, as well as to the owner of the vehicle, providing the last recorded position of the device, and therefore of the vehicle.
• Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the invention (hereinafter referred to as "StarBeacon”) showing the microcontroller 1, the Bluetooth transmitter 2 (which may also be a transceiver), the power supply battery 3, the data transceiver antenna 4, and an external antenna 5 (optional).
• FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a variant of the invention (hereinafter referred to as "MasterBeacon”) showing the microcontroller 1 with eSIM GSM, the transceiver 2 (preferably Bluetooth Low Energy), the power supply battery 3, the data transceiver antenna 4, an external GSM antenna 5, and a movement sensor 6.
• MasterBeacon a block diagram of a variant of the invention (hereinafter referred to as "MasterBeacon") showing the microcontroller 1 with eSIM GSM, the transceiver 2 (preferably Bluetooth Low Energy), the power supply battery 3, the data transceiver antenna 4, an external GSM antenna 5, and a movement sensor 6.
• the invention substantially consists of an electronic device, hereinafter referred to as "StarBeacon”, configured to communicate with an App which is installable on a smartphone and/or tablet, hereinafter referred to as “Starblock”, which App communicates, in turn, with a remote server which is constantly in connection with all the Apps installed on the smartphones and/or tablets.
• StarBeacon an electronic device
• Starblock an App which is installable on a smartphone and/or tablet
• a remote server which is constantly in connection with all the Apps installed on the smartphones and/or tablets.
• the electronic device described substantially is a sort of battery-powered radio beacon provided with a unique serial number (ID); comprising a wireless transmitter, preferably Bluetooth, configured to transmit the identification data thereof at predefined time intervals, preferably of the order of seconds or minutes, to be received by at least one mobile phone/tablet on which the aforesaid App is installed.
• ID unique serial number
• Such a “StarBeacon” device which is interfaceable with the “Starblock” remote application, allows the proximity signaling and identification of various types of mobile objects on which it is applicable.
• associating/installing a corresponding plurality of StarBeacon devices to one or more components/parts of mobile objects, such as vehicles, motorcars, motor vehicles, bicycles, is provided.
• a plurality of StarBeacons may be installed on a vehicle, in each seat, in the dashboard, in the luggage compartment, etc., so that even if one of such components of the vehicle is smuggled from the vehicle itself, it is trackable and identifiable regardless of the position of the vehicle to which it belonged.
• each object associated with a specific StarBeacon will correspond to the unique serial number of the latter.
• the smartphones and/or tablets on which the application is installed act as detectors of StarBeacon devices, allowing the mapping, and upon the tracking of said sensors, creating a network of detector cells.
• the StarBeacons transmit, at (programmable) intervals, exclusively the serial code thereof, and the App, in communication with the remote server, sends to the remote server the serial codes received from the StarBeacons within reach of signal.
• the application communicates with a remote server in which the statuses of all the StarBeacon devices are recorded and updated.
• each StarBeacon device sends, in addition to the unique serial number thereof, also an additional identification data, common to all StarBeacons, whose sole purpose is to distinguish the serial numbers of the StarBeacons from those of all Bluetooth devices which are active and within reach of the signal of the mobile device (e.g., smartphone/tablet) on which the App is installed.
• the App may advantageously immediately exclude all the serial numbers which do not have that distinctive identifier, such as, for example, a prefix or suffix of the serial number itself.
• the tracking of the position of the vehicle is thus carried out by detecting the signal of the device from multiple software applications (Apps) which communicate the data detected to the server, also allowing the analysis of the movements of the vehicle if this is in motion.
• Apps software applications
• the data flow from the devices to the software application and from the latter to the remote server is normally not "visible" to the user, i.e., the application does not warn the user that it has detected a device which is stolen, but for each of these it transmits the acquired data to the remote server.
• the remote server for reasons also related to privacy, is programmed to alert exclusively the owner/user of the stolen vehicle and the law enforcement agencies (or supervisory institutions) with the aforementioned data reporting the last detected position, both spatially and temporally, of the stolen vehicle.
• Said remote server may notify the software application of the serial numbers of the stolen sensors, and updates the statuses of those found, making this information available to the application as well.
• said server in the preferred embodiment, does not communicate continuously, but only upon request, notifying the serial numbers of the stolen StarBeacons and updating those found.
• the electronic device described up to now may be provided with further components which give it additional functions: in this case the device is referred to as "MasterBeacon” ( Figure 2).
• MasterBeacon is also a portable, battery-powered, radio beacon device, provided with at least one lifting/movement/crash sensor, an eSIM and a hyperfrequency transducer.
• the MasterBeacon is configured to operate both in beacon (radio beacon) as well as in Bluetooth (bidirectional) mode.
• the hyperfrequency sensor is like a volumetric sensor, but it operates much better, since it identifies the presence of moving objects inside the vehicle even if it is of the cabriolet type. In essence, it is more immune to false alarms.
• the MasterBeacon device is provided with means for communicating in connected mode, directly and exclusively with the application installed on the smartphone and/or tablet of the owner of the vehicle (and therefore of the MasterBeacon).
• the MasterBeacon itself provides, by means of the eSIM thereof, to send an alarm to both the owner and the remote server, and possibly to the law enforcement agencies.
• the "Starblock” application is preferably installable on Android or iOS devices or devices provided with other operating systems.
• such an application communicates with the StarBeacon and MasterBeacon devices via the Bluetooth signal, and with the remote server via the cellular network; however, it is possible to implement other communication methods by means of Wi-Fi or SMS or even on the voice channel.
• the owner of the StarBeacon/MasterBeacon device (s), or whoever has the requirements to access the status of these devices, may change the status of such devices by means of the application; thereby, the remote server is notified about the change of status of the StarBeacon/MasterBeacon device.
• the data, collected and transmitted to the remote server by the applications installed on the various smartphones/tablets of the users, are advantageously usable to provide a plurality of services, such as the processing of statistics related to big data.
• said unique serial code of the StarBeacon device may be advantageously formed by the MAC address of the StarBeacon, since, being a unique value, as it is issued by an international body (so as not to have conflicts of value), it may advantageously be directly used as an identifier.
• the identifiers of the devices associated with stolen vehicles are stored on the App of the smartphone/tablet, so that when the App receives one of such identifiers (for example, the MAC address) it immediately sends the alert to the server, with the position, time, and other data of the "stolen” StarBeacon.
• the server will communicate with the appropriate entities, law enforcement agencies, user, etc.
• Control unit with CPU microcontroller (optionally provided with GSM in Figure 2) 2.Transmitter or transceiver

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Automation & Control Theory (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
• Electromagnetism (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Alarm Systems (AREA)
• Telephone Function (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=70295697

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (2)

Citations (6)

• 2020
  • 2020-01-09 IT IT102020000000223A patent/IT202000000223A1/it unknown
• 2021
  • 2021-01-08 WO PCT/IB2021/050124 patent/WO2021140479A1/en active Application Filing

Patent Citations (6)

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