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(11) | EP 4 456 042 A1 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | VESSEL CONTROL SYSTEM |
| (57) A system for controlling vessels, including at least one positioning node (201, 202,
203) associated with a beacon device on the vessel. This device having a GPS module
(102) for position and speed data, a Bluetooth module (103) for communication with
a management application, a battery management module (104) for power control, a communication
module radio frequency wireless (105), and a microcontroller (101) to monitor the
modules (102, 103, 104, 105), collect data, and execute applications to connect with
positioning nodes (201, 202, 203) through user terminal equipment. A master node (200)
facilitates communication between each positioning node (201, 202, 203) using the
module (105) and is linked via Bluetooth (22) with a control device (210) that operates
the management application, receiving and sending collected data to the application. |
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention falls within the industrial sector dedicated to control systems using communications networks and based on geopositioning to coordinate multiple general-purpose devices, especially for devices in the naval sector.
[0002] Particularly, the present invention refers to an intelligent vessel monitoring and control system to prevent collision accidents.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] Automatic identification systems (AIS) are known that transmit the position of a ship so that other ships are aware of it, thus avoiding collisions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires the use of AIS on ships over 300 gross tons undertaking international voyages. It is not cost effective to install an AIS system on small vessels.
[0004] On large vessels such as ships or cruise ships, there is also a need to improve safety systems. Disasters such as the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia, which was shocking because despite being so close to the coast there were victims, continue to occur even if the current ship control systems exist.
[0006] Therefore, the technical problem is to develop a vessel control system with a wide range and without requiring connection to a data or mobile telephone network.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0007] The present invention serves to solve the problem mentioned above, by providing a system for controlling a group of one or more vessels, as well as the people or equipment on the vessel. Fundamentally, it describes a system capable of controlling vessels through geolocation, avoiding collision and boarding, controlling distances and tracking, all in real time and without the need for an internet or mobile phone data plan.
[0008] One aspect of the invention refers to a system for controlling vessels comprising:
- one or more nodes (positioning nodes) associated with a beacon device located on a
vessel, there may be one or more vessels, where the beacon device comprises:
- a module positioning (GPS module) configured to take position and speed data from the beacon node/device,
- a Bluetooth module configured to communicate externally with a management application,
- a battery management module configured to control at least one power battery of the beacon device,
- a radio frequency wireless communication module (preferably LoRa communication), and
- a microcontroller configured to control all of the above modules, collect the data given by said modules, and execute an application (firmware/software) through which a user connects to each positioning node through a user terminal equipment;
- a master node configured to communicate through the radio frequency wireless communication module with each of the positioning nodes, to receive the data collected by each positioning node, and to communicate via Bluetooth (for example, BLE) with a control equipment to send the received data to the application of management in the control team (internal or external to the system).
[0009] The advantages of the present invention compared to the prior art are fundamentally:
- The present invention constitutes a tool capable of controlling vessels or people through geolocation to avoid collision, boarding, and have the carrier's location history without the need for a data plan or mobile coverage, or any infrastructure installation to function correctly.
- Through a multiplatform application, which uses LoRa and Bluetooth as communication protocols, the present invention allows a large number of vessels to be controlled and receive alerts with a range of up to 10km. This is an advantage over those systems that do not require an Internet connection, but offer a very limited range. This system advantageously allows, both from a business and personal point of view, to have control of the vessels and the people on those vessels at all times, allowing family and friends of water sports athletes to know where they are at all times.
- The present invention is cost-effective, compared to AIS systems, to be installed on small vessels, such as kayaks, paddle surfs, inflatable vessels, etc.
[0010] These and other advantages can be derived in light of the description of the invention presented in detail below.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011] To complement the description being made and in order to help a better understanding of the characteristics of the invention, in accordance with a preferred example of practical embodiment thereof, a set of drawings is attached as an integral part of said description, where, for illustrative and non-limiting purposes, the following has been represented:
Figure 1.- Shows a block diagram of the architecture of a beacon device of the vessel control system, according to a possible embodiment of the invention.
Figure 2.- Shows a block diagram of the communication of the vessel control system, according to a possible embodiment of the invention.
PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
[0012] Below, with the help of the aforementioned figures, a detailed explanation of an example of a preferred embodiment of the object of the present invention is provided.
[0013] A system is presented for controlling one or more vessels designed to be installed not only in a fleet of vessels but also for the increasingly large fleet of sports and leisure elements sailing through the water such as kayaks, paddle surf boards or windsurfing, among others. The system provides the following functionalities:
- Avoid collisions between vessels: Each of the vessels or equipment located on the vessels under control or monitoring, such as life jackets or other safety equipment, has a "beacon device". The beacon device software is configured to define the range of action of each vessel. That is, once a security perimeter has been determined and with the radius of action of each vessel provided by the vessel's beacon device or set of beacon devices, the system is capable of determining whether any of the monitored vessels are approaching or moving away, and in case of entering within the security perimeter, it can generate a visual and/or audible alarm to warn of danger and prevent an accident.
- Geolocation of vessels and their equipment (for example, life jackets) using geolocation devices: GPS and software indicate the exact position of the device located on the vessel. These geopositioning data can be displayed on a user/operator terminal, such as their mobile phone, a tablet or a computer, without the need to establish a communications network to be able to see all this data.
- Tracking of vessels/equipment: This functionality is interesting in order to be able to analyze navigation data, exact position and route, both in real time and after.
[0014] Each beacon device adapted to be placed on the vessel is associated with a positioning node in the system and the device comprises the following components shown in Figure 1:
- a GPS module (102) to take position and speed data from the device,
- a Bluetooth module (103) to connect to the application (activated through configuration if master),
- a battery management module (104) to control the level and charge of the battery of the beacon device,
- a radio frequency wireless communication module (105), which preferably uses LoRa radio communication technology, and
- a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) for the control of all the above modules, which comprises a microcontroller (101) where the program (firmware) of the beacon device is loaded and executed.
[0015] In addition, the beacon device can incorporate various switches to execute different actions (based on alarm generation) and that notify the management application that the user needs intervention or help, such as a panic button, a geolocation alarm button, end of use warning, low battery warning...
[0016] The device software is capable of marking the exact position through GPS and sending a notification to the user/operator terminal equipment or the app when the vessel leaves a previously established or assigned range of action to the positioning device/node. Thus, it allows knowing with complete precision where these vessels are at all times through the app, thereby increasing safety in the marine environment, a growing problem that is causing so many problems for companies that are mainly dedicated to renting vessels sports or leisure vessels.
[0017] Each beacon device reports its position to a positioning node to which an operator has connected, through an application or app, through a user terminal equipment, which may be, among other examples, a mobile phone, a smart bracelet or other portable gadget, a tablet, a laptop or a personal computer, etc. In this way, a group of positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...) can be coordinated, as shown in Figure 2, to know where they are at all times and, in addition, entry/exit boundary regions can be established for each node associated with each beacon device, the limits to be assigned for the entry and exit zones of the devices being configurable depending on the case. The positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...) are responsible for taking the GPS position, in addition to other useful data such as battery level, speed, time since start of the associated beacon device, etc., and transmitting them to a master node (200). The master node (200) relays it to the control equipment (210) which, with a management application, performs functions such as generating an interactive map showing all the data received by the master node (200) collected by the positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...). The control equipment (210) can also save this data to allow review of the system's position history at any time. The master node (200) is the link between the positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...) and the control equipment (210) where the management application runs, transmitting data from the positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...) to the management application via Bluetooth (22), preferably using BLE technology. The communication between the positioning nodes (201, 202, 203,...) and the master node (200) is carried out using the radio frequency wireless communication module (105) of the beacon device described in Figure 1 and preferably uses a standard radio frequency communication protocol (21), in this case, the LoRa protocol having a range including a range of approximately 5 to 15 kilometers.
[0018] The proposed system is versatile because, in addition to the anti-collision and maritime location system that has been presented for the naval sector, it can be used, among other applications, such as: control of vehicle fleets, control of livestock, control of people such as skiers or hikers on a mountain who are also susceptible of suffering or causing accidents if its location/position in time is not controlled.
1. A system for controlling vessels characterized by comprising:
- at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203) associated with a beacon device located on a vessel, the beacon device comprising:
- a GPS module (102) configured to take position and speed data from the beacon device,
- a Bluetooth module (103) configured to communicate with a management application,
- a battery management module (104) configured to control at least one power battery of the beacon device,
- a radio frequency wireless communication module (105), and
- a microcontroller (101) configured to control all the previous modules (102, 103, 104, 105), collect data given by the previous modules (102, 103, 104, 105) and execute an application through which a user connects to the at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203) by means of a user terminal equipment;
- a master node (200) configured to communicate with each positioning node (201, 202, 203) through the radio frequency wireless communication module (105) and to communicate via Bluetooth (22) with a control device (210) where the management application runs; the master node (200) further configured to receive the data collected by each positioning node (201, 202, 203) with which is communicated, and to send the received data to the management application in the control equipment (210).
2. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the at least one beacon device is located on an object associated with a person on
the vessel or on safety equipment available on the vessel.
3. The system according to claim 2, characterized in that the at least one beacon device is located in a life jacket provided on the vessel.
4. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203) further comprises one or more switches
to execute actions based on alarm generation and notify an alarm to the management
application of the control equipment (210).
5. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203) is connected to the user terminal
equipment which is a mobile phone, a smart bracelet, a tablet, a laptop or a personal
computer.
6. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the radio frequency wireless communication module (105) is configured to use a LoRa
radio frequency communication protocol (21).
7. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the master node (200) is configured to communicate with the control equipment (210)
via Bluetooth (22) with BLE technology.
8. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the master node (200) is configured to receive GPS position, speed, battery level
and start time data from the at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203).
9. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the at least one positioning node (201, 202, 203) is configured to be assigned to
input/output boundary regions configurable in the microcontroller (101) by the user
through the application with which the user terminal equipment connects to the user
terminal equipment.
10. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the master node (200) is configured to send the received data to the management application
configured to generate an interactive map with the received data or to save the received
data in a history.
11. The system according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that it also comprises the control equipment (210).