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Patent US7598854
Issued 2009-10-06
System And Method For Creating A Proximity Map Of Plurality Of Living Beings And Objects
A proximity network map defines who and what objects have come in contact of each other including location and time. This map selects the list people who have come in contact with known infected people based on contagious disease epidemiology criteria to control its spread, or to prevent radiation poisoning, limit bio-chemicals exposure, etc. These people then undergo testing and quarantine procedures. It monitors hygiene practices and reduces nosocomial infections in hospitals and mitigates the pandemic flu threat by controlling contamination. It controls people interaction, information flow in a high security environment, control crime or gang activities. Each person or object carrying a proximity-sensing unit with unique ID records all units it encountered over a period of time. This information is stored with time stamp in a relational database and transferred to network servers. The databases are then replication throughout via a central web database server for retrieval and analysis.
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- 1. A contact tracking system comprising:
means for maintaining a database of contact information; a plurality of mobile proximity sensing units, each unit containing means for maintaining contact history entries including
a relative proximity to another contacted unit;
a unique identifier of the another contacted unit; and
a timestamp of the contact with the another contacted unit; and
a contact map data entry device including means for
receiving contact history entries from the plurality of mobile proximity sensing units;
condensing redundant contact history entries by eliminating complementary contact information; and
uploading condensed contact history entries to the means for maintaining the database of contact information.
- 3. A method of tracking contacts between a plurality of mobile proximity sensing units comprising:
(a) maintaining, on a plurality of mobile proximity sensing units, contact history entries, each contact history entry including,
(i) proximity to another contacted unit,
(ii) a unique identifier of the another contacted unit, and
(iii) a timestamp of the contact with the another contacted unit;
(b) transmitting contact history entries from the plurality of mobile proximity sensing units to at least one contact map data entry device; (c) uploading, from the at least one contact map data entry device, contact data; (d) maintaining, with a network server, a database of contact information; and (e) in response to a request for a history of contacts with a mobile proximity sensing unit of interest, (i) identifying a first set of mobile proximity sensing units that were in contact with the mobile proximity sensing units, and (ii) identifying a second set of mobile sensing units that were in contact with the first set of mobile proximity sensing units.
