Emergency Call Signal Generation with Language-Dependent Audio
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current emergency call systems, such as the pan-European e-Call system, are limited in their ability to communicate essential vehicle and driver information to an emergency center when occupants are unconscious or when language barriers exist, as they rely on minimal data transmission and lack language-dependent communication.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that generates an emergency call signal with a minimum data set, including identity and position information, which is transmitted to a central switching unit to decode and convert into a language-dependent audio file, enabling communication with an emergency call center independent of language, using a base module on the vehicle and a central switching unit for processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If the emergency call system uses only minimal data transmission (MSD) as per eCall standard, then the system complexity and cost are reduced, but the ability to communicate essential vehicle and driver information is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
A central switching unit acts as an intermediary between the base module and the emergency call center. The base module transmits minimal coded data, the central switching unit decodes this data, generates language-dependent text files, converts them to audio files, and transmits these to the emergency call center. This intermediary approach enables comprehensive information communication without requiring the base module to have complex processing capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the need for complex local processing (mechanical/system-level complexity in the base module) with centralized processing. Instead of equipping the base module with language generation, text-to-speech conversion, and data decoding capabilities, these functions are substituted by a remote central switching unit that handles all complex processing operations.
2Reliability
If the emergency call system relies on voice communication only, then the system is simple to operate, but it becomes ineffective when occupants are unconscious or language barriers exist
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically generating coded emergency call signals with minimal data sets, decoding them, generating language-dependent text files, and converting these to audio files before transmission. This preliminary automated processing ensures that essential information is communicated reliably even when occupants are unconscious or cannot communicate verbally.
3Loss of information
If language-dependent text files are generated and converted to audio files in the base module, then communication effectiveness is improved, but the device size, cost, and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex functions of language-dependent text file generation and text-to-speech conversion from the base module and relocates them to a central switching unit. The base module only retains the simple functions of transmitting coded minimal data sets and playing back received audio files, thereby minimizing its size, cost, and power consumption while maintaining full language communication capability.
Data Source
Figure 1
AI summary
The invention relates to a method and to a system for generating and transmitting an emergency call signal. In a dangerous situation of a road vehicle, an emergency call signal having a minimum set of data (MSD) is independently generated in coded form by a base module (1) arranged on the road vehicle and transmitted by the base module to a central switching unit (2) by means of a first telecommunication connection (3a, 3b). Thereafter, the central switching unit (2) decodes the emergency call signal and, from this information and from further information stored in the central switching unit, generates a text file in a language that is common in a region defined by the position information. Said language-dependent text file is converted into an audio file and the audio file is transmitted to the base module (1) by means of the first telecommunication connection (3a, 3b), and thereafter an emergency call center (6) is contacted by the base module (1) by establishing a second telecommunication connection (4) and the audio file is played at least once or a further telecommunication connection to the emergency call center (6) is established by the central switching unit, by means of which further telecommunication connection the audio file is transmitted, and the audio file is played at least once in the emergency call center (6).