Benjamin I Funk

20090043504, Feb 12, 2009

Aug 6, 2008

12/187067

AMRIT BANDYOPADHYAY - Washington DC, US
Daniel Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Benjamin E. Funk - Hanover MD, US
Eric Asher Kohn - Washington DC, US
Carole A. Teolis - Glenn Dale MD, US
Gilmer Blankenship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/00

701213

A system and method for locating, tracking, and/or monitoring the status of personnel and/or assets (collectively “trackees”), both indoors and outdoors, is provided. Tracking data obtained from any number of sources utilizing any number of tracking methods (e.g., inertial navigation and signal-based methods) may be provided as input to a mapping application. The mapping application may generate position estimates for trackees using a suite of mapping tools to make corrections to the tracking data. The mapping application may further use information from building data, when available, to enhance position estimates. Indoor tracking methods including, for example, sensor fusion methods, map matching methods, and map building methods may be implemented to take tracking data from one or more trackees and compute a more accurate tracking estimate for each trackee. Outdoor tracking methods may be implemented to enhance outdoor tracking data by combining tracking estimates such as inertial tracks with magnetic and/or compass data if and when available, and with GPS, if and when available.

20120130632, May 24, 2012

Nov 21, 2011

13/301491

Amrit Bandyopadhyay - Washington DC, US
Daniel Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Benjamin E. Funk - Hanover MD, US
Eric Asher Kohn - Washington DC, US
Carole A. Teolis - Glenn Dale MD, US
Gilmer Blankenship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/00
G01S 19/47

701446, 3423573

A system and method for locating, tracking, and/or monitoring the status of personnel and/or assets (“trackees”), both indoors and outdoors, is provided. Tracking data obtained from various sources utilizing any number of tracking methods may be provided as input to a mapping application. The mapping application generates position estimates for trackees using a suite of mapping tools to make corrections to the tracking data. The mapping application further uses information from building data, when available, to enhance position estimates. Indoor tracking methods including, sensor fusion methods, map matching methods, and map building methods may be implemented to take tracking data from one or more trackees and compute a more accurate tracking estimate for each trackee. Outdoor tracking methods may be implemented to enhance outdoor tracking data by combining tracking estimates such as inertial tracks with magnetic data, compass data, and/or with GPS, if and when available.

20130166195, Jun 27, 2013

Sep 14, 2012

13/616408

Amrit Bandyopadhyay - Washington DC, US
Daniel Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Benjamin E. Funk - Hanover MD, US
Eric Asher Kohn - Washington DC, US
Carole A. Teolis - Glenn Dale MD, US
Gilmer Blankenship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/16

701412, 701505, 701469, 701475

A system and method for locating, tracking, and/or monitoring the status of personnel and/or assets (collectively “trackees”), both indoors and outdoors, is provided. Tracking data obtained from any number of sources utilizing any number of tracking methods may be provided as input to a mapping application. The mapping application generates position estimates for trackees using a suite of mapping tools to make corrections to the tracking data. The mapping application further uses information from building data, when available, to enhance position estimates. Indoor tracking methods including sensor fusion methods, map matching methods, and map building methods may be implemented compute a more accurate tracking estimate for trackees. Outdoor tracking methods may be implemented to enhance outdoor tracking data by combining tracking estimates such as inertial tracks with magnetic and/or compass data if and when available, and with GPS, if and when available.

20130166198, Jun 27, 2013

Sep 14, 2012

13/616323

Benjamin E. Funk - Silver Spring MD, US
Amrit Bandyopadhyay - Greenbelt MD, US
Eric A. Kohn - Washington DC, US
Neil Goldsman - Takoma Park MD, US
Carole A. Teolis - Glendale MD, US
Gilmer L. Blankenship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/16

701446, 701501

The invention is directed to methods and systems for locating and monitoring the status of people and moveable assets, such as first responders, including firefighters and other public service personnel, and their equipment both indoors and out. The invention provides for locating and monitoring the status of people and assets in environments where GPS systems do not operate, or where operation is impaired or otherwise limited. The system and method uses inertial navigation to determine the location, motion and orientation of the personnel or assets and communicates with an external monitoring station to receive requests for location, motion orientation and status information and to transmit the location, motion orientation and status information to the monitoring station.

20130166202, Jun 27, 2013

Sep 14, 2012

13/616370

Amrit Bandyopadhyay - Washington DC, US
Daniel Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Benjamin E. Funk - Hanover MD, US
Eric Asher Kohn - Washington DC, US
Carole A. Teolis - Glendale MD, US
Gilmer Blankeship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/16

701501

A system and method for locating, tracking, and/or monitoring the status of personnel and/or assets (collectively “trackees”), both indoors and outdoors, is provided. Tracking data obtained from any number of sources utilizing any number of tracking methods may be provided as input to a mapping application. The mapping application generates position estimates for trackees using a suite of mapping tools to make corrections to the tracking data. The mapping application further uses information from building data, when available, to enhance position estimates. Indoor tracking methods including sensor fusion methods, map matching methods, and map building methods may be implemented compute a more accurate tracking estimate for trackees. Outdoor tracking methods may be implemented to enhance outdoor tracking data by combining tracking estimates such as inertial tracks with magnetic and/or compass data if and when available, and with GPS, if and when available.

20130332106, Dec 12, 2013

Jun 12, 2013

13/916024

Jared Napora - Severn MD, US
Benjamin E. Funk - Hanover MD, US
Dan Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Christopher Giles - Elkton MD, US
Carole Teolis - Glenn Dale MD, US

G01C 5/00

702141, 702150, 702142

Methods and systems are described for determining the elevation of tracked personnel or assets (trackees) that can take input from mounted sensors on each trackee (including barometric, inertial, magnetometer, radio frequency ranging and signal strength, light and GPS sensors), external constraints (including ranging constraints, feature constraints, and user corrections), and terrain elevation data. An example implementation of this method for determining elevation of persons on foot is described. But this method is not limited to computing elevation of personnel or to on foot movements.

20080077326, Mar 27, 2008

May 31, 2007

11/756412

Benjamin Funk - Silver Spring MD, US
Amrit Bandyopadhyay - Greenbelt MD, US
Eric Kohn - Washington DC, US
Neil Goldsman - Takoma Park MD, US
Carole Teolis - Glendale MD, US
Gilmer Blankenship - Washington DC, US

G01C 21/18
G06F 19/00

701220000

The present invention is directed to methods and systems for locating and monitoring the status of people and moveable assets, such as first responders, including firefighters and other public service personnel, and their equipment both indoors and out. The invention can provide for locating and monitoring the status of people and assets in environments where GPS systems do not operate, or where operation is impaired or otherwise limited. The system and method uses inertial navigation to determine the location, motion and orientation of the personnel or assets and communicates with an external monitoring station to receive requests for location, motion orientation and status information and to transmit the location, motion orientation and status information to the monitoring station. The system and method can include storing the location, motion and orientation data as well as status data, in the event that the communication system is unable to communicate with and transmit information to the monitoring station, the system will wait until communication is restored and transmit the status information to the monitoring station to update the location, motion orientation and status information for the person or asset.

20200372706, Nov 26, 2020

Aug 10, 2020

16/989212

- Greenbelt MD, US
Daniel Hakim - Silver Spring MD, US
Daniel Franchy - Catonsville MD, US
Jared Napora - Severn MD, US
John Karvounis - Bowie MD, US
Jonathan Fetter Degges - Washington DC, US
Tim Wang - Germantown MD, US
Benjamin Funk - Hanover MD, US
Carole Teolis - Glendale MD, US
Carol Politi - Bethesda MD, US
Stuart Woodbury - Ellicott City MD, US

G06T 17/05
G06F 30/13

Systems, methods and instructions for creating building models of physical structures is disclosed. The building model may be a collection of floors defined by outlines containing regions that may be offset relative to a main region, and a collection of connectors. Connectors may have connection points for tracking, routing and sizing. Connectors may indicate elevation changes through georeferenced structural features. Signal elements may also be features that provide corrections when tracking. Feature descriptors are data that describes the structural configuration and signal elements enabling them to be matched to previously collected data in a database. User interface elements assist a user of a tracking device in collecting floor information, structural features and signal features and validating certain collected information based on previously known information. The height of floors may also be inferred based on sensor data from the tracking device.