Tracking devices exist that sense and track user activities, especially sports activities. An example of a known activity tracking device is a wearable wristwatch device which includes a GPS receiver for tracking and analyzing `running` activity of the user. However, none of the known tracking devices automatically sense, record, analyze and identify all types of user activities such as walking, running, jogging, cycling, rowing, driving with car, moving with bus, moving with train, walking stairs, running stairs, jumping, swimming, playing football, and skiing.
Facebook’s invention tracks and records movements of a mobile communication device, which are then analyzed to determine corresponding activity.
Patent Number: 9,125,015
Patent Title: User activity tracking system and device
Inventors: Pennanen; Juho (Helsinki, FI), Kyrola; Aapo (Pittsburgh, PA)
Assignee: Facebook, Inc. (Menlo Park, CA)
Family ID: 1000001313981
Appl. No.: 13/930,347
Filed: June 28, 2013
Abstract: The present disclosure provides a system for tracking and recording movements of a mobile communication device that includes one or more movement sensors. The mobile communication device communicates sensor signals to the system, wherein the sensor signals are indicative of motion associated with activities to which the mobile communication device is exposed by its user. The sensor signals are pre-classified to generate the intermediate data, where the intermediate data is processed in one or more processors to generate indications of likely activities associated with the sensor signals, and an aggregate of the indications is computed to provide an analysis of activities associated with the sensor signals. The information indicating most likely activity types is then sent to the mobile communication device.
Claim 1: A system comprising: one or more processors; and a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors being operable when executing the instructions to: receive from a mobile communication device one or more sensor signals indicative of motion associated with activities of a user of the mobile communication device; determine from a plurality of activity categories a particular activity category that corresponds to a portion of the sensor signals, wherein each of the activity categories comprises one or more activity types and is characterized by motion that the activity types in the activity category have in common; determine from among the activity types in the particular activity category one or more activity types of the user by: analyzing the sensor signals against each of the activity types in the particular activity category; and calculating a probability of each of the activity types of the user based on the analysis; and send the activity types to the mobile communication device.