Electronic Bracelets

Applications
Title	Electronic Bracelets
Author(s)	Rui Barradas Pereira.
Level	Basic
Year of Publication	2011

The Electronic Bracelets product is an example of personal trackers sort of systems and can be applied for both persons or animals depending of the tracking objectives.

The electronic ankle bracelets are an example of personal tracking products, meant to control prison populations, house arrests, law enforcement, theft prevention, or protecting newborn infants in hospital nurseries, among several other uses.

These products have an enormous potential for persons tracking, but also for other fields, such as pets tracking or wildlife tracking, among other uses.

Product Description

The most obvious association with GNSS bracelets is the tracking of persons charged with a crime that require home monitoring.

The electronic bracelets are now a common alternative to incarceration and to provide a control and accountability structure for selected probationers, as well as to provide an extra layer of supervision to the community at large.

There are, however, another useful bracelets GNSS tracking utilization, such as:

• Kids tracking: usually in watches format, these devices are mentioned in detail in personal trackers article.
• Elderly relatives tracking: these devices are mentioned in detail in personal trackers article.
• Law enforcement: these devices are mentioned in detail in personal trackers article.
• Theft prevention: these devices are mentioned in detail in personal trackers article.
• Pets tracking: these bracelets are targeted to owners of dogs and cats.

The technology to use GNSS to track pets is relatively new. Most of current systems require an utilization in areas covered by the GSM cellular network. Although, some collars systems are able to locate pets within a certain range and display this information in a color LCD viewer. These systems are able to display pets exact location, current movements and velocity. The systems are able to track multiple pets simultaneously and also permit the creation of geofences in order to activate alerts to the user, once the animal moves out the defined area.

• Wildlife tracking: meant for wildlife study and prevention, these bracelets are usually used in mammals and large birds.

The GNSS wildlife tracking is another high-potential growth area for GNSS applications. With ever smaller dimensions and weights and the availability of solar cell power these devices can be used in a growing number of cases. Simpler units store data in internal memory, which can be later retrieved. Other systems for wildlife tracking units send the data through a cell phone network in regular time intervals or on demand in the case of units with two way communication. The most sophisticated GNSS wildlife tracking systems send the data in regular intervals via satellites, allowing a global coverage.

These products are considered as non-critical products.

The accuracy required by these applications is low. The current accuracy provided by civilian GPS is enough for these applications. Availability, however, can be reduced due to urban environments.

Product Characterization

The offenders tracking devices are the most evolute electronic bracelet devices and some systems are able to integrate GNSS with other legacy technologies.

The systems used for keep tracking of persons charged with a crime are now moving from RFID to GNSS technology, which grants a more reliable product in terms of tracking needs:

• In case an offender leaves his or her home at a time not authorized by a judge, an alert (auditory and visual) indicates that the probationer is out of the defined geofence.
• In case the bracelet is removed or destroyed, a sensor will indicate this violation and an alert is arise.
• In case the offender steps away out of the defined geofence, an arrest warrant is issued and the suspect can be easly tracked.
• In some situations some offenders can continue to carry their jobs, within a defined geofence, without issuing an alert.
• This systems can also be programmed to detect speeding situation, when the offenders are allowed to drive.
• The geofence mechanism can also be used to detect if the offender enters in forbidden areas, for instance in domestic violence situations. In case the offender happens to enter in an exclusion geofence, the police can act and notify the victim about the situation.

The GNSS bracelet devices are labeled in two different types, the active and the passive units:

• Active units: These devices collect the offenders data and position in real time, leaving little chance for the tracked person to trespasses the geofence. The GNSS devices send the data to a command and control website which allow the police officers to get the location of the offender immediately.

• Passive units: These devices collect the offenders data, that is stored throughout his daily activities. The person tracked connects the unit daily in a docking station. This station is plugged into a power outlet and the offenders home phone line. The police officers then evaluate the data through the command and control website website to see where the offender was through the course of the day.

The data collected is based on few different variables, such as position information, which allow to pinpoint the positions in a map. The offenders direction, traveling speed, time of day and date are all monitored, for both types of units.

Product Examples

The following Manufacturers are producing GNSS Electronic Monitoring Devices and appication platforms for house arrests:

• Tarheel monitoring
• Quest Guard
• Safe Tracks
• iSECUREtrac GPS-based systems consisting of a Personal Tracking Unit and a web based platform.
• BI Behavioral Interventions

GNSS Wildlife tracking systems:

• Televilt This company manufacture three different types of collars as well as backpacks for birds.
• Telemetry Solutions A telemetry company involved in GPS wildlife tracking since 1998.
• BlueSky Telemetry
• Telonics