Alabama Patent of the Month – December 2021

The term “marine vehicles” refers to any vehicle that the marines might use to carry out missions from shore to mountain. Shockingly, marine vehicle theft is common enough to be the highest form of payout in all insurance payouts. This stat is due to how few marine vehicles are recovered after having been stolen. In response, many theft deterrent systems have been created and put in place including trailer locks, wheel boots and more. These may delay or deter theft but they do not alert the owner of the attempted theft. Other devices use sensors to detect motion, noise, geolocation and more by tracking changes in the vehicle’s environment. These are limited by the vehicle’s location. Some marine vehicles may be stored in water where the natural motion of the ocean would regularly trigger alarms.

Fishing Chaos, LLC has designed a theft deterrent system which can better perform in any condition to alert the vehicle owner of actual theft attempts. Their design triggers a signal when there is a change in the barometric pressure. Relying on this reading provides more reliable and accurate theft detection indicators. In addition to a barometer, their system uses an accelerometer and gyroscope. The data from all three signals can be used to calculate the normal environmental state, current environmental state, and changed environmental state. As the marine vehicle changes elevation, the barometric pressure changes. Small changes can be considered expected motion. Sudden changes trigger the system, indicating attempted theft. The changes are compared against the vehicle’s normal environment to determine what constitutes a sudden and unexpected change. Any indication of a threat automatically triggers an alarm for the owner.

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