Patent ID: 7324298
Filing Date: 2008-01-29
Classification: G01P

Abstract:
1. An electronic appliance apparatus for detecting and processing motion, the apparatus comprising: an acceleration sensor for continuously detecting acceleration in first, second, and third directions; an acceleration vector detecting section for synthesizing the continuously detected acceleration into a plurality of acceleration vectors; memory for storing sizes of the acceleration vectors, and associating each of the sizes with a time that the corresponding acceleration vector was detected by the acceleration sensor; a first stability section for determining a first time of a first acceleration vector size that is less than a first predetermined value, and computing a first stability of the acceleration in a predetermined time frame before the first time; a second stability section for searching the memory for a second time before the first time of a most recent second acceleration vector size that is greater than a second predetermined value, and computing a second stability of the acceleration in a predetermined time frame before the second time; and a fall determining section for determining that the electronic appliance is falling if the first stability is within a first predetermined range and the second stability is within a second predetermined range.