Electronic collar for locating and training animals

A device for locating and training an animal includes a hand held transmitter and a multi-function electronic collar assembly to be worn by the animal. The electronic collar assembly includes a receiver for receiving signals from the transmitter. A microprocessor connected to the receiver processes the signals and is connected to a sounder, a sound sensor, a electroshock stimulator, and a motion sensor mounted on the collar. The transmitter can program the collar assembly and command it in one of several modes or functions for locating and training the animal. In the locating or sounder mode, the sounder emits humanly audible sounds to indicate the location of the animal. In one training mode, the sound sensor detects when the animal is making undesirable noises, such as barking, and the microprocessor has the stimulator deliver a shock to the animal for barking control. In another training mode, the motion sensor detects whether the animal is in a pointing position and the microprocessor, sounder, and stimulator reward the animal with a tone or apply a shock accordingly. Heretofore, such a combination of hardware and functions have not been provided on a single collar assembly.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to the field of electronic animal collars, more 
particularly, an intelligent training collar for use by animal owners to 
achieve more effective control over an animal by extending the range over 
which the owner may communicate with the animal. 
Existing electronic programmable animal collars provide only one 
specialized function. Therefore, an objective of the present inventory is 
the provision of an electric animal collar which consolidates a plurality 
of locating and training functions in one collar. 
These and other objectives will be apparent from the description which 
follows. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The device of this invention includes two basic elements: 1)an electronic 
assembly attached to a collar strap mountable on the animal to be 
controlled, and 2) a programmable hand held transmitter. 
The electronic assembly includes a microprocessor/microcontroller which is 
used to supervise the functions performed by the collar assembly. In 
addition, the microcontroller circuits may be programmed by use of the 
hand held transmitter, thus permitting the owner/operator to change the 
operation of the collar circuits remotely in the field without needing to 
physically handle the collar assembly. 
The hand held transmitter (radio) has a DTMF (dual tone multiple frequency) 
touch pad like the touch pad on an ordinary touch dial telephone. The 
transmitter can be used to change modes of operation and multiple collars 
or devices. The transmitter also can be used for voice communication. 
Various probes, sensors, and noise-making devices are also provided on the 
multi-purpose collar. These devices communicate with the hand held 
transmitter through the microcontroller. 
An animal may be uniquely addressed with the collar. The collar may be 
programmed to respond to just one of hundreds of combinations of transmit 
frequencies and SAT (sub-audible tones). This greatly lessens the 
probability that an animal will receive unintended commands from another 
transmitter. Sat tones may be changed via hand held transmitter, thus will 
maintain the need to return the product to the factory to change the 
frequency of the unit.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
The device of the present invention is generally depicted in FIG. 1 and 
denoted by the reference numeral 10. The device 10 includes an electronic 
collar assembly 12 which is mountable on an animal, preferably around the 
neck of the animal. A hand held radio transmitter 14 is provided for 
sending radio signals to the electronic collar assembly 12. 
The hand held transmitter 14 is a conventional 2-way radio such as is 
available from most business radio dealerships. The preferred transmitter 
14 is a SP50 ten channel radio manufactured by Motorola, Inc. of Boca 
Rotan, Fla. The transmitter 14 should include a touch tone keypad or touch 
pad 48 so as to permit the owner to broadcast DTMF signals to the collar 
assembly 12. One skilled in the art will appreciate that a one-way 
transmitter will suffice, but two-way transmitters are more common and 
would also allow two-way communication with other animal trainers in the 
vicinity. 
The electronic collar assembly 12 includes a strap 16 equipped with a 
buckle 18 for securing the collar assembly 12 to the animal. Generally 
opposite the buckle 18, a casing 20 is attached to the strap 16 for 
housing the various electronic components of the electronic assembly 12. 
The casing 20 is sufficiently rigid so as to protect the electronic 
components contained therein from moisture and collisions. 
As can be understood from FIG. 2, various components are mounted on or in 
the casing 20. A source of electrical power, such as a battery 22 is 
provided on the electronic collar assembly 12. The battery 22 is in the 
voltage range of six to twelve volts direct current (VDC), and is 
preferably a conventional 9 volt direct current battery such as is widely 
available commercially. The battery 22 can be of either the rechargeable 
or non-rechargeable type, but is preferably replaceable. The battery 22 
provides current to a microprocessor/microcontroller 24 and various other 
components connected thereto. 
The preferred microprocessor/microcontroller 24 is an "INTEL" series 
80C31/80C51. The microcontroller 24 is used to supervise the various 
functions performed by the collar assembly. The microcontroller can be 
programmed by use of the hand held transmitter 14. 
The microcontroller 24 is electrically connected to a sounder mechanism 26, 
a stimulator 28, a sensor 30, and a tilt switch 32. The sounder mechanism 
26 is an acoustic device mounted on the electronic collar assembly 12 
which emits a sound, such as a tone or series of tone bursts. The 
stimulator 28 includes a pair of inwardly protruding probes 34 which are 
attached to the electronic collar assembly so as to be in contact with the 
neck of the animal wearing the collar. The sensor 30 includes a 
piezoelectric microphone or acoustic which detects when the animal is 
barking inappropriately. The microphone 30 is connected to the 
microcontroller 24. The tilt or acoustic probe switch 32 is also connected 
to the microcontroller 24 and indicates by sounding a tone or a series of 
tones when the animal is in a stationary position, such as when pointing 
during hunting. 
A pager receiver 36 is connected to the microcontroller 24 through a 
squaring circuit 38, a high pass filter 40, and a DTMF (dual tone multiple 
frequency) decoder 42. The receiver 36 is a radio receiver, much like 
those used in a paging receiver. The receiver 36 receives radio signals 
from the hand held transmitter 14. The transmitter 14 must be adjusted to 
operate on the same radio frequency as the collar receiver 36, and must be 
programmed to broadcast a owner selected SAT tone each time the hand held 
radio is commanded to transmit. The receiver 36 has its own internal 
antenna and as such does not require an external antenna to be attached to 
the collar assembly 12. The radio receiver 36 is preferably from the 
Keystone series of paging receivers manufactured by Motorola, Inc. of Boca 
Rotan, Fla. 
The microcontroller 24 includes an EEPROM (electrically erasable 
electrically programmable read only memory) 44. This allows the 
microcontroller 24 to be programmed with the hand held transmitter 14. The 
hand-held transmitter is capable of two-way voice communication with a 
second similar hand-held transmitter of another trainer. It also capable 
of controlling a plurality of programmable microprocessors associated with 
a plurality of similar collars. 
Operation of the Invention 
The device 10 of this invention consolidates three main training and 
locating functions into one device, whereas most conventional devices are 
specialized to such a degree that a separate collar assembly is required 
for each of the three specific functions. The functions include: use as a 
locator, use for bark control, and use as a trainer. 
Locator Function 
The collar assembly 12 of this invention is provided with an acoustic 
sounder 26 which emits a periodic burst of sound so that the person 
working with the animal, for instance a dog, may determine by listening 
where the dog is located even though the dog may be blocked from vision by 
underbrush or other obstacles. In addition the operator may, by use of the 
hand held transmitter 14, place the sounder 26 into the following modes of 
operation: 
a) continuous sounding--a tone is sounded at periodic intervals without the 
necessity of being actuated by the hand held transmitter 14; 
b) selective sounding--activate the collar 12 (cause it to emit a sound) by 
pressing a button on the hand held transmitter 14; and 
c) sound on point--different tone or series of tone bursts is emitted when 
the dog is on point (as during hunting); 
d) or combination of all of the above through programming of the 
transmitter. 
The locator sounder 26 may be programmed to emit one of several distinctive 
tones or tone sequences. This allows the owner to distinguish the tones of 
their animal from nearby animals wearing similar collars. 
Bark Control Function 
The purpose of this function is to reduce and eliminate inappropriate 
barking of an animal. 
The collar assembly 12 is outfitted with a microphone or probe 30 and 
electrical probes 34 which are in contact with the neck of the animal 
under control. The collar 12 is programmed to detect or sense through the 
microphone 30 when the animal is barking (not merely making whining or 
other low decibel level sounds), and then to provide stimulation through 
the electrical probes 34 to the animal if the barking is not stopped. 
Various levels of high voltages and varying pulse sequences may be applied 
across the probes 34 so as to deliver an unpleasant punitive stimulation 
(shock) to the animal wearing the collar assembly 12. 
The device is such that various levels of stimulation may be utilized. This 
permits the stimulation level to be tailored according to the sensitivity 
of the particular animal. 
The operator may program the assembly to apply increasing levels of stimuli 
(up to a preset level) if barking behavior is not ceased in a given period 
of time. After the passage of the preset amount of time, the 
warning/stimuli cycle is reset and the stimuli starts again from the lower 
initial level of stimulation. 
Trainer Function 
The purpose of the trainer function is to allow the owner to communicate 
more effectively with the animal being trained. The device 10 gives the 
owner the ability of applying both positive and negative stimuli to the 
animal via the use of the hand held transmitter 14 and the collar assembly 
12. 
The positive stimuli include distinctive tones issued by the sounder 26 on 
the collar. The animal would be conditioned to associate these sounds with 
proper behavior. 
The corrective stimuli include owner selected levels of negative stimuli 
(shocks) to the animal should the animal's behavior be inconsistent with 
the response expected when the animal is given a specific command. 
In order to train the dog in a desired position, the motion sensor could be 
used to cause the sounder to emit different sounds upon the movement of 
the animal. A first signal is generated by the motion sensor to cause the 
sounder to emit sounds when the animal assumes and remains in the desired 
position. A second signal is generated by the motion sensor to cause an 
interval between the sounds to decrease when the animal deviates from the 
desired position. 
Address recognition 
Signals from the hand held transmitter 14 are processed by the electronic 
collar assembly 12. The radio signal received by the receiver 36 is 
divided, with a portion of the signal going through the squaring circuit 
38 prior to being presented to the microcontroller 24. The microcontroller 
24 receives this signal and analyzes it to determine which, if any, SAT 
tone is being received. If the received SAT tone matches the tone for 
which the collar has been programmed, the microprocessor 24 will then 
receive and react to commands received by the DTMF circuits. Otherwise the 
received information will be ignored by the collar assembly 12. 
The remaining portion of the received signal is that which passes through 
the high pass filter 40 which strips off the low frequency SAT tones. This 
higher frequency signal is expected to include DTMF tones. DTMF decoder 
circuits analyze the signals received and present the microcontroller with 
the results of this analysis (i.e. if the owner pressed the "3" number on 
the touch pad 48 of the hand held radio 14, the DTMF decoder would so 
advise the microcontroller that a "3" was received). 
Microcontroller performance 
The microcontroller performance is regulated by the software code which is 
contained in the collar circuits. The software code is conventional and is 
not the subject of this invention. The microcontroller 24 is programmed to 
respond to DTMF commands only if the correct SAT tone is received. The 
user may change the SAT tone in the field if necessary to avoid using the 
same SAT tone as used by another owner. 
The owner will be provided with a chart showing the meanings of various 
sequences of DTMF commands as they relate to causing specific functions to 
be carried out by the collar assembly. 
For example, a user may press a specific DTMF number on the transmitter 14 
to cause the microcontroller 24 to go into the location function; then the 
user presses another key or number to set the type or mode of operation, 
i.e., to emit sound only when requested to do so by the hand held 
transmitter, then to set the specific tone sequence to be emitted when 
sound is to be emitted; then the user presses another key to end the 
programming of the collar. The collar will stay in this mode of operation 
until reprogrammed by the user. Similar sequences are used to establish 
other modes of collar operation. 
The collar circuits will incorporate an EEPROM (electrically erasable 
electrically programmable read only memory) 44 circuit to achieve memory 
retention capability such that when the collar is programmed (such as to 
receive a given SAT tone), the programmed instructions will not be lost 
should electrical power be discontinued (such as during changes of the 
battery or periods when the collar assembly 12 is turned off). 
Input sensors 
The collar circuits include two input sensing devices. A piezoelectric 
microphone sensor or probe 30 detects when the dog is barking, this sensor 
30 includes circuits which discriminate between barking and other sounds. 
A tilt switch 32 detects when the animal is active or still (as when the 
animal is on point). Each of these sensors is monitored by the 
microcontroller 24 and the information derived therefrom is used by the 
software algorithms to control the operation of the collar assembly 12. 
Output transducers 
The collar circuits include two basic types of output signals. 
One circuit is used to provide positive feedback to the animal by emitting 
a low decibel level pleasing tone with the sounder 26. The dog will 
require conditioning to associate this tone with correct behavior. 
The other circuit is used to provide negative feedback to the animal by 
shocking it with the probes 34 which contact the neck of the animal.