Patent ID: 7825794

Claim:
A tracking system process for locating a monitored individual comprising the steps of: a) affixing a wearable electronic first tag to the individual, said first tag including a wireless transceiver for communication over a public communications network, a GPS receiver for receiving location related information from a global positioning system, a microprocessor for performing on board calculations and transferring data from said GPS receiver to said transceiver, and firmware in said microprocessor for processing instructions for operation of said transceiver, said GPS receiver and said microprocessor communicating with the communications network, wherein an additional Bluetooth module is incorporated into said first tag that communicates to other commercially available Bluetooth devices using the industry standard Bluetooth standard protocol and wherein an additional internal transmitter and receiver are incorporated into each of said first tag and a second tag associated with a caregiver which works in concert with said first tag, said transmitter and receiver using an industry standard RFID Zigbee protocol module with incorporated microprocessor; b) delivering an electronic signal from a remote location via a global positioning system to said transceiver on the individual to activate said first tag to receive location related information from the global positioning system and to transmit using the wireless transceiver a location signal directly from said GPS receiver indicative of the location of the said individual to said remote location; and c) providing a FLASH memory within said electronic tag for tracking the location of the individual over a period of time and delivering corresponding information from said firmware to said remote location to display the path of travel of the individual over time; wherein said first tag is suppressed from transmitting its coordinates when in range of the second RFID Zigbee tag, to greatly extend the battery life of the said first tag by placing it in a low power mode, and when said first tag is physically moved out of a predetermined range of the second tag, the first tag switches into a full power mode, and begins transmitting the GPS coordinates of the individual over the public communication network.