Title of Invention

"AN IMPROVED COGNITIVE KIOSK FOR USE IN RURAL,OUTDOOR AND TROPICAL ENFIRONEMNT"

Abstract

The present invention relates a Cognitive Internet/Information Kiosk for rural, outdoor, tropical use. The Design of Cognitive Kiosk allows the said Kiosk to be put under hostile environmental conditions of tropical regions. The Kiosk Design incorporates the structures made with hollow bricks and suitable rooftop so as to withstand outdoor tropical conditions. The Kiosk Design incorporates embedded controllers that may or may not be connected to the Kiosk PC and gives details of ambient environmental conditions such as, but not restricted to temperature, light intensity and humidity. The Kiosk also keeps a record of the said conditions. The Kiosk also senses and records the status of the UPS and the status of UPS batteries. The said records can be sent to the Central Control Website, where the central observer can take actions according to the requirement. The Kiosk Design is also able to report on its external environment using a camera, microphone and related applications. The said Kiosk also supports use by children without tutor for learning or entertainment. The Kiosk has a number of practical applications in rural and tropical areas and can be oriented to be application specific.

Full Text

FIELD OF INVENTION The present invention relates an improved Cognitive Kiosk for use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment. The Design of Cognitive Kiosk allows the said Kiosk to be put under hostile environmental conditions of tropical regions. The Kiosk Design incorporates the structures made with hollow bricks and suitable rooftop so as to withstand outdoor tropical conditions. The Kiosk Design incorporates embedded controllers that may or may not be connected to the Kiosk PC and gives details of ambient environmental conditions such as, but not restricted to temperature, light intensity and humidity. The Kiosk also keeps a record of the said conditions. The Kiosk also senses and records the status of the UPS and the status of UPS batteries. The said records can be sent to the Central Control Website, where the central observer can take actions according to the requirement. The Kiosk Design is also able to report on its external environment using a camera, microphone and related applications. The said Kiosk also supports use by children without tutor for learning or entertainment. The Kiosk has a number of practical applications in rural and tropical areas and can be oriented to be application specific. PRIOR ART The known and conventional information kiosks focus on the narrower aspects of use and area and do not support or cover the use of kiosks in outdoor, rural or tropical regions and conditions. The conventional kiosks further do not provide for any hardware for checking internal and external environment, failure or working of the kiosks. The conventional kiosks do not support a system to get feedback on inside and outside conditions of the kiosks and report to a remote/central server/website or nay other kiosk. The noted limitations render the kiosk unusable in rural, outdoor and tropical environment. The present invention has provided answers to each of the said limitations of the presently known/conventional kiosks. US Patent No.5,702,166 does not provide for kiosks to be used in tropical conditions. It basically provides for a design of the kiosk capable of being put to multiple users. US Patent No.4,81,043 provides for an information kiosk, which provides interactive operation with an unfamiliar user; a video display to provide instructions and solicited information to the user who enters choices on a keypad input device. The Kiosk provides printed information, which the user may carry away from the kiosk. The printed information may be in graphic or text form. This known kiosk does not cover any hardware device for checking the internal condition of the kiosk. Under US Patent No.4,813,475 an ATM kiosk for self-backing system is provided. This known kiosk also does not cover the method or system to report the failures of one or more of the systems for cooling/heating etc. This does not contain any mechanism/hardware to get the feedback on internal conditions of the kiosk and report to a remote/central server/website or any other kiosk. This has no mechanism or hardware to get the feedback on external environmental conditions of the kiosk and report to a remote/central server/website or any other kiosk. The scope US Patent No.5,826,267 is also limited to provide for information kiosk, which provides selective access to the Worldwide Web in high traffic areas such as airports, shopping malls and transportation terminals. This known and prior art provides for the kiosk to regulate access to make the Worldwide Web easier and less intimidating to use by focusing the content they provide based upon the location of the kiosk. This also does not cover the tropical use of the kiosk and may not be suitable for the tropical environmental conditions. Thus, the known/prior information kiosks have their limitations, which are addressed by the present invention. The present invention therefore has focused on the broader aspect of use of information kiosks and provides for Cognitive Kiosk for use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment. The prior known kiosks have limited usage and no means to report back to other kiosks or remote/central server or website about the internal or external conditions etc. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION: This invention provides for a new/improved kiosk (standalone or wall kiosk or set of such kiosks) to withstand the hostile environmental conditions found in the tropical regions. Especially, if the kiosk has to be put to use in rural outdoor use for public in general. The present invention also provides for connections to the Internet via a telephone line or a leased line or any other means of connectivity to the user. The kiosk has a number of components. The kiosk housing is primarily made of brick structure-could be a standalone structure or erected around a wall which could be free from other usage. The window for display unit is protected with glass or plastic or any other such transparent material. The display unit is provided a separate housing within the wall structure of the kiosk. The housing is made in such a manner that supports the decision of the place/area/region for putting up the kiosk. The angle of the kiosk can be set to the average height of the people of the place/area/region expected to be its users. The bricks used for making the kiosk housing are hollow. The hollow structure of the bricks makes the air trapped inside the wall too, which helps in maintaining the temperature inside the housing. The kiosk can also be insulated from inside with appropriate insulating materials. The inside portion of the kiosk can be suitably painted so as to absorb some amount of heat. The kiosk is provided with a micro-controller based sensor hardware, which includes a number of different types of sensors to keep track of the environment inside the kiosk and also outside the kiosk. The kiosk is capable of microcontroller based control hardware to control various components inside the kiosk, which could be, but not restricted to display unit, central processing unit, air control devices, anti-theft mechanism, dehumidifiers etc. The communication devices are placed inside the kiosk in such a manner that various indications of the devices can be made visible if need be through a small window which is protected with glass or plastic or any other transparent material. The air blower/blowers strategically placed or aligned inside the kiosk brick structure keep adequate positive air pressure inside the kiosk. Due to the positive pressure, the dust will not come inside, as the air will be blown out from various vents at the edges etc. The air is blown inside the kiosk within a small housing (inside the kiosk itself). This box has very small vents through which the air goes out to the rest of the kiosk housing. Due to the small size of the outlets, high air pressure is built up inside the small box. When the air comes out of the small vents of the box, there is a sudden change in the pressure of the air from high to a sudden low, which will cool it (air) down to a certain level-lower than the (outside) ambient temperature or at least equal to the ambient temperature. This is then circulated to the other parts of the housing with similar effect and then is thrown out of the kiosk housing. This cycles assumes in reducing the inside temperature considerably and hence cools the kiosk and the hardware placed inside. Different units of the kiosk can be strategically placed so as to make use of the cooling effect to cool down the most vulnerable components to heat and to utilize the heat generated by the components for reducing the humidity levels. The kiosk is capable of recording ambient variants such as, but not restricted to, temperature, humidity and status of other components, batteries. The kiosk can be put to a number of practical applications in rural and tropical areas and can be oriented to be application specific. The performance of the present invention is further explained by the following description of drawings. Fig.1 shows the overall block diagram of the system. A set of kiosks (4) communicates with an Internet Server (3) by means of a communication channel. The said channel may be wired, wireless or optical. Said Internet Server (3) communicates with the Internet (2). Also located on the Internet is a Central Control Website (1). This Website (1) performs the following tasks: 1. Collects the feedback and status reports from each of the kiosks. 2. Displays the status of the kiosk to system administrator. 3. Transmits the status report to a set of pre-defined email addresses. Fig.2 shows block diagram of a single kiosk. The kiosk consists of CPU (11), Monitor (8) and Interruptible Power Supply (9). Further a Monitoring System (10) monitors the performance of the subsystems within said CPU (11). The Monitoring System communicates the results of monitoring to a Reporting System (13). Said Reporting System (13) in turn commands the Control Hardware (6) to actuate a corrective action, if needed. Also the said Reporting System (13) informs the Diagnostic System (14) about the exception conditions as and when these occur. The Diagnostic System then tries to diagnose the cause of exception condition. The causes for exception conditions may be determined with the assistance from Sensor Hardware (12). Fig.3 shows the configuration of Sensor Hardware. The physical quantities measured by Sensor Hardware include, but are not limited to, temperature (16), humidity (17), light (21), air pressure (15), UPS voltages (22), human being proximity sensing (20) and other miscellaneous sensors (19). Fig.4 shows the configuration of Control Hardware. The Micro Controller (31) receives its commands from the Kiosk CPU (24) or from a Communication Channel (23). These commands can trigger devices to regulate the air flow (25) or to dehumidify the kiosk enclosure (26). It can also command an anti-theft mechanism (29) to raise an alarm. Under certain circumstances the said microcontroller can trigger a soft boot operation using soft boot system (30). This may require avoiding the need for restarting the kiosk computer by switching it off and on electrically. Further, the said micro-controller can turn on or off the power supply unit inside the CPU (28) and/or the power supply unit inside the display unit (27). STATEMENT OF INVENTION: An Improved Cognitive Kiosk for use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment characterised in that; a Kiosk housing made of hollow bricks used for first level of temperature controlling micro-controller, air blower, computer for processing the data, keyboard, mouse, touch sensitive screen, display unit, LCD screen, payment devices, printer, communication devices. WE CLAIM: 1. An Improved Cognitive Kiosk for use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment characterised in that; a Kiosk housing made of hollow bricks are used for first level of temperature controlling, micro-controller, air blower, computer for processing the data, keyboard, mouse, touch sensitive screen, display unit, LCD screen, payment devices, printer, communication devices. 2. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the payment devices comprise magnetic cards, smart cards, coin mechanism. 3. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the micro-controller comprises temperature, humidity, air pressure sensors to keep the track of environment inside and outside the Kiosk. 4. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein printing devices comprise laser printer, inkjet printer required for printing receipts, images, graphical text, attached to CPU inside the improved Cognitive Kiosk. 5. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 comprises micro-controller based CPU, display units, air control devices. 6. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein air blower units comprises a fan,mounted so that the air is pumped inside a small housing within the Kiosk creating a high air pressure, the air going out to rest of the Kiosk from this small housing result in lower temperature inside the Kiosk. 7. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 comprises a separate housing for display unit within the wall structure, the angle of the Kiosk is set to the average height of the people of the said place/area/region. 8. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the air blower units are strategically placed inside the Kiosk brick structure capable of cooling the Kiosk. 9. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 comprises a small housing inside the Kiosk itself having very small vents through which the air goes out to the rest of the Kiosk housing resulting in building high air pressure inside the Kiosk and transforming high air pressure into low air pressure cooling the air by a minimum of 5% lower than the temperature outside the Kiosk. 10. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the air circulating mechanism circulates air to the other parts. 11. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 comprises strategically placing of CPU and other components so as to make use of cooling effect to cool down the most vulnerable components of the computer. 12. Improved Cognitive Kiosk as claimed in Claim 1 comprises strategically placing UPS and other components so as to make use of heat generated by them for reducing the humidity levels with the help of small air blowers. 13. An Improved Cognitive Kiosk for use in rural, outdoor and tropical environment substantially as herein described with reference to the description and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

Documents:

847-del-2001-abstract.pdf

847-del-2001-claims.pdf

847-del-2001-correspondence-others.pdf

847-del-2001-correspondence-po.pdf

847-del-2001-description (complete).pdf

847-del-2001-drawings.pdf

847-del-2001-form-1.pdf

847-del-2001-form-13.pdf

847-del-2001-form-19.pdf

847-del-2001-form-2.pdf

847-del-2001-form-3.pdf

847-del-2001-form-5.pdf

847-del-2001-petition-138.pdf