Self-contained wireless camera device, wireless camera system and method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Referring to FIG.
1, a basic configuration of a system 25 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown, comprising a camera device 10 and a base station 20, which is illustrated in a basic form as being a radio base station with a monitor, but can be a mere storage and replay device without a monitor or can be a gateway device.
A first stage in defining the potential for a high quality video/audio-based product, such as that of FIG.
1, lies in creation of a basic set of enabling technologies.
These technologies are predicated on the concept that a dedicated set of data transfer and control protocols can enhance the overall performance and cost profiles of any end product schemes utilizing the approach.
The following proposed hardware architecture and communications protocol is intended to provide this low cost/high performance solution.
The dedicated purpose wireless protocol layering model described provides operating advantages via a tightly coupled integration of communication protocols, which are targeted to provide an optimum solution to the very specific application of transferring optimized blocks of audio/video information in a high frequency digital state.
The architecture is consequently less costly based on this narrower set of protocol requirements and the tighter integration of the layers.
Because the communication protocol processing is highly integrated, it reduces the general protocol service access requirements needed in more generally applied interchangeable protocol modules.
It has a focused set of requirements and can thus be implemented at a very high level of integration, such as a single chip Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), which reduces the cost of many components while providing the speed needed for some of the higher data rates.
An architecture for a wireless device is illustrated in FIG.
2.
The device comprises a full duplex RF transceiver 100 connected to a processor 110, which in turn is connected to a manual input 120 (such as a keypad or control panel), a camera 130 (which has still image and video capability but more generally is any image capture device), a video monitor 140, a speaker 150, and a microphone 160