WO2001035613A1

WO2001035613A1 - Mobile telephone accessory module, mobile telephone device and mobile telephone system

Info

Publication number: WO2001035613A1
Application number: PCT/DE2000/001792
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jakob Greger; Chris Holland
Original assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
Priority date: 1999-11-09
Filing date: 2000-05-31
Publication date: 2001-05-17

Abstract

The invention relates to a mobile telephone accessory module comprising a microcontroller unit for controlling substantial mobile telephone functions, a standard interface unit in order to connect control signals to a mobile telephone and a mobile telephone battery for supplying mobile telephones with electricity and the accessory module which is shaped in such a way that said module can fit into a mobile telephone battery compartment.

Description

description

Mobile phone add-on module, mobile phone arrangement and mobile phone system

The invention relates to a mobile phone add-on module, a mobile phone arrangement comprising such an additional module, and a mobile phone system with a plurality of such additional modules.

The design and manufacture of mobile phones are subject to very high and diverse requirements, which result on the one hand from the rapid growth in technical possibilities and on the other hand from the fierce competition between manufacturers. There are certain

It is difficult to reconcile requirements with one another, for example the requirement for the most complex functionality that is easy to control by the user on the one hand and the requirement for low production costs on the other.

The manufacturers try to solve this conflict of objectives by realizing a diversified product range, that of so-called low-cost devices with minimal functionality and very easy to use, which in large

Numbers can be manufactured with astonishingly low manufacturing costs, up to very high-quality devices with practically universal functionality.

With the standard devices, particular attention must be paid to low manufacturing costs, so that hardware features to be solved for such devices can only be realized if they can be expected to be widely accepted on the market. However, such a standard device does not meet the requirements of private users with higher

Claims or professional users. The higher quality models, the performance characteristics of which meet the demands of the last mentioned users, but are only required and manufactured in relatively small numbers and therefore have a price / performance ratio that is often also not attractive for the users addressed.

The invention is based on the object of specifying a mobile telephone add-on module with which a mobile telephone designed in a minimal configuration (“basic model”) can be upgraded to implement a more complex functionality with reasonable additional costs.

Furthermore, the invention is based on the object of specifying a corresponding, cost-effective cell phone arrangement which is tailored to the user needs and a corresponding cell phone system.

These tasks are solved by an additional mobile phone module with the features of claim 1, a mobile phone arrangement with the features of claim 11 and a mobile phone system with the features of claims 12 and 13, respectively.

The invention encompasses the essential idea, departing from the previous practice of designing complete mobile telephones with graduated performance features or increasingly complex functionality, as a basic model mobile telephone with minimal configuration (or even just a rudimentary basic mobile telephone element, which in itself is not fully functional is) and to complete an "intelligent" additional module.

A further essential idea of the invention is to design the additional module with a microcontroller, which takes over at least a sequence control and / or some essential functions of a mobile telephone. Finally, an essential idea of the invention is that

Train additional module so that it without increasing the volume of the mobile phone and without affecting the Handyness can be combined with this. For this purpose, an execution in approximately the shape and size of a conventional mobile radio battery or a mobile radio battery is provided, so that the additional module, which is therefore to be referred to as an “application battery”, is provided in the provided

Section of a mobile phone housing can be used.

In a preferred embodiment, which enables an extremely comfortable interaction of the mobile telephone with peripheral components (such as a hands-free device) and external devices, such as a PC or notebook or even a digital camera, the additional module contains a Bluetooth receiver for radio data transmission ,

In a further preferred embodiment, the additional module comprises, in addition to the microcontroller unit and the interface for the control signal connection to the mobile telephone (or base part of the mobile telephone), a voice processing or speech synthesis unit and / or a data service processing unit. This makes it possible as a high quality

Performance feature to implement the voice input of messages to be transmitted as text messages, for example in SMS format or vice versa, a voice output of received text messages. In addition, such an additional module enables special applications to be implemented for user groups who find it difficult to use a mobile phone in a conventional manner, for example for children or the disabled. With this, an almost complete voice control of the mobile phone can be realized.

In a further advantageous embodiment, the additional module comprises a data service processing unit which, for example, enables the processing of messages in e-mail or fax format and in this respect realizes an application of high-quality mobile radio terminals for professional use. In a further advantageous embodiment, the additional module contains a GPS receiver module and optionally also an electronic compass, with which the mobile phone at the same time enables a precise position determination of the user and - if necessary with access to a special one

Navigation or guidance service - can perform navigation tasks.

In a further advantageous embodiment, the additional module contains a mass storage unit which enables very large amounts of data to be stored in the mobile phone. Depending on the specific design of the microcontroller - which may be accompanied by an additional digital signal processor (DSP) - and the peripherals, database, organizer or translation functions can then also be implemented in the mobile phone.

If a dictionary is stored in the mass memory and a translation processor is also provided in the additional module, the additional module can be used to translate both communication content (voice, text messages) and control terms for operating the mobile phone as part of the menu. On the one hand, this represents an interesting convenience function of the mobile phone for certain user groups, on the other hand, a mobile phone with such an additional module is also particularly suitable for opening up new markets with foreign-language users or for smaller markets for which the implementation of a menu in the local language or by Input options and menu guidance in the respective non-Latin alphabet are not worthwhile.

In an expedient embodiment, the additional module has connections for the connection on the output side of a speech processing unit or one implemented therein

Translation processor with the speech capsule of the mobile phone or for connecting a voice Syntheseemheit or the translation processor with the horn capsule of the mobile phone. Alternatively, the additional module itself can have a microphone and / or a loudspeaker with the associated LF signal processing components.

In a further special embodiment, the additional module has a display unit, in particular a touch screen. This provision of a display unit in the add-on module can, in certain circumstances, completely dispense with a display unit in the mobile telephone base part, and display units of different quality can be provided in m add-on modules with differently complex functionality and, consequently, in different price ranges. However, an embodiment is also possible in which the mobile phone itself has a simple display unit and with special ones

Additional parts with relatively high-quality display units enable an upgrade with the display of more extensive texts and graphics.

The overall arrangement of the mobile phone or mobile phone base part and additional module is preferably designed such that both components work together according to the master-slave principle, the additional module normally taking over the function of the master and having a correspondingly powerful microcontroller unit. The microcontroller is then also designed in particular to control the cell phone functions call setup / call acceptance and / or data service setup / data service use / data service shutdown (the latter possibly for different data services).

A mobile phone system according to one aspect of the invention consists of a mobile phone of a certain type and a plurality of (connection-matching) additional modules with different applications and convenience functions, so that in the system in a modular way from the low-cost device to the device for professional product range is realized. ω r IV) P ¹ cπ σ cn o cπ O Cπ

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Mobile phones and the additional module. The battery 125 takes up the largest part of the volume of the additional module 100B and largely determines its shape and size, which overall corresponds to the shape and size of a battery that is normally provided for the mobile telephone 100A. The battery connections of the additional module 100B also correspond to those of a standard battery.

Furthermore, the additional module 100B has a standardized interface 127 according to GSM 07.05 and GSM 07.07, which is used to connect the additional module 100B to the mobile phone 101A on the signal side. In this embodiment, an additional part microcontroller 129 only serves to control the interface and the two essential additional components which are implemented in the additional module - namely one

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Mobile phone basic element (not shown here) and, on the other hand, connected to a word processing stage 151, which in turn is connected to the interface 127 for text data transmission into the mobile telephone basic element. The word processing stage 151 is designed in such a way that it enables the use of the common data services, in particular SMS (Short Message Service), fax and e-mail. The display unit of the basic mobile phone element is used for corresponding optical displays; in a modified embodiment, the additional module can also have its own

Have display unit. Via the interface 127 there is also a direct connection between the baseband processing stage of the basic mobile telephone element and the speech processing unit 143, so that received speech signals can also be converted directly into text, bypassing the translation function. Furthermore, there are also direct signal connections between the word processing stage 151 and the speech processing unit 143 and the speech synthesis unit 145, bypassing the translation processor 147 in order to implement direct control of speech signals converted into the text into a data service or a direct text-speech conversion of received text messages without Translation.

With the sketched configuration, the following applications in particular can advantageously be implemented:

Voice output of English-language text messages (SMS, Internet e-mail or similar) in Chinese (via text translation English / Chinese and speech synthesis in Chinese),

Voice output of English language voice messages received in Chinese (via voice processing in English, text translation English / Chinese and speech synthesis in Chinese),

Voice output in English to the communication partner after Chinese voice input co IV) IV ⁾ P ¹ P ¹ o cπ o cn o Cπ

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Claims

claims

1. Mobile phone add-on module (100B; 100C), with a microcontroller unit (129; 129 '), in particular designed for controlling essential mobile phone functions, a standard interface unit (127) for control signal connection with a mobile phone (100A) and - a mobile phone battery ( 125) for the power supply of the mobile phone and the additional module, which is designed to be accommodated in a battery compartment of the mobile phone.

2. Mobile phone add-on module according to claim 1, characterized in that a first submodule the mobile phone battery (125) and a second submodule the microcontroller unit (129; 129 ^Λ ) and the interface unit (129) and optionally additional application units (131, 133; 139 to 145).

3. Mobile phone add-on module according to claim 1 or 2, g e k e n n z e i c h n e t d u r c h a Bluetooth receiver level (133) and optional transmission level.

4. Mobile phone add-on module according to one of the preceding claims, characterized by a GPS receiver module (131) and optionally an electronic compass.

5. Mobile phone add-on module according to one of the preceding claims, g e k e n n z e i c h n e t d u r c h a speech processing and / or speech synthesis unit (143, 145) and / or a data service processing unit (151).

6. Mobile phone add-on module according to one of the preceding claims, g e k e n n z e i c h n e t d u r c h a display unit, in particular a touch screen.

7. A mobile phone add-on module according to one of the preceding claims, a mass storage unit (149) which is designed in particular to accommodate an exchangeable mass storage device.

8. A mobile phone add-on module according to claim 7, which also includes a translation processor (147) connected to the mass storage unit (149), at least one dictionary being stored in the mass storage.

9. Mobile phone add-on module according to one of claims 4 to 8, g e k e n n z e i c h n e t d u r c h

Connections for the connection on the input side of the speech processing unit to the speech capsule of the mobile telephone and for the connection on the output side of the speech synthesis unit to the earpiece of the mobile telephone.

10. Mobile phone add-on module according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the microcontroller (129 ^Λ ) is designed to perform the mobile phone functions call setup / call acceptance and / or data service setup / usage / degradation.

11. Mobile phone arrangement (100) with a mobile phone (100A) and a mobile phone add-on module (100B; 100C) according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the mobile phone add-on module and the mobile phone are designed to cooperate in a master-slave assignment are.

12. Mobile phone system with a mobile phone (100A) and a plurality of mobile phone add-on modules (100B; 100C) according to one of the preceding claims with different functionality.

13. Mobile phone system with a plurality of different mobile phones (100A) and a plurality of mobile phone add-on modules (100B; 100C) according to one of the preceding claims, which are each designed to be received in the battery compartment of one of the various mobile phones.