AU715127B2

AU715127B2 - Portable radio telephone

Info

Publication number: AU715127B2
Application number: AU27789/97A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Sophie Feissel; Frederic Heurtaux
Original assignee: Sagem SA
Current assignee: Sagem SA
Priority date: 1996-04-25
Filing date: 1997-04-25
Publication date: 2000-01-20
Anticipated expiration: 2017-04-25
Also published as: CA2251935A1; KR20000010619A; CN1216666A; AU2778997A; CZ340498A3; DE69723970T2; TR199802131T2; LT4524B; ATE246867T1; WO1997040637A1; JP2000508863A; CN1178537C; LT98141A; SK147098A3; IS4870A; ES2205214T3; DE69723970D1; PL329525A1; BG102942A; FR2748175B1

Abstract

Telephone comprising a radio unit (2) which can receive and provide on two sides analog signals and digital data, a corrector unit (3), a data processing unit (100) comprising a rate adaptor (8) and a fax adaptor (9), input means (14), a control unit (7), the data processing unit (100) and additionally a fax data memory (1,1, 16), the control unit (7) being arranged to control at least one of the two emission and reception functions of said fax data.

Description

PORTABLE RADIO TELEPHONE In mobile telephony, for example, of the GSM type, a portable radio telephone does not generally offer all the facilities which a business telephone system can provide. In particular if the user of the portable radio telephone whishes to transmit or receive a facsimile message he is obliged either to move to a facsimile machine or to connect it to a computer, possibly portable, to a printer, to an image analysing device, or to other business equipment. However, no matter what the solution adopted the freedom of movement of the user is restricted or he is faced with a problem of cumbersome equipment.

The present invention aims to give the user of the portable radio telephone means for receiving or transmitting a facsimile while on the move and without external equipment of the type mentioned above.

Therefore, the invention relates to a portable radio telephone comprising a radio unit able to receive and supply analogical signals and digital data in both ways, a correction unit and a data processing unit, input means and a control unit, the data processing unit comprising a flow rate adaptor and a facsimile adaptor, the telephone being characterised in that it also comprises a memory for storing facsimile data, the control unit being arranged to control at least one of two radio functions, transmission and reception, of this facsimile data.

Input means should be understood to be any means, particularly manual and vocal, for entering a command into the portable telephone, such as, for example, a key pad, a microphone or even a navigator.

With the aid of the invention the portable radio telephone can receive a facsimile and also, under the control of the unit, store the data of the facsimile and transmit it via a radio channel, for example, to a standard facsimile machine for printing. For this reason the portable radio telephone is similar to a radio relay in facsimile transmission.

V 7r) Moreover, the user of the said telephone can be present during printing of the facsimile by the facsimile machine in order to receive this facsimile where he wishes and thus in complete confidentiality.

A display screen is advantageously provided and the control unit is arranged to display the data from the memory on the screen and the input means are provided with means to scroll the data on the screen under the control of the control unit.

In this case the facsimile data processing unit can comprise means for modifying facsimiles and means for creating facsimiles, comprising an editing sub-unit associated with the control unit, with the screen, with the input means and with the facsimile data memory.

By reason of this the user can annotate or delete an error in a facsimile.

It will thus be noted that the portable radio telephone of the invention can fulfill almost all the functions of a facsimile machine, ie reception, creation, display and transmission of facsimiles.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention transcoding means intended for compressing and decompressing the facsimile data are associated with the memory for storing the data of a plurality of facsimiles, and means for selecting stored facsimile data are integrated in the control unit, it then being possible to process the selected data.

In this case the user has a catalogue of facsimiles stored in the memory in the form of compressed data.

Finally, the data processing unit can comprise means for deleting facsimile data from the memory.

The invention will be better understood with the aid of the following description with reference to the single attached figure which shows a functional block diagram of the portable radio telephone of the invention.

The portable radio telephone comprises a radio unit 2 which is connected on the one hand to an antenna 1 and is intended to receive and transmit analogue signals by the antenna, to decode the analogical signals received into digital data to be processed and to encode the processed digital data into analogue signals to be transmitted. On the other hand, the radio unit 2 is connected to a correction unit 3 comprising a sub-unit 5 for correction of radio transmission errors and a sub-unit 4 for associating an error correction code with digital data to be encoded, thus being able to pre-correct the digital data before transmission.

Another side of the correction unit 3 intended to receive the digital data to be pre-corrected and to transmit the corrected digital data is connected to a unit 6 for processing digitised voice signals and is connected in parallel to a unit 100 for processing facsimile data.

The unit 6 for processing voice signals comprises standard elements of an ordinary portable radio telephone, ie. a codec for compression and decompression of the digital data of the digitised voice signals, respectively for transmission and for reception of the signals of the said voice, connected to an analogical-digital convertor associated with a microphone, and, in 4 parallel, to a digital-analogical convertor associated with a loud speaker.

Moreover, the unit 6 is connected to a control unit, in this case a control microprocessor 7.

The unit 100 for processing facsimile data is connected on the one hand to the correction unit 3 and on the other hand to the microprocessor 7. This unit 100 comprises a facsimile data transmission chain comprising in series and in order, from the correction unit 3, an adaptor 8 for the flow rate of digital data for transmission, a state machine 9 incorporating in this case some of the functions of the international facsimile protocol T30 in order to respect the facsimile time periods and consequently acting as a facsimile adaptor, and a memory sub-unit 16 comprising a transcoding member 10 to compress or decompress the input or output data of the memory sub-unit 16, the member 10 being associated with a memory 11 for storing data of a plurality of facsimiles.

The microprocessor 7 is also connected to input means, in this case an input keypad 14 and is connected in parallel to the display screen 13. Moreover, the keypad 14 is in this case provided with a screen cursor key 15 to make the facsimile scroll on the screen 13.

After transmission along this chain of facsimile data issued a priori from the radio unit 2 (the possibility of creating facsimiles in the device will be discussed later), and corrected by the correction unit 3, the microprocessor 7 can command display of the facsimile on the screen 13 and the cursor key 15 makes it possible to scroll the facsimile on the screen 13.

The unit 100 for processing facsimile data also comprises means for creating a facsimile comprising an editing sub-unit 12 associated with the microprocessor 7, the memory 11, the keypad 14 and with the screen 13.

This editing sub-unit 12 which is provided with functions such as those of a "Paintbrush" accessory of user software (version 3.1) of the mark Microsoft Windows, explained in a document entitled "User guide" edited by the Microsoft Corporation mark, is provided to draw specific graphics, characters, geometric figures such as rectangles or circles and other designs.

The microprocessor 7 includes means for selecting the data of one of the facsimiles stored in the memory sub-unit 16.

The editing sub-unit 12 is provided with functions programmed in order to modify by operating the keypad 14 a facsimile previously selected by the microprocessor 7 and displayed on the screen 13 by entering characters or designs on the facsimile such as those mentioned above, or in order to delete a part of the facsimile, determined by means of the keypad 14.

Finally, the unit 100 for processing facsimile data comprises a function for deleting the data of a facsimile selected from the memory 11, in this case by a specific key of the keypad 14.

A user of the portable radio telephone just described can, by a radio channel, call a correspondent or receive a telephone call, receive, process, retransmit, create and transmit signals and facsimile data.

The radio unit 2 can receive facsimile signals via the antenna 1 and transform them into digital data to be corrected by the correction unit 3 before being processed by the unit 100. This unit 100 for processing facsimile data adapts the data received by the flow rate adaptor 8 and the state machine 9 then compresses and stores it in the memory sub-unit 16.

The memory 11 of the sub-unit 16 can contain a plurality of facsimiles forming a catalogue of facsimiles. One of the facsimiles can be selected with the aid of the key pad 14 under the control of the microprocessor 7. After decompression by the sub-unit 10 for transcoding the data of the facsimile selected, the screen 13 can display the facsimile which the user can modify with the editing sub-unit 12, the keypad 14 and the microprocessor 7, or can delete with the aid of the key pad 14 and under the control of the microprocessor 7.

The user of the portable radio telephone of the invention can also create a facsimile to be V T; transmitted by using, in cooperation with the microprocessor 7, the functions of the editing sub-unit 12 and the keypad 14 while displaying the facsimile created on the screen 13.

In order to transmit a facsimile created or stored after reception, or even modified, the data of the said facsimile, which is stored in the memory 11, is compressed or decompressed by the transcoding member 10, if necessary, then adapted by the state machine 9 and the flow rate adaptor 8, associated with an error code in the correction unit 3, and then transformed into analogue facsimile signals transmitted by a radio channel using the antenna 1.

Provision is also made to be able to connect the portable radio telephone, and more precisely the processing unit 100 described above, to a computer 17, a facsimile machine 18, an image analyzer (scanner) 19 or other external equipment, at a connection point of the unit 100 varying depending on the type of external equipment to be connected. It is thus possible to develop multiple applications of the telephone of the invention. The connection, in this case by cable, could also be aerial or infrared, for example. By way of example, the telephone, connected to a personal computer, can receive therefrom a facsimile template, store it, complete it and transmit it as desired. In the same way the telephone can transfer the facsimiles in the memory to the personal computer.

It is also possible to connect the telephone to a external bulk memory 20 in order to store facsimile data outside the telephone in the case where, for example, the memory 11 is full but the user does not wish to delete any of the facsimiles.

The editing sub-unit 12, in cooperation with the microprocessor 7, could include a CIL (communication identification line) display function intended to display on the screen 13 only the CILs of the catalogue of stored received facsimiles.

Finally, in a particularly complete embodiment of the portable radio telephone of the invention, the editing sub-unit 12 includes all the basic functions of the "Paintbrush" type accessory and standard word processing functions.

Claims

1. A portable radio telephone including a radio unit, able to receive and supply analogical signals and digital data in both ways, a correction unit and a data processing unit, input means and a control unit, the data processing unit including a flow rate adaptor and a facsimile adaptor, the telephone being characterised in that it also includes a memory for storing facsimile data, the control unit being arranged to control at least one of two radio functions, specifically a transmission function and a reception function, of this facsimile data from, respectively into, the facsimile data storage memory, by control, for the said transmission, of the transfer of the said data from the memory to the facsimile adaptor

2. A portable radio telephone according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit is arranged to be connected to external equipment.

3. A portable radio telephone according to claim 1 or 2, wherein transcoding means are provided, associated with the memory and intended for compressing and decompressing the facsimile data and means are provided for selecting stored facsimile data, which means are integrated into the control unit.

4. A portable radio telephone according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein a display 20 screen is provided and the control unit is arranged to display on the display screen the data from the memory. A portable radio telephone according to claim 4, wherein the input means are provided with means to scroll the documents on the screen under the control of the control unit. S6. A portable radio telephone according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the data processing unit includes means for modifying facsimiles including an editing sub-unit associated with the control unit, with the screen, with the input means and with the facsimile data storage memory. P:\WPDOCS\AMD\SPECI\7029J2 SAG 19/10/99 -8-

7. A portable radio telephone according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the unit for processing facsimile data includes means for creating facsimiles including an editing sub-unit associated with the control unit, with the screen, with the input means and with the facsimile data storage memory.

8. A portable radio telephone according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the facsimile data processing unit includes means for deleting facsimile data from the memory.

9. A portable radio telephone, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings. DATED this 19th day of October, 1999 SAGEM SA By Their Patent Attorneys DAVIES COLLISON CAVE *o S *•oo ooo•* o