Patent Application
20070290039
The presently described embodiments exists in the construction, arrangement, and combination of the various parts of the device, and steps of the method, whereby the objects contemplated are attained as hereinafter more fully set forth, specifically pointed out in the claims, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which:
Referring now to the drawings wherein the showings are for purposes of illustrating the disclosed embodiments of the disclosure only and not for purposes of limiting the same.
In operation, as described in greater detail below, the presently described embodiment includes a method and apparatus for recommending service stations for a vehicle based on the user's location.
Still referring to
The vehicle 10 will send the signal to the base station and the base station will communicate with the public network 21 through the MSC 5. An MSC 5 is a switch that is responsible for call handling and routing. An MSC 5 also acts as the interface to other switching elements including other switches.
The vehicle 10 will transmit a registration request and the MSC 5 will keep track of the vehicle's location in a database. In this form, a public network provider 21 will be able to track the vehicle's location. In this form, through the public network, as the vehicle travels along its path, it will stay in communication with a base station as it enters new cells and leaves old ones. This is done in order to ensure that a user is able to receive a call through the communication network or be tracked through a GPS network.
In one form the public network will also have a record of the service stations 30 which are located within a predetermined distance from the vehicle 10. The public network 21 will also be capable of receiving information about the service station 30, such as the service station's brand name, what type of fuel the service station is selling, the price of the fuel that the service station is selling, etc.
Now referring to
Referring to
The method C includes finding the location of the user's vehicle (at step 100). This may be accomplished in a variety of manners known to those skilled in the art. This may include tracking the vehicle via a mobile station which is a part of a communications network. This tracking can be done by a triangulation method, iLocator, or any other manner known to those skilled in the art. Furthermore, the vehicles location could be found through GPS which is constantly tracking the vehicles location. Any variety of these methods may be used in order to track the location of the vehicle, as well as other methods known in the art.
Next, the method C continues with mapping the route for the vehicle (at step 103). In the embodiment shown in
Next, the method C includes collecting service station information based upon parameters (at step 105). Parameters may used in order to limit the number of service stations which will be surveyed. Parameters may be set by a variety of methods. If this method is implemented via a communications network which includes handsets and/or mobile stations, these parameters may be set by short messaging systems (SMS). In the SMS case, the user may input such information as the amount of distance that the user is willing to travel outside of his or her route in order to reach a service station. Other parameters could include limiting the brand of gas. For example, if the user has a credit card tied to a particular gas station that the user wants to use, that limit can be set to look for only that particular brand of gas. Furthermore, the user may own a vehicle that may only accept diesel gas, for example, in which case, only service stations that sell diesel gasoline will be displayed. In another embodiment, a user may be willing to travel further outside of the route in order to get a less expensive gasoline. In this case, the method may include a cost benefit analysis in which a station that may be far away in terms of distance may still be used if the gas is significantly less expensive than stations that are nearby. For example, referring to
The parameters may be stored in memory associated which any one or any combination of the network elements. For example, the parameter settings may be stored in the user's mobile station or in the user's vehicle navigation system. The parameters could also be stored in a MSC 5, a application server 35, a database server 45 or any combination thereof.
Once the system is in possession of the user's parameters, the parameters can then be parsed. Service stations that best fit the parameters then be gathered and surveyed for more information or displayed to the user.
The step continues with collecting the service stations information which may include the type of the fuel that the service station is selling, for example, biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, methane, natural gas, vegetable oil or any other type of fuel that the user's vehicle may accept, price of the fuel, brand name of the service station, etc. The collection of service station information may also include collecting the price of the fuel. In an emergency or shortage situation the service station information may simply include whether or not the station is currently selling fuel. Furthermore, the method allows for the collection of the service station information to be received from a variety of sources. In one embodiment, the method allows for the price of the fuel to be received through credit card transactions. In this form, the method would receive live feeds from credit card transactions taking place in real time, thereby identifying live, up to date fuel prices. In another embodiment, the method receives this information from the internet. In another embodiment, the method receives this information from the GPS satellite system. In this form, information could be received from other vehicles which have the same information and may share that information with the user's vehicle.
The method continues with recommending service stations. Once the information is received on the variety of service stations, the method continues with recommending a service station based at least in part on the information received on the set of service stations. This method could include recommending one or more service stations which meet the parameters in order to give the user the best gas according to that user's criteria. This could mean the gas that is sold at the cheapest price or it could mean the gas that is within the user's route sold at the cheapest price. It could also mean the service station which has alternative fuel sources. In the alternative, it could mean the service station with a particular brand name. In any form the method will display the recommended service stations (at step 109) which the method recommended at step 107.
The system may integrate all of the information including the service station information and the parameters set by the user in order to recommend one or more service stations. Once the user chooses a station, the system may store that information and use it in order to reevaluate its recommendation for the next time the system is implemented. In this form, the system may “learn” which type of service stations that the user prefers. In addition, the system may be able to evaluate which parameters are most important to the user.
The above description merely provides a disclosure of a particular embodiment of the invention and is not intended for the purposes of limiting the same thereto. As such, the disclosure is not limited to only the above-described embodiments. Rather, it is recognized that one skilled in the art could conceive alternative embodiments that fall within the scope of the invention.
