Patent Application
20120258668
The present invention is related to vehicular safety systems. Specifically, the present invention is related to integrated vehicular sensors that provide enhanced external awareness to drivers, especially cameras and proximity sensors.
Conventional vehicle camera systems are typically stand-alone devices having displays or are after market portable navigation devices that offer this feature. For the vehicle user, this can lead to increased cost and increased dashboard clutter, as well as significant installation impact to the vehicle itself. More importantly, the stand-alone devices are not integrated with a vehicle user's mobile communication device, such as a cellular or mobile phone, mp3 player, or a tablet computer.
The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, together with the detailed description below, are incorporated in and form part of the specification, and serve to further illustrate embodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention. The method and system components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
Disclosed herein is a method for launching a vehicular camera application residing on a docked mobile communication device, such as a smartphone, tablet computer, or mp3 player, for example. A common feature for the many choices of a mobile communication device is that the mobile communication device comprises embedded data processing capability. The launching operation of the vehicular camera application includes detecting a communicative coupling of the mobile communication device with a docking device; and thereafter initiating the vehicular camera application that resides on the mobile communication device. Images are displayed on the mobile communication device that was captured by a vehicular camera or a camera integrated with the mobile communication device or communicatively coupled to the mobile communication device. The associated camera may be controlled by the vehicular camera application and may comprise one or more image sensors such as a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). In addition, other sensors may be communicatively coupled to the mobile communication device and may provide input for launching the vehicle application as well. For example, lasers, radars, or more specifically LIDAR detectors and ultrasonic sensors may be employed in combination with a vehicle camera or instead of a vehicle camera. These exemplary sensors provide valuable data about the external environmental perimeter surrounding a vehicle. These sensors may be located on the front, side, bottom, and rear of a vehicle. The sensors may be communicatively coupled via a wireless system, such as Bluetooth or may be hardwired to the mobile communication device.
Referring to
Operation 130 in flowchart 100 detects that the mobile communication device is communicatively uncoupled from its docking device. Upon detection of an uncoupling signal, operation 140 sends a stop signal from the mobile communication device to its local environmental vehicle safety application that resides on the mobile communication device.
Referring to
Referring to
Upon detection of the vehicle's movement via operation 310, operation 320 initializes or launches the environmental vehicle safety application. The application enables data related to a vehicle camera or other sensor to be stored, shared, and processed for subsequent display upon the mobile communication device or upon a display communicatively coupled to mobile communication device, such as a pop-up display or hologram, for example. One or more driver safety-related applications may include controlling on/off display operation and other display functions for themobile communication device upon the detection of a vehicle's motion via either the accelerometer in the mobile communication device, or any triggering info sent by the coupled vehicular camera.
Referring to
Another environmental vehicular communication system is shown, for example, in
Another network, network 580, which is communicatively coupled to the mobile communication device 540 may be either a cellular network or a WiFi network for communication with another mobile communication device 545 or a server network 590 that are external to vehicle body 510. The second mobile communication device 545 also may be communicatively coupled to the server network 590. The environmental vehicle safety system 500 may receive geographical location information or data from a global positioning system, such as GPS or Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), or Beidou Satellite Navigation System.
Mobile communication device 540 or 545 is further illustrated by example in
The control module 620 includes a central processor capable of running operations programs for the mobile communication device 540 or 545. Data module 630 includes a memory data storage unit capable of retaining and erasing or flushing geographical location information. The memory data storage unit can be or include any data retention apparatus, including secure disk (SD)card, micro-SD, thumb-drive, external hard drives, personal electronic devices, and tape drives or microfiche, for example. A stored digital map in the memory data storage unit can be used as a comparison to a real time geographical location as captured by the vehicular camera or mobile communication device. The stored digital map may be editable so that the content can be updated based on the real time information captured by the vehicular camera or mobile communication device. The user interface module 640 shown in
Several screenshots from smartphone 900 are illustrated in
Depicted in
In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present teachings.
The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.
Moreover in this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has”, “having,” “includes”, “including,” “contains”, “containing” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises . . . a”, “has . . . a”, “includes . . . a”, “contains . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms “a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. The terms “substantially”, “essentially”, “approximately”, “about” or any other version thereof, are defined as being close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and in one non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, in another embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and in another embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly and not necessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed.
It will be appreciated that some embodiments may be comprised of one or more generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored program instructions or code (including both software and firmware) that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of the method and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used.
Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a non-transitory machine readable storage device or medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a computer (e.g., comprising a processor) to perform a method as described and claimed herein. Examples of such non-transitory machine readable storage devices or mediums include, but are not limited to, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flash memory. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.
