This invention in general relates to systems and methods for enabling communications in a wireless communications network on the basis of user-specified locations or orientations, having particular utility to vehicle-based communications.
Communication systems, and especially wireless communication systems, are becoming more sophisticated, offering consumers improved functionality to communicate with one another. Such increased functionality has been particularly useful in the automotive arena, and vehicles are now being equipped with communication systems with improved audio (voice) wireless communication capabilities. For example, On Star™ is a well-known communication system currently employed in vehicles, and allows vehicle occupants to establish a telephone call with others (such as a service center) by activating a switch.
However, existing communications schemes lack flexibility to tailor group communications and allow users to dynamically move between communications. For instance, existing approaches depend heavily on establishing communication from one end of a communication (namely, a service center) and do not provide means for all parties to dynamically change the nature of the communications or the definition of the group. This lack of flexibility may prohibit group users from communicating as freely as they might wish.
A need exists for more flexibility in wireless communications, especially in the automotive environment. But simply adding more flexibility can make a communication system unwieldy. In a large public communications network, many group conversations might be held, each on its own channel, and a particular user may be capable of joining a plurality or all of such conversations. Thus, a user may be overwhelmed at the conversation options open to him.
In certain circumstances, a first user may only wish to publicly communicate with a second user on the basis of either the location of the first or the location of the second user. For example, the first user may only wish to speak to second users close to him (e.g., within a particular suburb), or may wish to communicate only with second users present at some other location remote from the first user (e.g., at a ball park). Moreover, the first user may only be interested to speak with second users traveling in his same direction. For example, the first user, traveling along a highway, may be interested to know what traffic conditions are like ahead, and might like to speak to a second user traveling ahead of him (or behind him) along the same route.
In short, there is much about the organization of vehicle wireless-based communications systems that could use improvement to enhance its functionality, and to better utilize the resources that the system is capable of providing. This disclosure presents several different means to so improve these types of communications.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a procedure for enabling communications in a wireless communications network on the basis of user-specified locations or orientations, having particular utility to vehicle-based communications.
a is a diagram illustrating various users capable of communicating with each other within a geographic area;
b is another diagram illustrating various users capable of communicating with each other within predefined cells and super cells;
a is one embodiment of a display in a user interface for defining a communication area around the user to allow that user to communicate with other users within the area;
b illustrates the display of
c illustrates a display of a user within the area, providing an option to accept or decline to communicate with the requesting user;
a illustrates a display in a user interface for defining a heading to allow a user to communicate with other users having substantially the same (or opposite) headings as the first user;
b illustrates a modification to the display of
a illustrates a group of users traveling together on a trip and communicating together on a group call, and showing the definition of communication area(s) around them;
b illustrates a display in a user interface for defining a communication area around the group of user of
c illustrates the display of
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
What is described is an improved system and procedure enabling communications in a wireless communications network on the basis of user-specified locations or orientations. Users of the network broadcast their locations and orientations (headings) to a central server. Using his user interface, a user can specify either a location or a heading and transmit the same to the server. The server will query other system users or otherwise determine which users correspond to specified locations or orientations, and the requesting user is then permitted to contact such other users. With such functionality, a given user can, for example, be enabled to communicate with other users at or near his current location, at or near some specified distant location, or that are traveling in the same direction as the user.
Now, turning to the drawings, an example use of the present invention in an automotive setting will be explained.
Further details of the wireless communications device 22 as employed in a vehicle 26 are shown in
The head unit 50 can also comprises a navigation unit 62, which typically includes a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system for allowing the vehicle's location to be pinpointed, which is useful, for example, in associating the vehicle's location with mapping information the system provides. As is known, such a navigation unit communicates with GPS satellites (such as satellites 32) via a receiver. Also present is a positioning unit 66, which determines the direction in which the vehicle is pointing (north, north-east, etc.), and which is also useful for mapping a vehicle's progress along a route.
Ultimately, user and system inputs are processed by a controller 56 which executes processes in the head unit 50 accordingly, and provides outputs 54 to the occupants in the vehicle, such as through a speaker 78 or a display 79 coupled to the head unit 50. The speakers 78 employed can be the audio (radio) speakers normally present in the vehicle, of which there are typically four or more, although only one is shown for convenience. Moreover, in an alternative embodiment, the output 54 may include a text to speech converter to provide the option to hear an audible output of any text that is contained in a group communication channel that the user may be monitoring. This audio feature may be particular advantageous in the mobile environment where the user is operating a vehicle. Additionally, a memory 64 is coupled to the controller 56 to assist it in performing regulation of the inputs and outputs to the system. The controller 56 also communicates via a vehicle bus interface 58 to a vehicle bus 60, which carries communication information and other vehicle operational data throughout the vehicle.
The Telematics control unit 40 is similarly coupled to the vehicle bus 60, via a vehicle bus interface 28, and hence the head unit 50. The Telematics control unit 40 is essentially responsible for sending and receiving voice or data communications to and from the vehicle, i.e., wirelessly to and from the rest of the communications system 10. As such, it comprises a Telematics controller 46 to organize such communications, and a network access device (NAD) 42 which include a wireless transceiver. Although shown as separate components, one skilled in the art will recognize that aspects of the head unit 50 and the Telematics control unit 40, and components thereof, can be combined or swapped.
The wireless communications device 22 can provide a great deal of communicative flexibility within vehicle 26. For example, an occupant in a first vehicle 26a can call a second vehicle 26b to speak to its occupants either by pressing a switch on the keypad 72 of the head unit 50 or by simply speaking if the head unit is equipped with a voice recognition module 70. In one embodiment, the pressing of a switch or speaking into a voice recognition module initiates a cellular telephone call with a second vehicle 26b. In this case, users in either the first vehicle 26a or the second vehicle 26b can speak with each other without pressing any further switches. Moreover, the system may be configured to include a voice activated circuit such as a voice activated switch (VAS) or voice operated transmit (VOX). This would also provide for hands-free operation of the system by a user when communicating with other users.
In an alternative embodiment, the switch may be configured to establish a push-to-talk communication channel over a cellular network. Here, the controller 56 is configured to only allow audio by occupants in the first vehicle 26a through microphone 68 to be transmitted through the Telematics control unit 40 when a user in the first vehicle 26a is pressing down on the push-to-talk switch. The controller 56 is further configured to only allow audio received from the second vehicle 26b (or server 24) to be heard over speakers 78 when the operator of the first vehicle 26a is not pressing down on the switch. Alternatively, to avoid the need of holding down a switch to speak, the system may be configured to allow a user to push a button a first time to transmit audio and push the button a second time to receive audio.
In any event, a user in the second vehicle 26b can, in like fashion, communicate back to the first vehicle 26a, with the speaker's voice being heard on speaker(s) 78 in the first vehicle or converted to text and shown on display 79. Or, an occupant in the first vehicle 26a can call the service center and server 24 to receive services. Additionally, such a system 10 can have utility outside of the context of vehicle-based applications, and specifically can have utility with respect to other portable devices (cell phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), etc.). The use of the system in the context of vehicular communications is therefore merely exemplary.
System 10 can be used by a vehicle user to engage in group conversations, in what we will refer to as an “ad hoc” communication network. In such an application, a plurality of users in communication with the system may join into a public conversation. In such a system, a subset of users would be predefined by a system user to form a communication group, such as a family group, a professional work group, etc. Once predefined, any of those predefined users would be able to speak with other predefined users, for example, by pressing a push-to-talk button on their user interfaces, which again may constitute a dedicated vehicular user interface, or by simply speaking and activating a voice activated circuit. All other users in the predefined group will hear the voice of the speaking user, and in turn all users may likewise speak with the rest of the users in the group in a like manner.
The various ways in which the users 26 can participate in or receive communications from other user is dictated on the basis of their locations and/or orientations (headings). The locations and/or headings of user 26a-f (and any other users connected to the system 10) are tracked by the server 24. In this regard, the Telematics control unit 40 may automatically transmit to the server 24 information regarding the location (e.g., longitude/latitude), heading (or orientation), and identity of the users on a periodic basis. Referring again briefly to
Receipt of such information at the server 24 allows communications to be tailored for individual users based on a location or heading (orientation). For example, referring to
The embodiment described in relation to
The second channel associated with a cell may be an audio channel transmitted from the server to users within a geographic cell. In other words, the server 24 receives audio from the first channels within the cells and would then mix the audio, according to predefined parameters, and transmit the audio back to users based on the cell in which the user is located. The parameters used to mix any received audio may include a scheme based on a larger region, such as the super cell SC1 showing in
To limit the amount of data mixed for a given super cell, in a further embodiment, the server 24 may initially determine whether any audio is being received from a given cell and exclude data from a cell that no audio is being transmitted. For example, referring to cell C6 in
Moreover, if users from more than one cell are transmitting at the same time, a priority scheme may be employed based on geographic location. For example, users within the same cell may have priority over users in adjacent cells. Additionally, if more than one user is speaking within a given cell, another priority scheme may be employed that is based on pre-assigned priorities for user. For example, a user that is associated with an emergency vehicle may be afforded greater priority than other general users. In a like manner, the server 24 could use priority information associated with the audio on the first channel from each cell within the super cell to select the audio to be transmitted on the second channel.
Regardless of how the area around user 26b is defined, referring back to the embodiment in
In an alternative embodiment, a user may select a particular location remote from his present location. For example, referring back to
In any event, once such location information is received at the server 24, the server 24 can again query the presently stored locations of each of the users to find out which are substantially near that location, such as users 26b-d. Accordingly, those users can be displayed on user 26e user interface to allow user 26e to attempt communication with some or all of them. This technique might also be used for example to allow users to communicate with users (such as user 26f) at a certain location (such as at Astroworld in Houston) to check the crowd level at the park for example.
In another embodiment, both location and orientation are used to define a subset of users for communication. For example, referring again to
In any event, and as before, upon receipt of these communication preferences from user 26b, the server 24 will query its database for users substantially meeting these criteria. Just as a specified location is preferably treated in accordance with an area around the location, relevant headings are also preferably specified within sensible limits. Thus, the server 24 in querying for matching users may use a range of headings (e.g., user 26b's heading plus or minus 10 degrees) to deem as relevant those users having substantially the same heading, a point recognizing that users traveling in the same general direction may not have exactly the same trajectory. Assuming user 26b specified his heading and location, user 26c would be presented as a communication option (such as is illustrated in
In an alternative embodiment, illustrated in
In some embodiments, it may be useful to connect with users merely dependent on orientation, particularly if communication options are limited by some other means other than location. In short, specification of a location is not strictly necessary.
In another embodiment, several users may be joined in a call. For example, and as shown in
In any event, it may be useful during their trip for users 26g-i to communicate with certain other system users on the basis of their location(s) or orientations, just as was the case with a single user as illustrated earlier. Accordingly, the same techniques can be used, but modified to include the fact that a group (or a member of the group) is initiating the communication request instead of a single user. For example, and as shown in
However, additional complexity exists if the group is interested in scanning for other users on the basis of the group location, since the group's location is not defined at a single point. Accordingly, the “location” of the group, and a scanning area around the group, can be defined in a number of different ways. For example, the location of the group can be specified by its center (X,
Again, upon receipt of instructions (
Again, when dealing with a group, the other techniques disclosed earlier could also be used. For example, and although not shown in
The disclosed techniques may also be used in conjunction with a user profile to even further tailor communication options, as is disclosed in above-incorporated U.S. patent application Ser. No. [______], entitled “Selectively Enabling Communications at a User Interface Using a Profile” [Attorney Docket TC00167]. Location- and orientation-based user preferences such as those disclosed herein can be stored and otherwise treated as part of the user profiles disclosed in that application. Moreover, although this disclosure has focused on connecting users with other users, it should be understood that the same location- and orientation-based techniques as disclosed herein can be used to connect with appropriate users on pubic communication channels, such as are disclosed in the above-mentioned application.
For example, there may exist a public Chicago traffic group channel (along with other channels) accessible to many users. A given user may wish to only communicate with certain users connected to that channel—such as those that are within a certain distance of the user. To effectuate this, the user may select the channel and otherwise specify his location requirement using the techniques disclosed herein. In this way, the user will be able to speak only with those users on the Chicago traffic channels that are nearest to him, which might be of greatest interest. Moreover, if the channel is itself location based (e.g., Chicago sports) and indexed in a manner such that the server 24 understands its location, the disclosed location/orientation techniques can be used to couple a given user to those channels, rather than to discrete users.
While largely described with respect to improving communications within vehicles, one skilled in the art will understand that many of the concepts disclosed herein could have applicability to other portable communicative user interfaces not contained within vehicles, such as cell phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), portable computers, etc., what can be referred to collectively as portable communication devices.
Although several discrete embodiments are disclosed, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the embodiments can be combined with one another, and that the use of one is not necessarily exclusive of the use of other embodiments. Moreover, the above description of the present invention is intended to be exemplary only and is not intended to limit the scope of any patent issuing from this application. The present invention is intended to be limited only by the scope and spirit of the following claims.
The present application is related to the following co-pending, commonly assigned patent applications, which were filed concurrently herewith and incorporated by reference in their entirety: Ser. No. ______, entitled “Selectively Enabling Communications at a User Interface Using a Profile,” attorney docket TC00167, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Methods for Sending Messages Based on the Location of Mobile Users in a Commnunication Network,” attorney docket TC00169, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Methods for Displaying a Route Traveled by Mobile Users in a Communication Network,” attorney docket TC00170, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Conversion of Calls from an Ad Hoc Communication Network,” attorney docket TC00172, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method for Entering a Personalized Communication Profile Into a Communication User Interface,” attorney docket TC00173, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Methods and Systems for Controlling Communications in an Ad Hoc Communication Network,” attorney docket TC00174, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Methods for Controlling Processing of Inputs to a Vehicle Wireless Communication Interface,” attorney docket TC00175, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Methods for Controlling Processing of Outputs to a Vehicle Wireless Communication Interface,” attorney docket TC00176, filed concurrently herewith. Ser. No. ______, entitled “Programmable Foot Switch Useable in a Communications User Interface in a Vehicle,” attorney docket TC00177, filed concurrently herewith.