This disclosure generally relates to system and method of communicating information over a wireless network indicative of vehicle operation to a remote location. More particularly, this disclosure relates to a method of reducing usage of a wireless network during communication of information indicative of vehicle operation to a remote location.
Data indicative of vehicle operation is gathered for a many different purposes, such as for example, determining an insurance premium, monitoring vehicle performance and tracking vehicle location. Data indicative of vehicle operation may included location, speed, and time within a defined zone or at a certain speed. Moreover, data indicative of overall vehicle operation such as engine temperature, speed, temperature and other measured parameters that indicates a level of vehicle performance and when maintenance may be required. As appreciated, the amount of gathered data can become quite large and difficult to manipulate efficiently. Moreover, in instances where such operation data is transmitted over a wireless link to a remote location, the volume of data can result in significant cost and data processing burdens that can discourage implementation of a beneficial monitoring system.
A disclosed in vehicle appliance gathers data from various sensors mounted within the vehicle, stores that data and generates summaries of that data for transmission through a wireless network. The summaries can be utilized for tracking and determining various parameters such as insurance premiums for the motor vehicle, tracking data utilized to determine proper operation of the vehicle and other information that may provide value such as alerting a maintenance depot or service center when a specific vehicle is in need of such maintenance. Transmission of large amounts of data over a wireless network can incur substantial costs. The example in vehicle appliance processes and manipulates the gathered data to generate summaries for transmission over the wireless network to provide sufficient data to characterize vehicle operations without excessive transmission length, cost and use of available bandwidth.
These and other features disclosed herein can be best understood from the following specification and drawings, the following of which is a brief description.
Referring to
The in vehicle appliance 12 gathers data from the various sensors 38 mounted within the vehicle 10 and stores that data. As appreciated, the amount of data compiled can result in very large and extensive amounts of specific data related to all aspects of vehicle operation. The in vehicle appliance 12 summarizes and transmits this data as a transmission signal 26 through a wireless network schematically indicated at 22 to a remotely located computer 24. The remotely located computer 24 utilizes the received data to categorize vehicle operating conditions in order to determine or track vehicle use. This data can be utilized for tracking and determining various parameters such as insurance premiums for the motor vehicle, tracking data utilized to determine proper operation of the vehicle and other information that may provide value such as alerting a maintenance depot or service center when a specific vehicle is in need of such maintenance.
The massive amounts of data gathered by the vehicle sensors 28 cannot be efficiently transmitted over the wireless network and could result in substantially large amounts of data resulting in excessive signal and communication costs. The excessive costs resulting in transmission of such large amounts of data over the wireless network 22 could inhibit the application and acceptance of such data acquisition systems. Accordingly, the example in vehicle appliance 12 process and manipulates the gathered data to generate a summary for transmission over the wireless network 22 that provides sufficient data to characterize vehicle operations without excessive transmission length or use of available bandwidth.
The example vehicle appliance 12 is mounted within the vehicle 12 and performs operations within the vehicle separate from the transmissions that are sent to the remotely located computer 24. The operations that are performed within the vehicle 10 by the appliance 12 conserve bandwidth and result in the formulation of a substantially reduced transmission length that utilizes much less bandwidth and therefore reduces overall communication costs.
The example appliance 12 receives information from each of the in vehicle sensors 28 on an ongoing basis. This received data can be stored within the vehicle appliance 12 as desired or it may be collected at specific intervals that are defined to provide the desired amount of information. No matter how the data is collected from the various sensors that data is extensive in view of the available and desired transmission lengths required to report the information to the remote relocated computer 24.
Accordingly, the accumulated data and information stored within the appliance 12 is processed to generate a summary that remains indicative of the underlying data gathered and stored, while also being capable of transmission within a reasonable and desirable bandwidth and length ranges. Accordingly, the appliance 12 collects data from the various vehicle sensors 28 and summarizes this data into specific categories and ranges that are then utilized to formulate a transmission that utilizes a much smaller and manageable bandwidth and duration.
The example summaries of the accumulated data are compiled according to defined and desired characteristics. Specific characteristics can be utilized to define the various parameters. These characteristics may be predefined in view of the information and how the information is going to be utilized once received by the remotely located computer 24. The information can also be summarized based on both current and historical trends in the gathered data. In other words, based on historical use of the vehicle operation reflected by the accumulated data, specific ranges could be formulated to reflect normal operation and other operations that may fall outside the historic normal vehicle operating parameters. Such ranges could include time within a specific location or time at which the vehicle is operated at a given speed. These parameters could be summarized into normal operating conditions and also in contrast conditions that fall outside these normal operating parameters such that a clear picture of any unique vehicle operations could be illustrated in the data summaries.
Referring to
The third portion 34 provides an analysis and summation of the various data gathered by the vehicle monitoring devices 28. This analysis and summation can be obtained in various manners to provide reduced transmission size and length that corresponds with reduced costs while still maintaining and providing adequate levels of information needed to make and record desired operating parameters of the motor vehicle 10. These various brackets as illustrated in
In this example, various specific ranges indicated at 38 are utilized and include distance and speed along with an incremented number of events in one of the acceleration brackets. Each of the brackets could include speeds within specific ranges such as for example, from 0-20 mph; the distance in another speed bracket could include speeds from 20-50 mph, and further with the later speed brackets indicating higher speeds of the vehicle of reduced range size. As appreciated, the specific ranges could be tailored in view of historical operations of the vehicle such that vehicles that are operated in lower speed ranges could have additional brackets to further characterize operation in those lower speed ranges.
The brackets could also include time spent in each of the different speed brackets, a count of acceleration and deceleration events that occur within each of the different brackets along with the distance driven and time of day that the vehicle is operated within those brackets. Moreover, the time driven in different time of day brackets could also be included and indicated with reference to the time and distance driven within specific geographic zones or regions that could be identified by postal codes or other municipal divisions such as city, county and state.
The data transmission interval is also configurable and can be sent based on the desired need for information by the remote computer 24. In this example a transmission is sent periodically such as everyday or on a specific day of the month. A specific period in which a transmission is made by the appliance 12 can be set to occur based on a time interval or may also be set to occur based on a triggering event. In one example, a triggering event may be defined as when a certain speed has been reached or acceleration has been reached that is indicative of a certain vehicle operating condition of interest. Moreover, some vehicle acceleration or deceleration events could also be indicative of a crash or other vehicle failure that would be of interest and therefore trigger transmission of the analyzed and stored summary of data.
The appliance uses an adaptive coding scheme to minimize the number of bits and therefore the length of the transmission 26 that is sent from the appliance 12. In this example the appliance generates transmissions that are set to be only four bits long that are used for each of the speed brackets instead of two digits which takes 16 bits. The same transmission configuration could apply for each of the brackets such that distances and time are not coded in binary and not ASCII code to provide a reduced transmission length. The transmission coding could also utilize a compression scheme that compress the summarized data and further reduce the amount of bandwidth required for each of the transmissions 26.
Each of the transmissions may also be encrypted to prevent unauthorized opening or review of the forwarded data. As appreciated, the data is transmitted over a wireless network 22 and is therefore susceptible to interception and review by those not intended to receive the transmission 26.
The content of the summaries are defined to provide desired levels of precision. As is appreciated, a reduction in the number of data points has an impact on the level of precision or desired accuracy of a summarized data value. Moreover, not all of the data values are comparable in importance such that some information is utilized more frequently, or relied to a larger degree than other data values. Furthermore, the level of importance of each data value can fluctuate with operation of the vehicle depending on many factors. For example the time or day that a vehicle is operated within a specific location may become of greater interest in the evening hours as compared to operation during the day. Accordingly, some data values should be reported with higher precision than others. Therefore, the disclosed appliance 12 provides for the modification of how the various summaries 38 are generated and transmitted.
The example appliance 12 includes the third portion that analyzes data into a plurality of defined summary values. As discussed above, the defined summary values can be determined according to different desired criteria. This method includes the further criteria of desired precision that is included and factored into the determination of each summary value.
In this example not all the summary values are generated to the same level of precision. The level of precision can be modified by using more or less data points to create the summary value. Moreover, the level of precision can be further modified using known statistical methods. Once the level of desired precision is determined, each of the summaries is then utilized to create the transmission.
The amount of space or number of bits of the transmission 26 that are consumed by each summary value may be different depending on the desired level of precision. Therefore, some of the data values that comprise the transmission may consume more or less of the overall transmission length.
The precision and timing of each of the summary values can also be adjusted and optimized in view of changing factors and priorities in the operation of the motor vehicle. The precision with which each of the summaries or portions of the transmission are formulated can be adapted to changing conditions. The adaptation may be fully automated and executed by the appliance 12, or can be semi-automatic using historical data and pre-specified constraints as adaptation boundaries. The adaptation boundaries could be configured to accommodate conditions external to vehicle operation such as communication costs in view of the value provided by a desired precision level. The precision adaptation of each of the individual summary values provides for the preservation of as much data as possible while limiting required storage space, transmission length and wireless network usage costs.
Accordingly, the example appliance gathers data and organizes that data into summaries that provide a control or are utilized to generate a transmission 26 of substantially reduced length and duration that not only makes each transmission shorter and more efficient but also maintains that desired character of data reflective of vehicle operation.
Although an example embodiment has been disclosed, a worker of ordinary skill in this art would recognize that certain modifications would come within the scope of this disclosure. For that reason, the following claims should be studied to determine the scope and content of this invention.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 61/254,496 filed on Oct. 23, 2009 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/324,198 filed on Apr. 14, 2010.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61254496 | Oct 2009 | US | |
61324198 | Apr 2010 | US |