Patent Application
20240346536
The present invention relates generally to a vehicle communication system for a vehicle and, more particularly, to a vehicle communication system that communicates with a remote communication system.
Communication systems for vehicles may provide for communication between vehicles and/or between a vehicle and a remote server. Such car2car or V2V and car2X or V2X technology provides for communication between vehicles based on information provided by one or more vehicles and/or information provided by a remote server or the like. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,580,795 and/or U.S. Publication Nos. US-2012-0218412, published Aug. 30, 2012, and/or US-2012-0062743, published Mar. 15, 2012, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
The present invention provides a communication system for a vehicle that communicates with a remote communication system (remote from the vehicle) and that automatically generates a communication to the driver in response to determining that the vehicle and driver are at a location where the driver may have had a particular experience, such as at a gas station or restaurant or store or the like. The system, upon determining that an experience may have occurred, and responsive to the driver entering the vehicle and/or starting the vehicle, generates a communication to the driver, such as one or more survey questions, for the driver to answer pertaining to the experience. The survey results are stored and communicated to a remote server for providing a database of results pertaining to a particular store or entity for use with future drivers or the like.
These and other objects, advantages, purposes and features of the present invention will become apparent upon review of the following specification in conjunction with the drawings.
A vehicle communication system operates to initiate communications with the driver (or other occupant of the vehicle) to obtain feedback from the driver. As shown in
A driver of a vehicle may use a smart phone via voice input with a vehicle system. It is common known to store points of interest or local properties within offline maps such as navigation systems or online maps such as google Maps® or Here®. The stored properties may be from a nature to be interesting for human users, such as, for example, the current price of liter of gasoline, 95 octane at a specific gas station (associated as local property stored in the map), or the stored properties may be from a nature to be usable as input for an artificial intelligence (AI) system of an autonomous or assistant vehicle, such as, for example, mapping a pothole at a specific spot at a road so that the AI guides the assistant vehicle in a way to avoid the pothole when the vehicle approaches the pothole. Navigation systems and sophisticated vehicle driving assistant systems are uploading local property (AI or machine learning-) inputs automatically.
The communication system of the present invention communicates with a remote communication system (remote from the vehicle) and automatically generates a communication to the driver in response to determining that the vehicle and driver are at a location where the driver may have had a particular experience, such as at a gas station or restaurant or store or the like. The system, upon determining that such an experience has occurred, and responsive to the driver entering the vehicle and/or starting the vehicle, generates a communication to the driver, such as one or more survey questions, for the driver to answer pertaining to the experience. The communication to the driver may be an audible question or questions, where the driver may reply verbally (via an audio and microphone system of the vehicle), or the communication to the driver may be a visual display of one or more questions on a display screen in the vehicle (such as via a navigation screen or backup camera display or touch screen or the like in the vehicle cabin and viewable by the driver of the vehicle), where the driver may reply verbally or may enter or key in a response (by touching a selection or typing in an answer via a keypad at the touch screen). The survey results are stored and communicated to a remote server for providing a database of results pertaining to a particular store or entity for use with future drivers or vehicle occupants or the like.
The communication device may comprise a component of an embedded communication system of the vehicle, such as an ONSTAR® telematics system used in General Motors vehicles, or the communication device may be a portable or mobile communication device, such as a cell phone or smart phone or tablet or computer device or the like, brought into the vehicle, that links (such as wirelessly via BLUETOOTH connection) with a communication system of the vehicle (such as a SYNC® telematics system used in Ford vehicles). Optionally, the communication device may be a component of a car2car (V2V) or car2x (V2X) communication system.
The communication system of the present invention thus provides a vehicle-initiated communication that provides communication to the driver such as based on the geographical location of the vehicle. The system has, instead of a foreign service or instead of the driver, the vehicle initiating a feedback entry [process] from the driver. This is advantageous since the driver is released from taking the initiative when appropriate. Another advantage is that the system interface may guide the driver through the feedback process and guide the feedback to the appropriate social media all automated by its own, so that the driver is minimally bothered, and only needs to execute the requested input entries.
The concept for vehicle-initiated driver feedback relates to a Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) system in a vehicle that interfaces with the human occupants in the vehicle, and is able to connect to the internet (the Cloud) for access to additional information relating to driving activities. This information can be of an objective nature, such as narrow roads, or poor quality road surface, or the like, or could be of a subjective nature, such as “I like this gas station” or “the restrooms were clean”, or “the food was good and affordable.”
Information from the Cloud is accessed to provide feedback to the driver about current conditions of the trip, or to provide advice about specific accommodations or locations. Similarly, the HMI system is able to inquire from the human occupants their opinion or feedback about the driving experience, or the accommodations, and submit this information back to the Cloud. A service in the Cloud will be able to gather the feedback data and process a statistical average of users' experiences that can subsequently be provided back to the next user.
For example, the system may determine that the vehicle's gas tank was filled up. The system thus concludes that the user (driver) must have stopped at a gas station. When the driver starts the vehicle, the system will provide a quick survey about the gas station, requesting the driver's feedback before continuing on the trip. The feedback could be in the form of yes/no questions: “Did you like this gas station?” “Did you feel safe at the gas station?” “Did you like the amenities at this gas station?”, “Did you have to wait long at this gas station?” and/or the like. Or the questions could require an answer in the form of a numerical rating. The driver's feedback is then submitted to the cloud, and associated with the specific gas station (which may be done via associating the location (determined via the vehicle's GPS system) at the time that the system determined that the gas tank was filled up), and the time and date of the driver's experience.
The benefit is that the system of the present invention can provide “opinion”-based information that a system is not able to provide without a human's interaction. Another benefit is that the system of the present invention mitigates legal ramifications for the system's manufacturer, since it provides only a gateway for opinion-based feedback information without providing the actual content of the information.
The system of the present invention provides a method to collect significant feedback about drivers' experiences relating to road side services that people would otherwise not automatically provide. Naturally, people would only post negative feedback when they have a bad experience, and are upset.
Optionally, the system may communicate other survey results (such as from other drivers) pertaining to a particular site (such as a gas station or restaurant or store) at which the vehicle is stopped. For example, responsive to the communication system determining (such as via a GPS system of the vehicle) that the vehicle has arrived at or stopped at a location where the driver would have a particular experience, the communication system may communicate other survey results to the driver of the vehicle before the driver exits the vehicle. For example, if the store or site is very poorly rated by other drivers, the system may alert the driver that the driver has stopped at a poorly rated place so that the driver may elect to move on to a different site.
Optionally, the system may receive vehicle inputs and determine that there may be a need for a particular vehicle system (for example, the vehicle may need fuel or a tire may have a low air pressure), and the system may determine potential destinations or service providers or service stations that are nearby or along a planned route. The system may also receive an input from the driver as to preferred criteria or characteristics of such destinations or service providers (for example, the driver of the vehicle may prefer a service provider that also offers food or the like), and the system may correlate the service need with the preferred criteria to determine one or more service providers that would be acceptable to the driver. The input from the driver pertaining to preferred criteria or characteristics may be accessed from a database of preferred criteria for various types of destinations or service providers as preferred by that driver, or may be received as an input from the driver, such as via a voice command or touch input, in response to a prompt or request from the communication device.
For example,
In another situation shown in
In another situation shown in
In another situation, a service may be dependent on the time of the day. For example, it may be closed at that time. Or it may not be safe at night. Hence the system will not recommend that service or location or may make the recommendation with a warning.
Optionally, the system may indicate that a vehicle may be re-fueled prematurely in order to avoid stopping at a later location which may not be considered safe based on certain regional news.
Optionally, the system may defer the survey (or allow the driver to defer the survey) until a later time or at the end of the trip or journey. For example, if the commercial establishment was unsafe, the driver should be able to get out of the place as soon as possible and yet be able to provide feedback after leaving the unsafe place.
Optionally, the system may store data locally until the vehicle approaches or arrives at a place with network connectivity.
Optionally, the system allows the driver to decline feedback or survey. Optionally, the system may ask for feedback only for commercial establishments.
Optionally, the system may communicate with the driver via the driver's smartphone or other mobile device, such that communications may be made when the driver is not in the vehicle, such as when the driver is at a selected location or the like.
Optionally, the communication system may utilize aspects of the systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,477,464; 7,308,341; 7,167,796 and/or 6,909,361, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
The system communicates with a remote system and/or may also communicate with other vehicle systems, such as via a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system or a vehicle-to-infrastructure communication system or the like. Such car2car or vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (car2X or V2X or V21 or 4G or 5G) technology provides for communication between vehicles and/or infrastructure based on information provided by one or more vehicles and/or information provided by a remote server or the like. Such vehicle communication systems may utilize aspects of the systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,690,268; 6,693,517 and/or 7,580,795, and/or U.S. Publication Nos. US-2014-0375476; US-2014-0218529; US-2013-0222592; US-2012-0218412; US-2012-0062743; US-2015-0251599; US-2015-0158499; US-2015-0124096; US-2015-0352953; US-2016-0036917 and/or US-2016-0210853, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Optionally, the system may include a display for displaying images captured by one or more of the imaging sensors for viewing by the driver of the vehicle while the driver is normally operating the vehicle. Optionally, for example, the system may include a video display device, such as by utilizing aspects of the video display systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,530,240; 6,329,925; 7,855,755; 7,626,749; 7,581,859; 7,446,650; 7,338,177; 7,274,501; 7,255,451; 7,195,381; 7,184,190; 5,668,663; 5,724,187; 6,690,268; 7,370,983; 7,329,013; 7,308,341; 7,289,037; 7,249,860; 7,004,593; 4,546,551; 5,699,044; 4,953,305; 5,576,687; 5,632,092; 5,677,851; 5,708,410; 5,737,226; 5,802,727; 5,878,370; 6,087,953; 6,173,508; 6,222,460; 6,513,252 and/or 6,642,851, and/or U.S. Publication Nos. US-2012-0162427; US-2006-0050018 and/or US-2006-0061008, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Optionally, the system (utilizing the forward facing camera and a rearward facing camera and other cameras disposed at the vehicle with exterior fields of view) may be part of or may provide a display of a top-down view or birds-eye view system of the vehicle or a surround view at the vehicle, such as by utilizing aspects of the vision systems described in International Publication Nos. WO 2010/099416; WO 2011/028686; WO 2012/075250; WO 2013/019795; WO 2012/075250; WO 2012/145822; WO 2013/081985; WO 2013/086249 and/or WO 2013/109869, and/or U.S. Publication No. US-2012-0162427, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Changes and modifications in the specifically described embodiments can be carried out without departing from the principles of the invention, which is intended to be limited only by the scope of the appended claims, as interpreted according to the principles of patent law including the doctrine of equivalents.
The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/305,955, filed Jul. 19, 2021, now U.S. Pat. No. 12,020,269, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/710,891, filed Sep. 21, 2017, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,068,918, which claims the filing benefits of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 62/398,092, filed Sep. 22, 2016, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62398092 | Sep 2016 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17305955 | Jul 2021 | US |
| Child | 18751477 | US | |
| Parent | 15710891 | Sep 2017 | US |
| Child | 17305955 | US |
