Smart vehicle apparatus, system, and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10150471-B2
Application number	US-201615389983-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 23, 2016
Priority date	Dec 23, 2016
Publication date	Dec 11, 2018
Grant date	Dec 11, 2018

Abstract

Novel tools and techniques are provided for implementing Internet of Things (“IoT”) functionality. In some embodiments, a computing system or IoT management node might receive sensor data from one or more IoT-capable sensors, analyze the sensor data to determine one or more actions to be taken, and identify one or more devices (e.g., household devices associated with a customer premises; vehicular components associated with a vehicle; devices disposed in, on, or along a roadway; devices disposed throughout a population area; etc.) for performing the determined one or more first actions. The computing system or IoT management node then autonomously controls each of the identified one or more devices to perform tasks based on the determined one or more first actions to be taken, thereby implementing smart environment functionality (e.g., smart home, building, or customer premises functionality, smart vehicle functionality, smart roadway functionality, smart city functionality, and so on).

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving, with a computing system, at least one first sensor data from each of one or more Internet of Things (“IoT”) -capable devices via machine-to-machine communications, each of the one or more IoT-capable devices comprising one or more first sensors that collect the at least one first sensor data;
analyzing, with the computing system, the at least one first sensor data to determine one or more first actions to be taken, wherein the at least one first sensor data that are received from each of the one or more IoT-capable devices each comprises sensor data that exceeds a predetermined threshold for each corresponding type of sensor, wherein sensor data that do not exceed the predetermined threshold for each corresponding type of sensor are prevented from being sent to the computing system;
identifying, with the computing system, one or more vehicular components associated with a vehicle for performing the determined one or more first actions to be taken, based on the at least one first sensor data from each of the one or more IoT-capable devices; and
autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform one or more tasks, based on the determined one or more first actions to be taken.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform the one or more tasks comprises sending, with the computing system, one or more first control instructions to each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform the one or more tasks, based on the determined one or more first actions to be taken.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system comprises one of a single processor disposed within the vehicle, a plurality of processors disposed within the vehicle, an IoT management node disposed within the vehicle, an IoT management node disposed at a customer premises associated with an owner of the vehicle, an IoT management node disposed at a business premises associated with a company that owns or operates the vehicle, an IoT management node disposed at a service provider facility associated with providing services to the owner of the vehicle, a server computer remote from the vehicle, a cloud computing system, a distributed computing system that integrates computing resources from one or more IoT-capable devices, or a combination of two or more of these computing systems.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the at least one first sensor data from each of the one or more IoT-capable devices via machine-to-machine communications comprises receiving, with the computing system, at least one first sensor data from each of the one or more IoT-capable devices via machine-to-machine communications, via one or more first application programming interfaces (“APIs”) established between the computing system and each of the one or more IoT-capable devices.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform the one or more tasks comprises autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components, via one or more second APIs established between the computing system and each of the one or more vehicular components.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identified one or more vehicular components comprise at least one of a vehicle brake system, a vehicle gear system, a vehicle electronic throttle control system, a vehicle steering system, a vehicle turn signal system, a vehicle heads-up display system, a vehicle digital instrument gauge cluster, a vehicle display device, or a vehicle speaker system, wherein the one or more IoT-capable devices comprise at least one of a vehicle camera-based collision avoidance system, a vehicle radar-based proximity detection system, a vehicle lidar-based proximity detection system, a vehicle sonar-based proximity detection system, a location sensor, or a transceiver device in communication with a corresponding transceiver device in each of one or more nearby vehicles, wherein autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform the one or more tasks comprises autonomously controlling, with the computing system, at least one of the vehicle brake system, the vehicle gear system, the vehicle electronic throttle control system, the vehicle steering system, or the vehicle turn signal system to maintain at least a predetermined safe distance between the vehicle and any adjacent vehicles based at least in part on data from each of at least one of the vehicle camera-based collision avoidance system, the vehicle radar-based proximity detection system, the vehicle lidar-based proximity detection system, the vehicle sonar-based proximity detection system, or the transceiver device in communication with the corresponding transceiver device in each of the one or more nearby vehicles, and autonomously controlling, with the computing system, at least one of the vehicle heads-up display system, the vehicle digital instrument gauge cluster, the vehicle display device, or the vehicle speaker system to alert a driver of the vehicle in response to any necessary changes in operating the vehicle due to maintaining the at least the predetermined safe distance between the vehicle and any adjacent vehicles.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identified one or more vehicular components comprise at least one of a vehicle brake system, a vehicle gear system, a vehicle electronic throttle control system, a vehicle steering system, a vehicle turn signal system, a vehicle heads-up display system, a vehicle digital instrument gauge cluster, a vehicle display device, a vehicle speaker system, a vehicle hazard light system, or a vehicle self-diagnostics system, wherein the one or more IoT-capable devices comprise at least one of a vehicle camera-based collision avoidance system, a vehicle radar-based proximity detection system, a vehicle lidar-based proximity detection system, a vehicle sonar-based proximity detection system, or a transceiver device in communication with a corresponding transceiver device in each of one or more nearby vehicles, wherein autonomously controlling, with the computing system, each of the identified one or more vehicular components to perform one or more tasks comprises autonomously controlling, with the computing system, at least one of the vehicle brake system, the vehicle gear system, the vehicle electronic throttle control system, the vehicle steering system, or the vehicle turn signal system to safely navigate the vehicle to a safe road-side location while avoiding collisions with other vehicles and any obstacles, based at least in part on data from the vehicle self-diagnostics system and data from each of at least one of the vehicle camera-based collision avoidance system, the vehicle radar-based proximity detection system, the vehicle lidar-based proximity detection system, the vehicle sonar-based proximity detection system, or the transceiver device in communication with the corresponding transceiver device in each of the one or more nearby vehicles, autonomously controlling, with the computing system, at least one of vehicle hazard light system or the transceiver device in communication with the corresponding transceiver device in each of the one or more nearby vehicles to alert other drivers and other vehicles of problems with operation of the vehicle, and autonomously controlling, with the computing system, at least one of the vehicle heads-up display system, the vehicle digital instrument gauge cluster, the vehicle display devic

Assignees

• Centurylink Ip Llc

Inventors

• Funk Tom
• Carpenter Phil
• Walker William R

Classifications

• B60W10/18

  including control of braking systems · CPC title

• B60W10/04

  including control of propulsion units · CPC title

• H04L67/12 Primary

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04W4/90

  Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS] · CPC title

• B60W10/20

  including control of steering systems · CPC title