Service discovery and provisioning for a macro-vehicular cloud

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10791543-B2
Application number	US-201715799442-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 31, 2017
Priority date	Oct 31, 2017
Publication date	Sep 29, 2020
Grant date	Sep 29, 2020

Abstract

The disclosure includes embodiments for providing a service to a vehicle via a macro-vehicular cloud. A method, according to some embodiments, is implemented by the vehicle which communicatively coupled to the macro-vehicular cloud via a Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) network. The macro-vehicular cloud includes a plurality of micro-vehicular clouds which each include a set of onboard vehicle computers that are operable to provide a set of computing resources to the macro-vehicular cloud via the V2X network. The method includes transmitting, via the V2X network, a wireless message requesting a service from the macro-vehicular cloud. The method includes receiving, via the V2X network, the service from the set of computing resources of the macro-vehicular cloud.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a first vehicle communicatively coupled to a macro-vehicular cloud via a non-infrastructure network,
wherein:
the macro-vehicular cloud includes a plurality of micro-vehicular clouds;
each of the micro-vehicular clouds includes (a) a coordinator and (b) one or more other vehicles;
each of the micro-vehicular clouds includes a set of onboard vehicle computers associated with the one or more other vehicles, the set of onboard vehicle computers being operable to provide a set of computing resources to the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network;
the coordinator assigns a service to at least one of the one or more other vehicles in a selected micro-vehicular cloud, wherein the coordinator instructs the at least one of the one or more other vehicles to perform the service using computing resources from the set of computing resources based on a historical availability of the computing resources;
the first vehicle is a member of the selected micro-vehicular cloud included in the plurality of micro-vehicular clouds so that the first vehicle is an element of the macro-vehicular cloud; and
the first vehicle is operable to receive the service from the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinator is one of the one or more other vehicles.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-infrastructure network includes a Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) network which sends and receives messages over a 5.9 gigahertz (GHz) DSRC band and the service is requested via a DSRC message.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the non-infrastructure network includes a millimeter wave communication network and the service is requested via a millimeter wave communication message.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinator identifies the computing resources from the set of computing resources by determining the historical availability of the computing resources based on statistical information about the set of computing resources that are historically available at different times of day and days of a week.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the one or more other vehicles and the coordinator are communicatively coupled to the non-infrastructure network;
the coordinator of each individual micro-vehicular cloud is communicatively coupled to the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network and the first vehicle is communicatively coupled to the macro-vehicular cloud via the coordinator of the selected micro-vehicular cloud; and
the first vehicle receives the service from the selected micro-vehicular cloud which accesses the set of computing resources of the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the one or more other vehicles are at least momentarily dynamic while the plurality of micro-vehicular clouds are each located at a fixed geographical region which is static and different from the fixed geographical region of the other micro-vehicular clouds included in the plurality of micro-vehicular clouds.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinator receives a request for the service that specifies a pick-up location for results data that responds to the request.

9. The system of claim 6 , wherein the service includes at least one of storing data and executing one or more operations.

10. A method implemented by a first vehicle communicatively coupled to a macro-vehicular cloud via a non-infrastructure network, wherein the macro-vehicular cloud includes a plurality of micro-vehicular clouds, each of the micro-vehicular clouds includes (a) a coordinator and (b) one or more other vehicles, and each of the micro-vehicular clouds include a set of onboard vehicle computers that are operable to provide a set of computing resources to the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network, the method comprising:
transmitting, via the non-infrastructure network, a wireless message requesting a service from the macro-vehicular cloud, wherein the coordinator assigns the service to at least one of the one or more other vehicles in a selected micro-vehicular cloud and wherein the coordinator instructs the at least one of the one or more other vehicles to perform the service using computing resources from the set of computing resources based on a historical availability of the computing resources; and
receiving, via the non-infrastructure network, the service from the macro-vehicular cloud.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the coordinator is one of the one or more other vehicles.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the non-infrastructure network includes a Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) network which sends and receives messages over a 5.9 gigahertz (GHz) DSRC band and the service is requested via a DSRC message.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the non-infrastructure network includes a millimeter wave communication network and the service is requested via a millimeter wave communication message.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the coordinator identifies the computing resources from the set of computing resources by determining the historical availability of the computing resources based on statistical information about the set of computing resources that are historically available at different times of day and days of a week.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the wireless message requesting the service specifies a pick-up location for results data that responds to the request.

16. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory memory of an onboard vehicle computer system of a first vehicle communicatively coupled to a macro-vehicular cloud via a non-infrastructure network, wherein the macro-vehicular cloud includes a plurality of micro-vehicular clouds, each of the micro-vehicular clouds includes (a) a coordinator and (b) one or more other vehicles, and each of the micro-vehicular clouds include a set of onboard vehicle computers that are operable to provide a set of computing resources to the macro-vehicular cloud via the non-infrastructure network, wherein the onboard vehicle computer system stores computer-executable code that, when executed by the onboard vehicle computer system, causes the onboard vehicle computer system to:
transmit, via the non-infrastructure network, a wireless message requesting a service from the macro-vehicular cloud, wherein the coordinator assigns the service to at least one of the one or more other vehicles in a selected micro-vehicular cloud, wherein the coordinator instructs the at least one of the one or more other vehicles to perform the service using computing resources from the set of computing resources based on a historical availability of the computing resources; and
receive, via the non-infrastructure network, the service from the macro-vehicular cloud.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the coordinator is one of the one or more other vehicles.

18. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the wireless message requesting the service specifies a pick-up location for results data that responds to the request.

19. The computer program product of claim 16 , the set of onboard vehicle computers are each elements of the one or more other vehicles of the plurality of micro-vehicular clouds.

20. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the coordinator of each individual micro-vehicular cloud is operable to control an operation of the set of onb

Assignees

• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Tseng Lewis
• Higuchi Takamasa
• Altintas Onur

Classifications

• 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

• H04W4/40

  for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P] · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L5/14

  Two-way operation using the same type of signal, i.e. duplex · CPC title

• H04W4/80

  Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication · CPC title