Support apparatus, support method, program, and support system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11200759-B2
Application number	US-201816233008-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 26, 2018
Priority date	Dec 28, 2017
Publication date	Dec 14, 2021
Grant date	Dec 14, 2021

Abstract

Convenience regarding movement of a vehicle requiring servicing/maintenance is increased. A support apparatus includes acquirer configured to acquire necessity information about necessity/non-necessity of provision of a service related to a vehicle from a terminal of a user of the vehicle, and information manager configured to issue, when the necessity information indicates that the provision of the service is necessary, authentication information for temporarily using the vehicle to an agency providing the service.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A support apparatus comprising a computer including a processor for executing programs stored in memory, the computer configured to execute:
acquiring necessity information about necessity/non-necessity of provision of a service related to a vehicle from a terminal of a user of the vehicle; and
issuing, when the necessity information indicates that the provision of the service is necessary, authentication information for temporarily validating key information for using the vehicle to an agency providing the service to a terminal owned by an agent providing the service, wherein the authentication information for obtaining authentication by an authentication unit, which is provided in the vehicle, wherein
the authentication unit transmits the key information to an ECU which is provided in the vehicle after issuing the authentication information received from the terminal owned by the agent, and the ECU executes at least one of locking or unlocking the vehicle, and starting a power source of the vehicle when the ECU receives the key information.

2. The support apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the vehicle has a keyless entry system,
the authentication information is information for validating smart key information input to the keyless entry system of the vehicle when the vehicle is used.

3. The support apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the service is repair of the vehicle, and
the computer issues the authentication information to a repair agency who performs the repair of the vehicle when the necessity information indicates that repair of the vehicle is necessary.

4. The support apparatus according to claim 3 , further comprising unit configured to detect a repair point of the vehicle, wherein
when the necessity information indicates that repair is necessary for the repair point, the computer notifies a repair agency who performs repair of the repair point of information indicating a state of the vehicle.

5. The support apparatus according to claim 3 , the computer configured to issue an estimation request to one or more repair agencies, wherein
the computer issues the authentication information to a repair agency selected from the one or more repair agencies.

6. The support apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the authentication information includes valid period information in accordance with a mode of the service.

7. The support apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein in a case where a notification that the vehicle is locked based on the authentication information that is issued is received, the computer causes the authentication information to expire.

8. The support apparatus according to claim 1 , the computer further configured to: generate a pair of authentication information; and
configured to issue one piece of the authentication information to the terminal as the key information and issue another piece of the authentication information to the authentication unit.

9. A support method performed by a computer including a processor for executing programs stored in memory, the method comprising:
a step of acquiring necessity information about necessity/non-necessity of provision of a service related to a vehicle from a terminal of a user of the vehicle; and
a step of issuing, when the necessity information indicates that the provision of the service is necessary, authentication information for temporarily validating key information for using the vehicle to an agency providing the service to a terminal owned by an agent providing the service, wherein the authentication information for obtaining authentication by an authentication unit which is provided in the vehicle,
wherein the authentication unit transmits the key information to an ECU which is provided in the vehicle after issuing the authentication information received from the terminal owned by the agent, and the ECU executes at least one of locking or unlocking the vehicle, and starting a power source of the vehicle when the ECU receives the key information.

10. A program for causing a computer including a processor for executing programs stored in memory to perform:
a step of acquiring necessity information about necessity/non-necessity of provision of a service related to a vehicle from a terminal of a user of the vehicle; and
a step of issuing, when the necessity information indicates that the provision of the service is necessary, authentication information for temporarily validating key information for using the vehicle to an agency providing the service to a terminal owned by an agent providing the service, wherein the authentication information for obtaining authentication by an authentication unit, which is provided in the vehicle, and
the authentication unit transmits the key information to an ECU which is provided in the vehicle after issuing the authentication information received from the terminal owned by the agent, and the ECU executes at least one of locking or unlocking the vehicle, and starting a power source of the vehicle when the ECU receives the key information.

11. A support system comprising:
a vehicle; and
a computer including a processor for executing programs stored in memory configured to issue authentication information for the vehicle, wherein
the vehicle comprises:
an ECU configured to execute at least one of locking or unlocking the vehicle and starting a power source of the vehicle when the ECU receives key information; and
an authentication unit configured to transmit, after authentication by authentication information for temporarily validating key information for using the vehicle, the key information to the ECU, and wherein
the computer further configured to execute:
acquiring necessity information about necessity/non-necessity of provision of a service related to a vehicle from a terminal of a user of the vehicle; and
issuing, when the necessity information indicates that the provision of the service is necessary, the authentication information to an agency providing the service to a terminal owned by an agent providing the service, wherein
the authentication unit transmits the key information to the ECU after issuing the authentication information received from the terminal owned by the agent.

Assignees

• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Sakurada Shin
• Ando Koichi
• Matsuura Mutsumi
• Endo Masato
• Fujita Koki

Classifications

• G07C5/008 Primary

  communicating information to a remotely located station (transmission systems for measured values G08C) · CPC title

• H04L67/51

  Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services · CPC title

• H04L67/52

  specially adapted for the location of the user terminal · CPC title

• G07C2205/00

  Indexing scheme relating to group G07C5/00 · CPC title

• H04L67/12

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