Power management for vehicle-mounted base station

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11233672-B2
Application number	US-201816155514-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 9, 2018
Priority date	Mar 30, 2015
Publication date	Jan 25, 2022
Grant date	Jan 25, 2022

Abstract

A base station for providing dynamic power management is disclosed, comprising, a processor within an enclosure mounted in a vehicle, a power management unit coupled to the processor, a controller area network (CAN) bus monitoring system coupled to the power management unit and to a CAN bus of the vehicle, a voltage measurement module also coupled to the power management unit and to a battery of the vehicle; a baseband processor coupled to the processor, a first wireless access functionality coupled to the baseband processor, and a second wireless access functionality coupled to the baseband processor, wherein the power management unit is coupled to each of the first and the second wireless access functionality to enable access radio bringup, access radio shutdown, and graceful user detach based on a power state at the power management unit.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A base station for providing dynamic power management, comprising:
a processor within an enclosure mounted in a vehicle;
a power management unit coupled to the processor;
a voltage measurement module coupled to the power management unit and to a battery of the vehicle;
a baseband processor coupled to the processor;
a first wireless access functionality coupled to the baseband processor and providing access for user devices via a gateway to another network;
a global positioning system (GPS) module and a geofencing module coupled to the GPS module and the processor, the geofencing module being coupled to the power management module, the geofencing module for determining whether a given radio access technology is activated or deactivated based on a location received from the GPS module, the GPS module being coupled to a GPS antenna mounted exterior to the vehicle; and
wherein the power management unit is coupled to the first wireless access functionality, is configured to monitor the battery, is configured to determine a power state of the vehicle, and is configured to enable the processor to coordinate access radio shutdown or graceful user detach for the first wireless access functionality based on the determined power state of the vehicle, wherein the base station provides functionality so that an emergency responder has cellular coverage, including in areas where ordinary cell service is not available, or where coverage is weak, and wherein the base station is an in-vehicle base station and operates in conjunction with other base stations in a mesh configuration.

2. The base station of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle power state comprises a voltage level of the battery of the vehicle.

3. The base station of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle power state comprises a length of time after an ignition of the vehicle is turned off.

4. The base station of claim 1 wherein the voltage measurement module is coupled to both of an always-on power circuit of the vehicle and an ignition power circuit of the vehicle simultaneously.

5. The base station of claim 4 , the power management unit further comprising instructions that, when executed on the processor, cause the power management unit to be in one of: a first state reflecting an accessory electrical mode of the vehicle, or an ignition on state reflecting an ignition on electrical mode of the vehicle.

6. The base station of claim 1 , wherein the base station utilizes direct current (DC) power.

7. The base station of claim 1 , wherein the base station alternating current (AC) power, and further comprises an inverter coupled to the battery of the vehicle, the inverter configured to return to a powered-on state after a transient fault without manual intervention.

8. The base station of claim 1 , the power management unit further comprising a detector for determining whether shore power is being provided and for instructing the power.

9. The base station of claim 1 , further comprising a controller area network (CAN) bus, and wherein a CAN bus monitoring system is coupled to the base station via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port and to the CAN bus of the vehicle via an on-board diagnostic (ODB) port of the vehicle.

10. The base station of claim 1 wherein multiple mesh nodes that are close together hand off base station responsibilities to other nodes as necessary when their battery is depleted.

11. A method for dynamic power management of an in-vehicle base station comprising:
monitoring, at an in-vehicle base station, a vehicle controller area network (CAN) bus of a vehicle for power-related messages via a connection to the CAN bus;
monitoring, at the in-vehicle base station, a battery and a power management state of the vehicle;
determining by a global positioning system (GPS) module coupled to a geofencing module, whether a given radio access technology is activated or deactivated based on a location received from the GPS module, the GPS module being coupled to a GPS antenna mounted exterior to the vehicle; and
conducting, at the in-vehicle base station, an orderly shutdown of radio frequency services for mobile devices attached to a radio access network via the in-vehicle base station based on the power-related messages or the power management state of the vehicle, wherein the in-vehicle base station provides functionality so that an emergency responder has cellular coverage, including in areas where ordinary cell service is not available, or where coverage is weak, and wherein the in-vehicle base station operates in conjunction with other base stations in a mesh configuration.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising monitoring, at the in-vehicle base station, the battery and the power management state of the vehicle via an electrical connection to the electrical circuit in the vehicle.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein monitoring the power management state of the vehicle comprises monitoring a voltage level of the battery of the vehicle.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein monitoring the power management state of the vehicle comprises monitoring a length of time after an ignition of the vehicle has been turned off.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein conducting the orderly shutdown further comprises detaching users, handing users over to another base station, or updating a routing configuration of a mesh network.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising determining by a detector, whether shore power is being provided and for instructing the power.

17. The method of claim 11 further comprising multiple mesh nodes that are close together handing off base station responsibilities to other nodes as necessary when their battery is depleted.

Assignees

• Parallel Wireless Inc

Inventors

• Rutherford Randy
• Mishra Rajesh Kumar
• Johnston David
• Cao Yang
• Paquette Louis
• Sullivan Robert
• Saji Michael Yasuhiro

Classifications

• B60L2240/70

  Interactions with external data bases, e.g. traffic centres · CPC title

• B60L1/00

  Supplying electric power to auxiliary equipment of vehicles (circuit arrangements for charging batteries H02J7/00) · CPC title

• Y02T90/16

  Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles · CPC title

• Y02T10/72

  Electric energy management in electromobility · CPC title

• Y02T10/70

  Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries · CPC title