Cloud-based in-car HVAC system

• US 10,011,156 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2015
• Issued: 07/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Lee, Seungeun, Kocheisen, Michael, Chou, Calvin C., Jiang, Danny P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shafi, Muhammad
• Application Number:
  US14/820,041
• Publication Number:
  US 20170036511A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,062 Days
• Field of Search: 701 36
• CPC Class Codes: B60H 1/00771 the input being a vehicle position or surrounding, e.g. GPS-based position or tunnel
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/08 related to drivers or passengers
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3407 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096725 where the received information generates an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096741 where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 where the origin of the information is a central station

Abstract

A method for controlling a vehicle cabin climate is provided. The method includes the steps of receiving and aggregating data relating to one or more inputs, wherein at least some of the data is acquired at the vehicle and some of the data is acquired from sources located remotely from the vehicle. The method further includes using a climate control module to determine an optimal cabin climate based on the aggregated data, and controlling one or more climate features according to the optimal cabin climate.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a vehicle cabin climate, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving aggregated data from a cloud service architecture, wherein the aggregated data relates to a plurality of inputs, wherein at least some of the data is acquired from input sources at the vehicle and some of the data is acquired from input sources located remotely from the vehicle;

using an algorithm stored in a climate control module, determining an optimal cabin climate based on the aggregated data, wherein the algorithm is periodically updated with a trained version of the algorithm from the cloud service architecture that is statistically optimized using data acquired from all of the input sources; and

controlling one or more climate features according to the optimal cabin climate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of inputs include input from at least one of the following sources:

car-borne sensors, user input, input from a personal profile, and input from third party components.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the input from car-borne sensors includes input from at least one of:

temperature sensors, light sensors, rain sensors, humidity sensors, and global positioning systems.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the user input includes user adjustments to a vehicle heating, cooling, and air conditioning system.

5. The method of claim 4, further including the step of comparing the user input to current vehicle climate settings.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the input from third party components includes input from applications such as calendar events, location based services, and sleepiness warning systems, wherein the applications reside on any computing device such as mobile devices, computers, tablets, smart watches, smartphones, and computing devices residing in other vehicles.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the input from third party components includes information from wearable body sensors and a home-based heating, cooling, and air conditioning system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the input from third party components is received and processed by a plurality of cloud services.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the algorithm is further optimized using a big data approach.

9. The method of 1, wherein the climate features include at least one of:

a temperature in the vehicle cabin, a humidity level in the vehicle cabin, vehicle seat heating and cooling, steering wheel heating and cooling, and adjustment of sun visors.

10. The method of 1, further including controlling climate features relating to a residential heating, cooling, and air conditioning system according to the optimal cabin climate.

11. The method of 1, further including adjusting the vehicle climate features based on destination and fuel levels.

12. The method of 1, wherein the step of determining the optimal cabin climate is based on a trigger event.

14. The method 13, wherein cloud services are employed to train and optimize the algorithm.

15. A system for controlling a vehicle cabin climate, the system comprising:

at least one vehicle system module configured to;

receive aggregated data from a cloud service architecture, wherein the aggregated data relates to a plurality of inputs, wherein at least some of the data is acquired from input sources at the vehicle and some of the data is acquired from input sources located remotely from the vehicle;

using an algorithm stored in a climate control module, determine an optimal cabin climate based on the aggregated data, wherein the algorithm is periodically updated with a trained version of the algorithm from the cloud service architecture that is statistically optimized using data acquired from all of the input sources; and

control one or more climate features according to the optimal cabin climate.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more inputs include input from at least one of:

car-borne sensors, user input, input from a personal profile, and input from third party components.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one vehicle system module is a telematics unit in communication with cloud services that provide input to the telematics unit.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one vehicle system module is in communication with a plurality of cloud services configured to receive and process the input from third party components.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one vehicle system module is further configured to validate and normalize the data relating to the one or more inputs.