Virtual network interface connectivity

• US 10,141,967 B1
• Filed: 07/28/2017
• Issued: 11/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Mitra, Pramita, Buttolo, Pietro, Tonshal, Basavaraj, Wang, Qianyi, Strumolo, Gary Steven, Zechel, Kelly Lee, Nash, Brian, Wingrove, Theodore
• Primary Examiner(s): Trinh, Sonny
• Application Number:
  US15/662,563
• Time in Patent Office: 487 Days
• Field of Search: 4554141, 4554142, 455440, 4554521, 4554561, 4554321, 4554121, 4554122, 4555692
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3822 specially adapted for use in vehicles H04B1/3827 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/133 Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/48 for in-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/04 adapted for relaying to or from another terminal or user

Abstract

A mobile device receives a message from a vehicle computing platform via remote process communication (RPC), updates an origin address of the message to indicate the mobile device, sends the message to a destination address of the message, receives a response message from the destination, updates a destination address of the response message to indicate the computing platform, and sends the response message to the computing platform via the RPC. A computing platform constructs a remote procedure call (RPC) message by a virtual network interface application for a request received from a vehicle application for a network protocol unsupported by a mobile device, and sends the RPC to the mobile device to cause the mobile device to update an origin address of the request to indicate the mobile device and send the request to a destination address of the request.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a mobile device programmed to

receive a message from a vehicle computing platform via remote process communication (RPC),

update an origin address of the message to indicate the mobile device,

send the message to a destination address of the message,

receive a response message from the destination,

update a destination address of the response message to indicate the computing platform, and

send the response message to the computing platform via the RPC.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is sent from a vehicle application executed by the computing platform and communicating via MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is sent from a vehicle application executed by the computing platform and communicating via file transfer protocol (FTP).

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is sent from a vehicle application executed by the computing platform and communicating via hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP).

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the origin address and the destination address are Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the RPC is performed according to Smart Device Link (SDL) protocol.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device includes a proxy programmed to update the origin address of the message and to update the destination address of the response message.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device includes a data manager programmed to:

translate the message from a format of the RPC to a format for transmission over a communication network to the destination address, and

translate the response message from the format for transmission over the communication network to the format of the RPC.

9. A system comprising:

a computing platform programmed to

construct a remote procedure call (RPC) message by a virtual network interface application for a request received from a vehicle application for a network protocol unsupported by a mobile device, and

send the RPC to the mobile device to cause the mobile device to update an origin address of the request to indicate the mobile device and send the request to a destination address of the request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the computing platform is further programmed to:

query the mobile device for network protocols that are natively supported by the mobile device, and

identify that the network protocol is unsupported by the mobile device according to the query.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the computing platform is further programmed to:

receive a second request from a second vehicle application for a second network protocol that is supported by the mobile device, and

send the second request to the mobile device for processing by an application of the mobile device corresponding to the second network protocol.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the computing platform is further programmed to:

receive a response to the request from the mobile device, and

send the response to the vehicle application.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the origin address and the destination address are Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the RPC is performed according to Smart Device Link (SDL) protocol.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the computing platform is further programmed to receive a network status from the mobile device indicating details of a network connection provided by a physical network interface of the mobile device to a communications network over which the destination address is reached.

16. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing platform from a mobile device, indications of network protocols that are natively supported by the mobile device;

receiving a request from a vehicle application utilizing a network protocol;

sending the request to the mobile device for handling by a native application of the mobile device responsive to the network protocol being natively supported; and

otherwise sending the request to the mobile application using a proxying approach.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the proxying approach comprises:

constructing a remote procedure call (RPC) message by a virtual network interface application, and

sending the RPC to the mobile device to cause the mobile device to update an origin address of the request to indicate the mobile device and send the request to a destination address of the request.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising performing the RPC according to Smart Device Link (SDL) protocol.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving a response to the request from the mobile device, and

sending the response to the vehicle application.