Vehicle defined source transmitter

• US 10,257,278 B2
• Filed: 01/27/2016
• Issued: 04/09/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Goldstein, David B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shin, Kyung H
• Application Number:
  US15/008,207
• Publication Number:
  US 20170214743A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: 709202, 709217
• CPC Class Codes: G01W 2001/006 Main server receiving weather information from several sub-stations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6209 to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2113 Multi-level security, e.g. mandatory access control
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0816 Indicating performance data, e.g. occurrence of a malfunction
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0112 from the vehicle, e.g. floating car data [FCD]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/093 Data selection, e.g. prioritizing information, managing message queues, selecting the information to be output
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/207 with respect to certain areas, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas with possible alerting when inside or outside boundaries
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 3/00 Traffic control systems for marine craft marking of navigational route B63B22/16, B63B51/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0008 with other aircraft
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0013 with a ground station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0026 located on the ground
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0082 for monitoring traffic from a ground station radar or analogous systems specially adapted for traffic control G01S13/91
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 5/0091 for monitoring atmospheric conditions radar or analogous systems specially adapted for meteorological use G01S13/95; meteorology G01W
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 9/00 Traffic control systems for craft where the kind of craft is irrelevant or unspecified
• 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 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 : for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 : for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]

Abstract

Systems and methods of crowd sourcing data are provided. In one embodiment, a method of crowd sourcing data comprises: receiving data region boundary information from an aggregation system, the data region boundary information defines boundaries of data regions; determining membership in a data group for a vehicle based on position of the vehicle within a region; determining whether another member of the data group has been selected as data source; determining whether the vehicle can provide information to the data aggregation system; broadcasting a self-nomination message for the information to members of the data group, wherein the self-nomination message self-selects the vehicle as data source for the information; wherein the self-nomination message identifies the type of information; and transmitting the information from the data source to the data aggregation system via a communication link, wherein only the data source transmits the information to the data aggregation system for the data group.

Claims

1. A method for providing crowd sourced data for a data group, the method comprising:

receiving data region boundary information from a data aggregation system, wherein the data region boundary information defines boundaries of a plurality of data regions;

determining membership in a data group for a vehicle based on a position of the vehicle within a data region of the plurality of data regions;

determining whether a second vehicle of the data group has been selected as a data source;

in response to determining that the second vehicle has not been selected as the data source, determining whether the vehicle is capable of providing at least one type of information to the data aggregation system;

in response to determining that the vehicle is capable of providing the at least one type of information to the data aggregation system, broadcasting a self-nomination message for the at least one type of information to members of the data group, wherein the self-nomination message indicates the vehicle as a data source for the at least one type of information by self-selecting the vehicle as the data source, wherein the self-nomination message includes an indication of the at least one type of information and an expiration time of the self-nomination message, wherein the expiration time is calculated based on a navigation path of the vehicle and a geographical boundary of the data region included among the boundaries of the plurality of data regions; and

transmitting the at least one type of information from the data source to the data aggregation system via a data communication link, wherein only the data source transmits the at least one type of information to the data aggregation system for the data group.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the second vehicle of the data group has been selected as the data source comprises determining whether a self-nomination message for the second vehicle of the data group has been received by the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the vehicle is capable of providing the information to the data aggregation system comprises determining whether one or more sensors onboard the vehicle are operational.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the vehicle is unable to continue operation as the data source; and

broadcasting a notification to the members of the data group, wherein the notification rescinds the self-nomination of the vehicle as the data source.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one type of information includes information regarding at least one of:

weather, traffic, navigation conditions, natural disasters, political developments, and terrorist threats.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each data region of the plurality of data regions includes no more than one data group, wherein the at least one type of information for the data region is only transmitted by the data source to the data aggregation system for the data region.

7. A vehicle for providing crowd sourced information, comprising:

at least one transceiver configured to communicate with a data aggregation system via one or more data communication links;

one or more onboard sensors;

at least one processor coupled to a memory, wherein the at least one processor is configured to;

receive data region boundary information from the data aggregation system, wherein the data region boundary information defines boundaries of a plurality of data regions;

retrieve position information from at least one of the one or more onboard sensors;

determine a membership in a data group for the vehicle based on the position information and a data region of the plurality of data regions;

determine whether a second vehicle of the data group has nominated itself as a representative vehicle for the data group;

in response to determining that the second vehicle has not nominated itself as the representative vehicle for the data group, determine whether the vehicle is capable of providing at least one type of information;

in response to determining that the vehicle is capable of providing the at least one type of information, broadcast a self-nomination message to other member vehicles of the data group via the transceiver, wherein the self-nomination message indicates self-selection of the vehicle as the representative vehicle for the data group for the at least one type of information, wherein the self-nomination message includes an indication of the at least one type of information and an expiration time of the self-nomination message, wherein the expiration time is calculated based on a navigation path of the vehicle and a geographical boundary of the data region included among the boundaries of the plurality of data regions; and

transmit the at least one type of information for the data group from the representative vehicle to the data aggregation system via a data communication link.

8. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein the vehicle comprises one of:

an aircraft;

a ground-based vehicle;

a marine vehicle; and

a spacecraft.

9. The vehicle of claim 8, wherein the data aggregation system is a ground-based system that includes one or more ground stations.

10. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein the one or more onboard sensors include at least one of:

a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensor; and

an Inertial Navigation System (INS).

11. The vehicle of claim 10, wherein the one or more onboard sensors further include at least one of:

a weather radar, a moisture sensor, a turbulence sensor, a thermometer, and a wind sensor.

12. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine the membership in a data group for the vehicle based on travel direction and inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle and its neighbors.

13. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein each data region of the plurality of data regions includes no more than one data group.

14. The vehicle of claim 7, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

determine when the vehicle is unable to continue operation as the representative vehicle; and

when the vehicle is unable to continue operation as the representative vehicle, broadcast a message to the other member vehicles of the data group, wherein the message rescinds the self-nomination of the vehicle as the representative vehicle.

15. The vehicle of claim 7, further comprising at least one user interface, wherein the at least one user interface enables a driver, a pilot, or a crew to enter observations regarding the at least one type of information.

16. A data aggregation system, comprising:

at least one transceiver configured to communicate with a plurality of vehicles via one or more data communication links;

a data processing system coupled to the at least one transceiver, the data processing system comprising a processor coupled to a memory that stores data provided by the vehicles;

wherein the data processing system further comprises a data region boundary identification function configured to;

divide one or more geographic regions into one or more data regions based on at least one of predicted weather activity and current weather activity; and

transmit data region boundary information to the plurality of vehicles, wherein the data region boundary information defines boundaries of the one or more data regions;

wherein the data aggregation system is further configured to receive, via the at least one transceiver, information regarding the one or more data regions, wherein the information is provided by one or more representative vehicles for each of the one or more data regions, wherein the one or more representative vehicles are self-nominated,

wherein the data aggregation system is further configured to receive, via the at least one transceiver, additional information regarding a data region of the one or more data regions from a second vehicle in the data region that has a different experience that is not reported by a representative vehicle of the data region.

17. The data aggregation system of claim 16, wherein the data region boundary identification function is further configured to divide the one or more geographic regions into the one or more data regions based on at least one of:

predicted traffic density; and

current traffic density.