Method for controlling information terminal and information terminal

• US 10,285,031 B2
• Filed: 07/26/2016
• Issued: 05/07/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Toya, Shoichi, Iwahori, Yutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Chen, Junpeng
• Application Number:
  US15/219,408
• Publication Number:
  US 20170064495A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,015 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 2010/4271 Battery management systems including electronic circuits, e.g. control of current or voltage to keep battery in healthy state, cell balancing
• 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: 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: Y02E 60/10 Energy storage using batteries

Abstract

A method for controlling an information terminal according to one aspect of the present disclosure includes: when a user of the information terminal uses the electric mobile body, acquiring information indicative of a state of an electric storage device mounted in an electric mobile body from the electric storage device via a first communicator that is a communicator of the information terminal and that performs near field communication with the electric storage device; and transmitting the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device to a server device via a second communicator that is a communicator of the information terminal and that communicates with the server device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

starting, using a first communicator included in an information terminal, a near field communication with a second communicator included in an electric storage device, the electric storage device being mounted on an electric vehicle;

when the first communicator and the second communicator are within the near field communication range in order to use the electric vehicle, determining, using sensors of the electric vehicle, a state of electric vehicle movement;

based on the determined state of the electric vehicle movement, acquiring, from the electric storage device by the information terminal via the near field communication between the first communicator and the second communicator, information indicative of a state of the electric storage device;

when the first communicator and the second communicator are within the near field communication range without order to start using the electric vehicle without the electric vehicle being activated, the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is not collected;

when the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is acquired, transmitting, from the information terminal to a server device via a third communicator included in the information terminal, the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device,

determining if the electric current load of the electric storage device is higher than a predetermined value;

in response to the determining that the electric current load of the electric storage device is higher than the predetermined value

transmitting the state information of the electric storage device from the second communicator included in the electric storage device to the first communicator of the information terminal, and

acquiring of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein

in the acquiring, the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is acquired at a time of start of use of the electric vehicle.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein

in the acquiring, the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is acquired at a time of end of use of the electric vehicle.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

displaying, on a display screen of the information terminal, a notification indicating that the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is being acquired.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein

in the acquiring, the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is regularly acquired during use of the electric vehicle;

and

among the information regularly acquired, information acquired at a point in time nearest to end of use of the electric vehicle is transmitted to the server device via the third communicator after the end of use of the electric vehicle.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

activating the near field communication between the information terminal and the electric storage device when the electric vehicle is detected as being in use.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:

deactivating the near field communication between the information terminal and the electric storage device, even when the information terminal is within a near field communication range of the electric storage device, after the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device is acquired.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

displaying, on a display screen of the information terminal, a message that requests activation of the near field communication with the electric storage device when the electric vehicle is in use; and

activating, using the information terminal, the near field communication between the information terminal and the electric storage device.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a program for causing the information terminal to execute the method according to claim 1.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the electric storage device includes a rechargeable battery.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the information terminal is a mobile terminal that is separate from the electric vehicle.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

activating the near field communication between the information terminal and the electric storage device when the information terminal detects that the mobile terminal is within a near field communication range of the electric storage device.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

activating the near field communication between the information terminal and the electric storage device when the information terminal detects a movement of the electric vehicle.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting is performed at an end of use of the vehicle.

15. The method according to claim 1, wherein the state of electric vehicle movement includes a particular type of movement of the electric vehicle based on a movement of the electric vehicle.

16. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

determining if acquisition of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal is completed; and

deactivating near field communication between the first and second communicators in response to determining that acquisition of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal is completed.

17. The information terminal according to claim 1, wherein the controller further:

determines if acquisition of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal is completed; and

deactivates near field communication between the first and second communicators in response to determining that acquisition of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal is completed.

18. An information terminal comprising:

a first communicator that starts to perform near field communication with a communicator included in an electric storage device;

a second communicator that communicates with a server device; and

a controller that, when the first communicator and the second communicator are within the near field communication range in order to use the electric vehicle,

determines, using information provided by sensors of the electric vehicle, a state of electric vehicle movement;

based on the determined state of the electric vehicle movement, acquires, from the electric storage device via the near field communication between the first communicator and the communicator included in the electric storage device, information indicative of a state of the electric storage device,

controls the second communicator to transmit the information indicative of the state of the electric storage device to the server device,

when the first communicator and the second communicator are within the near field communication range without order to start using the electric vehicle without the electric vehicle being activated, does not acquire, from the electric storage device via the near field communication between the first communicator and the communicator included in the electric storage device, information indicative of a state of the electric storage device,

determines if the electric current load of the electric storage device is higher than a predetermined value; and

in response to the determining that the electric current load of the electric storage device is higher than the predetermined value

transmits the state information of the electric storage device from the second communicator included in the electric storage device to the first communicator of the information terminal, and

acquires of the state information of the electric storage device by the information terminal.