Vehicular zone locating system

• US 10,504,373 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2017
• Issued: 12/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bosch Automotive Service Solutions, Inc. (Robert Bosch GmbH), Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Bosch Automotive Service Solutions, Inc. (Robert Bosch GmbH)
• Inventors: Thoppae, Vijai, Nair, Sujith, Hargis, Jeremy Lynn, Kommera, Sharath
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Tan Q
• Application Number:
  US15/834,758
• Publication Number:
  US 20180190127A1
• Time in Patent Office: 733 Days
• Field of Search: 701 296
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0435 Vehicle body mounted circuits, e.g. transceiver or antenna fixed to central console, door, roof, mirror or fender
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0461 externally triggered, e.g. by wireless request signal, magnet or manual switch
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0479 Communicating with external units being not part of the vehicle, e.g. tools for diagnostic, mobile phones, electronic keys or service stations
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental
• 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: H04L 67/00 Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00
• 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: H04M 1/72406 by software upgrading or downloading
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A system for locating a vehicle utilizing a zone posts in known locations that when the vehicle comes within a proximity of the zone post receives an identification signal from the vehicle and sends that identification signal on to a central command center. The identification signal may be provided by a dongle or a tire pressure monitoring system tire pressure sensor. The central command center may be queried with vehicle identifying information, and the location of the zone post that last sent the identification signal is provided as an indication of the location of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A system for locating a vehicle, comprising:

zone posts, each zone post configured to be spaced apart from adjacent zone posts in known locations and each zone post configured to, upon a vehicle passing into a proximity of the zone post, emit a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) tire pressure sensor excitation signal to activate a TPMS sensor of the vehicle, and further configured to receive an identification signal emitted from the activated TPMS sensor in response to the excitation signal, and broadcast a vehicle identification signal based on the received TPMS sensor identification signal; and

a central command center configured to communicate with the zone posts, the central command center further configured to receive the vehicle identification signal from at least one of the zone posts and provide the known location of the zone post as an indication of the location of the vehicle.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the central command center is configured to provide the indication of the location of the vehicle as the known location of the zone post that last in-time broadcasted the identification signal.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the excitation signal emitted from the zone post is substantially 125 Kilohertz.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the identification signal emitted from an activated TPMS sensor is substantially 315 or 433 Megahertz.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle identification signal emitted from the zone post is substantially 2.4 or 5 Gigahertz.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle identification signal is the TPMS sensor identification number.

7. A system for locating a vehicle, comprising:

a dongle configured to be plugged in to an OBDII port of a vehicle and emit a vehicle identification signal;

zone posts configured to be spaced apart from adjacent zone posts in known locations and configured to communicate with a central command center, each zone post configured to receive the vehicle identification signal emitted from the dongle when it comes in proximity to the zone post, and further configured to send the vehicle identification signal to the central command center; and

the central command center configured to receive the vehicle identification signal from at least one of the zone posts and provide a location of the zone post as an indication of the location of the vehicle.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the central command center is configured to communicate with a hand held electronic device, the hand held electronic device configured to aid a user of the a hand held electronic device in locating a vehicle based on the location of the zone post that provided the last in time identification signal.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the dongle connects with the vehicle to access vehicle identification information.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the vehicle identification information includes the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the vehicle.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the VIN contains make and model information of a vehicle, and the central command center is configured to, upon receipt of at least one make and model query from a user, display zone posts with vehicles having differing VIN numbers but fitting the at least one make and model query.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the dongle is further configured to access trouble code information of the vehicle and relay the trouble code information on to the central command center.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the central command center is configured to, upon receipt of at least one trouble code query from a user, display zone posts with vehicles having the at least one trouble code query.

14. A system for locating a vehicle, comprising:

a zone post configured to generate an excitation signal in response to detection of a vehicle entering a proximity oval around the zone post and to receive an identification signal from the vehicle in response to the excitation signal and, upon receipt of identification signal, send a notification signal indicating receipt of the identification signal, the notification signal including within data to identify the vehicle.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a dongle configured to be plugged in to an OBDII port of the vehicle, wherein the dongle sends the identification signal.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the identification signal is sent by a tire pressure monitoring sensor of the vehicle.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a downloadable application for hand held electronic device provided to a user, the downloadable application configured to, upon receipt of a data to identify a vehicle query, provide the location of the zone post that sent the notification signal with the data to identify the vehicle.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the zone post is a number of zone posts spaced apart from adjacent zone posts in known locations.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a central command center configured to receive the notification signals from the number of zone posts, and the central command center further configured to, upon receiving the notification signal, chronologically log data related to the known location of the zone post and the data to identify the vehicle.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the proximity oval has a radial distance of 3 feet or less around the zone post.