Recreational vehicle group management system

• US 10,595,160 B2
• Filed: 07/24/2018
• Issued: 03/17/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Polaris Industries Incorporated (Polaris Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Polaris Industries Incorporated (Polaris Inc.)
• Inventors: Rentz, Gray I., Koosmann, Adam C., Good, Nathan A., Larson, Jacob H., Deitz, Rebecca C., Koenig, David J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gelin, Jean A
• Application Number:
  US16/043,514
• Publication Number:
  US 20190110161A1
• Time in Patent Office: 602 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/047 Optimisation of routes or paths, e.g. travelling salesman problem
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided to permit groups of recreational vehicle riders and others the ability to quickly create and join groups without prior knowledge of the contact information of everyone in the group. In one embodiment, groups are joinable based on the proximity information of the prospective member and the current group members.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating usage of recreational vehicles, each of the recreational vehicles including ground engaging members to traverse a terrain, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a controller associated with a first recreational vehicle at a first location, an indication of a second location of a second recreational vehicle, the first recreational vehicle and the second recreational vehicle being in a first group;

setting a dynamic group boundary of the first group based on a plurality of locations of a plurality of recreational vehicles in the first group, the plurality of recreational vehicles including the first recreational vehicle and the second recreational vehicle; and

displaying on a display of the first recreational vehicle a first icon associated with the first location of the first recreational vehicle and a second icon associated with the second location of the second recreational vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving by the controller associated with the first recreational vehicle an indication of a third location of a third recreational vehicle; and

determining by the controller whether to include the third recreational vehicle in the first group based on the dynamic group boundary and the third location.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining by the controller whether to include the third recreational vehicle in the first group based on the dynamic group boundary and the third location includes the step of comparing the third location to the dynamic group boundary and excluding the third recreational vehicle from the first group if the third location is outside of an area bounded by the dynamic group boundary.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the dynamic group boundary defines a plurality of bounded areas.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein a first one of the plurality of bounded areas surrounds the first recreational vehicle and a second one of the plurality of bounded areas surrounds the second recreational vehicle.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the dynamic group boundary defines a bounded area which surrounds the plurality of recreational vehicles.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining by the controller whether to include the third recreational vehicle in the first group based on the dynamic group boundary and the third location includes the step of comparing the third location to the dynamic group boundary and including the third recreational vehicle in the first group if the third location is within an area bounded by the dynamic group boundary.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

displaying on a display of the first recreational vehicle the first icon associated with the first location of the first recreational vehicle, the second icon associated with the second location of the second recreational vehicle and a third icon associated with the third location of the third recreational vehicle; and

updating the first icon, the second icon, and the third icon based on the respective movement of the first recreational vehicle, the second recreational vehicle, and the third recreational vehicle.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle a fuel characteristic of the second recreational vehicle.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the fuel characteristic is one of fuel range of the second recreational vehicle and fuel level of the second recreational vehicle.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle when the second recreational vehicle is stopped an indication that the second recreational vehicle is stopped.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the indication that the second recreational vehicle is stopped includes an indication of a time duration of the stop.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the controller is supported by a frame of the first recreational vehicle and the step of receiving, by the controller associated with the first recreational vehicle at the first location, the indication of the second location of the second recreational vehicle includes the step of receiving the indication of the second location of the second recreational vehicle through a connection to a wireless network.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the wireless network is a satellite network.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the wireless network is a cellular network.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of issuing, by the controller associated with a first recreational vehicle, a request for assistance.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving, by the controller associated with a first recreational vehicle, a request for assistance from the second recreational vehicle; and

displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle an indication of the received request for assistance.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving by the controller associated with the first recreational vehicle a request for assistance from a third recreational vehicle, the first recreational vehicle being within a defined geographical boundary of the third recreational vehicle; and

displaying on the display associated with the first recreational vehicle an SOS icon corresponding to a location of the third recreational vehicle.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic group boundary includes a dynamic size based on the locations of the recreational vehicles in the first group.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic group boundary includes a dynamic shape based on the locations of the recreational vehicles of the first group.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

adjusting the dynamic group boundary to continuously encompass each of the recreational vehicles associated with the first group.

19. A method of facilitating usage of recreational vehicles, each of the recreational vehicles including ground engaging members to traverse a terrain, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a controller associated with a first recreational vehicle at a first location, an indication of a second location of a second recreational vehicle;

displaying on a display of the first recreational vehicle a first icon associated with the first location of the first recreational vehicle and a second icon associated with the second location of the second recreational vehicle; and

displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle a fuel characteristic of the second recreational vehicle, the fuel characteristic including one of a fuel range of the second recreational vehicle and a fuel level of the second recreational vehicle.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising the steps of:

issuing, by a controller associated with the first recreational vehicle, a request for assistance wherein the request for assistance is automatically sent based on a sensor value associated with the first recreational vehicle;

receiving, by a controller associated with the second recreational vehicle, the request for assistance and the location of the first recreational vehicle; and

displaying on a display associated with the second recreational vehicle an indication of the request for assistance.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising the step of displaying an SOS icon on the display of the second recreational vehicle corresponding to the location of the first recreational vehicle.

20. A method of facilitating usage of recreational vehicles, each of the recreational vehicles including ground engaging members to traverse a terrain, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a first group of recreational vehicles, the first group of recreational vehicles including a plurality of recreational vehicles;

receiving, by a controller associated with a first recreational vehicle of the plurality of recreational location information for the remainder of the first plurality of recreational vehicles;

displaying on a display of the first recreational vehicle a plurality of location icons, each location icon associated with a respective location of a recreational vehicle of the plurality of recreational vehicles; and

displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle a fuel characteristic of the group of recreational vehicles, the fuel characteristic including a minimum fuel range across the plurality of recreational vehicles.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising the step of displaying on the display of the first recreational vehicle additional information relating to one of the plurality of recreational vehicles in the first group and a respective user associated with the one of the plurality of recreational vehicles when a selectable region of the display of the first recreational vehicle is selected by a user of the first recreational vehicle.