Method and system for facilitating the exchange of information between a vehicle and a remote location

• US 20050132024A1
• Filed: 12/15/2003
• Published: 06/16/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Habaguchi, Masayuki, Tamura, Kazuya, Yuhara, Hiromitsu, Ohno, Tsuneo, Clough, Jamie, Gusiff, John, Okino, Jon, Appa, Daya, Shannon, Rich
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,779 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• 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 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a system and method that includes a vehicle that exchanges information with the remote location by way of a communication network. A remote server transmits vehicle-related information to the vehicle by way of a communication system. Information may also be broadcast to and received by the vehicle by way of a broadcast communication system. A receiver of the vehicle provides user access to only a subset of the broadcast information based on user preferences of a user profile. The user may update the user profile by accessing and updating it at either the vehicle or by accessing a database. The user may access the database through a network, such as the Internet. The vehicle also selectively transmits vehicle-related information to the remote location when a predetermined event occurs. The vehicle-related information is compiled and analyzed at the remote location, and the analyzed information is transmitted back to the vehicle.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting vehicle-related information from a remote server to a vehicle, the vehicle having a receiving device and a memory, the method comprising:

transmitting vehicle-related information from the remote server to the vehicle at a predetermined time based on a schedule; and

,

receiving the vehicle-related information at the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the received vehicle-related information to the memory of the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising modifying existing information stored in the vehicle memory based on the received vehicle-related information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the received vehicle-related information comprises at least one of the following:

vehicle maintenance schedules, oil change reminders, service campaigns, lease inspections, lease expirations, suggestions on how to more effectively use vehicle features, service recalls, lease extension offers, user surveys, and car diagnosis surveys.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the schedule is based in part on a vehicle information transmittal schedule, wherein the vehicle information transmittal schedule is stored in a remote memory in communication with the remote server.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising responding to the vehicle-related information, wherein the vehicle-related information includes a prompt requesting a response.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the responding step further comprises updating a user profile in response to the received vehicle-related information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the responding step further comprises updating a database that includes the user profile.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the responding step further comprises accessing the database and the user profile through a network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising transmitting the updated user profile from the remote server to the vehicle and receiving the updated user profile at the vehicle, wherein a database that includes the updated user profile is in communication with the remote server.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising storing the received updated user profile to the memory of the vehicle.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the responding step further comprises updating the memory of the vehicle, the memory of the vehicle including at least a portion of the user profile.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising transmitting the updated user profile to the remote server and updating a database that includes the user profile, the remote sever being in communication with the database.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein the responding step further comprises scheduling a service appointment with a service provider in response to a service reminder, the vehicle-related information further comprising the service reminder.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the responding step further comprises transmitting to the remote server desired service appointment information.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the remote server schedules the service appointment with the service provider based on the transmitted desired service appointment information.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting the vehicle-related information from the remote server to the vehicle by way of a communication system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the communication system further comprises a one-to-many communication system.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the communication system further comprises a satellite communication system including an antenna positioned on Earth and a satellite in orbit above the Earth.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting predetermined vehicle-related information that is based on a user profile, wherein a database that includes the user profile is in communication with the remote server.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively providing user access to only a subset of the transmitted vehicle-related information based on a user profile that is stored within the memory of the vehicle, the memory being in communication with the receiving device.

23. A method for providing vehicle-related information from a vehicle including a transmitter and a memory to a remote location, the method comprising:

selectively transmitting, based in part on options of a user profile, vehicle-related information to the remote location when a predetermined event occurs, wherein at least a portion of the user profile identifies a plurality of predetermined events and the options, the at least the portion of the user profile being stored in the memory of the vehicle; and

,

receiving the vehicle-related information at the remote location.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises automatically transmitting the vehicle-related information to the remote location when an automatic transmission of vehicle-related information option of the user profile is selected.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises not transmitting the vehicle-related information to the remote location when a no transmission of vehicle-related information option of the user profile is selected.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises selectively providing, based in part on the user profile, a prompt to a user of the vehicle when the predetermined event occurs, wherein the prompt comprises a request for permission to transmit the vehicle-related information.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises providing the prompt when a providing prompt option of the user profile is selected.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising responding to the prompt.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises transmitting the vehicle-related information to the remote location when the prompt is responded to affirmatively.

30. The method of claim 23, further comprising analyzing the received vehicle-related information at the remote location to provide analyzed vehicle-related information.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises selectively transmitting vehicle-related information from a plurality of vehicles to the remote location, the receiving step further comprises receiving the vehicle-related information from the plurality of vehicles at the remote location, and the analyzing step further comprises analyzing the received vehicle-related information from the plurality of vehicles to determine vehicle malfunction trends.

32. The method of claim 30, further comprising storing the analyzed vehicle-related information in a database.

33. The method of claim 30, further comprising transmitting the analyzed vehicle-related information from the remote location to the vehicle.

34. The method of claim 23, wherein the vehicle-related information is based in part on the user profile.

35. The method of claim 23, wherein the vehicle-related information comprises at least one of the following:

a maintenance code, a time stamp, a vehicle identification number, vehicle odometer information, vehicle oil level information, and vehicle tire pressure information.

36. The method of claim 23, wherein the predetermined event includes at least one of the following:

tire pressure below a predetermined tire pressure threshold level, a predetermined vehicle odometer reading, an oil level below a predetermined oil level threshold, and an engine temperature reading above a predetermined engine threshold level.

37. The method of claim 23, further comprising updating the user profile.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the updating step further comprises updating a database that includes the user profile.

39. The method of claim 37, wherein the updating step further comprises accessing the database and the user profile through a network.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

41. The method of claim 37, wherein the updating step further comprises transmitting the updated user profile from a remote location transmitter that is in communication with the database to the memory of the vehicle and updating the memory of the vehicle that includes the user profile stored therein.

42. The method of claim 37, wherein the updating step further comprises updating the memory of the vehicle.

43. The method of claim 42, further comprising transmitting the updated user profile to the remote location and updating a remote database that includes the user profile.

44. The method of claim 23, wherein the entire user profile is stored in the memory of the vehicle.

45. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises transmitting the vehicle-related information from a vehicle information device at the vehicle to a mobile unit at the vehicle by way of an RF transceiver in communication with the vehicle information device and the mobile unit, and transmitting the vehicle-related information from the mobile unit to the remote location by way of a wireless communication network.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the RF transceiver is compliant with the Bluetooth®

wireless communication specification.

47. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises transmitting the vehicle-related information from a vehicle information device at the vehicle to a mobile unit embedded in the vehicle by way of a cable in communication with the vehicle information device and the embedded mobile unit, and transmitting the vehicle-related information from the mobile unit to the remote location by way of a wireless communication network.

48. The method of claim 23, wherein the selectively transmitting step further comprises transmitting vehicle-related information from a vehicle-information device having an RF transceiver to an access point that is external to the vehicle, the access point being in communication with the remote location.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein the access point further comprises an RF port, and wherein the access point is in communication with the remote location by way of a gateway and a network.

50. The method of claim 49, wherein the RF port and the RF transceiver comply with the IEEE 802.11 wireless specification.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the RF port and the RF transceiver comprise Wi-Fi®

certified products.

52. A method for providing a subset of broadcasted information to a user of a vehicle having a receiver and a memory, comprising:

broadcasting information from a remote location to a plurality of vehicles to provide broadcasted information;

receiving the broadcasted information by way of the receiver of at least one of the plurality of vehicles; and

,

selectively providing access to only a subset of the broadcasted information to the user of the vehicle having the receiver based on a user profile that is stored within the memory of the vehicle, the memory being in communication with the receiver.

53. The method of claim 52, further comprising updating the user profile.

54. The method of claim 53, wherein the updating step further comprises updating a database that includes the user profile.

55. The method of claim 53, wherein the updating step further comprises accessing the database and the user profile through a network.

56. The method of claim 55, wherein the network further comprises the Internet.

57. The method of claim 53, wherein the updating step further comprises broadcasting the updated user profile from a remote location transmitter that is in communication with the database to the memory of the vehicle and updating the memory of the vehicle that includes the user profile with the updated user profile.

58. The method of claim 53, wherein the updating step further comprises updating the memory of the vehicle, the memory of the vehicle including at least a portion of the user profile.

59. The method of claim 58, further comprising transmitting the updated user profile to the remote server and updating a remote database, the remote database including the user profile and being in communication with the remote server.

60. The method of claim 53, wherein the selectively providing access step further comprises selectively providing access to only a subset of the broadcasted information based on the updated user profile, after the user profile has been updated.

61. The method of claim 52, wherein the broadcasting step further comprises broadcasting information by way of a broadcast communication system.

62. The method of claim 61, wherein the broadcast communication system further comprises an antenna positioned on Earth and a satellite in orbit above the Earth.

63. The method of claim 52, wherein the broadcasting step further comprises broadcasting vehicle-related information to the plurality of vehicles.

64. The method of claim 63, wherein the vehicle-related information further comprises at least one of the following:

vehicle maintenance schedules, oil change reminders, service campaigns, lease inspections, lease expirations, service recalls, suggestions on how to more effectively use vehicle features, lease extension offers, user surveys, and car diagnosis surveys.