Remote controlled toy vehicle, toy vehicle control system and game using remote controlled toy vehicle

• US 20060073761A1
• Filed: 05/02/2005
• Published: 04/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Charles Stewart Mccall, David Vincent Helmlinger, Gregory Nungester, Jesse Dorogusker, Joseph T. Moll, Justin Discoe, Lavonne Erick Strand, Stephen Nicholas Weiss, Vikas Kumar Parkhie Sinha
• Original Assignee: Charles Stewart Mccall, David Vincent Helmlinger, Gregory Nungester, Jesse Dorogusker, Joseph T. Moll, Justin Discoe, Lavonne Erick Strand, Stephen Nicholas Weiss, Vikas Kumar Parkhie Sinha
• Inventors: McCall, Charles Stewart, Dorogusker, Jesse, Helmlinger, David Vincent, Moll, Joseph T., Weiss, Stephen Nicholas, Discoe, Justin, Nungester, Gregory, Strand, LaVonne Erick, Sinha, Vikas Kumar Parkhie
• Granted Patent: US 7,758,399 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 446/456
• CPC Class Codes: A63H 17/00 Toy vehicles, e.g. with self-drive; convertible into other toys A63H33/003; Cranes, winches or the like; Accessories therefor traffic games with figures moved by players A63F9/14
• CPC Class Codes: A63H 17/26 Details; Accessories drive mechanisms A63H29/00
• CPC Class Codes: A63H 18/00 Highways or trackways for toys railway permanent way A63H19/30; for special railways A63H21/00; Propulsion by special interaction between vehicle and track
• CPC Class Codes: A63H 30/04 using wireless transmission

Abstract

A vehicle toy combination includes a wireless controlled toy vehicle having a mobile platform configured to move over a surface. A central controller on the platform is configured to control at least one aspect of the toy vehicle. A hand-held manually actuable wireless controller is configured to remotely control user selected movement of the toy vehicle. An optical receiver is attached to the platform to look downward on the surface and is coupled to the central controller. The receiver is configured to read a predetermined reflective pattern located on the surface over which the toy vehicle moves. Multiple vehicles can be controlled simultaneously with multiple wireless, manually operated controllers operating at the same frequency by initially synchronizing the controllers to transmit in non-overlapping windows.

Claims

1. A first encoded tag comprising by:

an exposed outer surface with a predetermined pattern of reflectance, the pattern containing coded information and being monochromatic.

2. The tag of claim 1 being sufficiently thin to be driven over by a toy vehicle and the coded information being associated with an operational mode of the toy vehicle.

3. The tag of claim 1 wherein the predetermined pattern is symmetric about a central axis.

4. The tag of claim 1 wherein the predetermined pattern is formed on the tag by a series of substantially non-reflective portions separated by a series of more highly reflective portions.

7. The tag of claim 1 wherein the predetermined pattern is a bar code.

8. The tag of claim 1 wherein the predetermined pattern is a series of concentric rings.

9. The tag of claim 8 wherein the reader is configured to receive the coded information.

10. The tag of claim 8 in combination with the toy vehicle, the toy vehicle including a downward looking reader attached thereto, the reader being configured to irradiate at least a portion of the tag and receive the predetermined pattern reflected therefrom when the toy vehicle passes over the tag.

5. The tag of claim 5 being integrally formed in an upper surface of a pad, the upper surface of the pad being many times larger in area than the tag.

6. The tag of claim 5 in combination with at least a second tag, the second tag also having an exposed outer surface with a predetermined pattern of reflectance containing coded information different from the coded information of the first tag, the second tag being integrally formed into the upper surface of the pad spaced away from the first tag.

11. In a wireless controlled toy vehicle system having a plurality of at least two independently remotely controllable toy vehicles, each of the toy vehicles being independently remotely controlled by a separate, respective, associated manual wireless controller of a plurality of manual wireless controllers of the system, each of the plurality of toy vehicles having actuators for controlling the operation of the plurality of vehicles in accordance with control signals received from the associated, respective manual wireless controller of the plurality of manual wireless controllers, an improvement comprising:

a first manually actuable wireless controller of the plurality being respectively associated with a first of the plurality of toy vehicles and generating a stream of first control signal packets in response to user manual inputs to the first controller, the stream of first control signal packets being transmitted to the plurality of toy vehicles during a first transmission window and coded to control only the first of the plurality of toy vehicles; and

a second manually actuable wireless controller being respectively associated with a second of the plurality of toy vehicles and generating a stream of second control signal packets in response to user manual inputs to the second controller, the stream of second control signal packets being transmitted to the plurality of toy vehicles during a second transmission window and coded to control only the second of the plurality of toy vehicles,

wherein the first and second transmission windows are time synchronized such that the streams of first and second control signal packets avoid time overlap of each other when transmitted to the plurality of toy vehicles while user inputs are being simultaneously manually entered into at least the first and second manually actuable wireless controllers.

12. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein the first and second transmission windows have a single, common transmission window length (TL).

13. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein each of the plurality of manually actuable wireless controllers of the system include at least one synchronization port such that at least the first and second transmission windows are synchronized when the synchronization ports on the first and second wireless controllers are connected prior to transmission of the streams of first and second control signal packets.

14. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein each control signal packet includes a vehicle identification tag (ID0, ID1) which associates each control signal packet with the associated one of the plurality of toy vehicles.

15. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein the control signal packets include firing data for the associated one of the plurality of toy vehicles.

16. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein the control signal packets include driving data for the associated one of the plurality of toy vehicles.

17. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein the actuators on each of the plurality of two toy vehicles are configured to actuate the toy vehicle upon reception of at least two sequential identical control signal packets from the respective, associated manually actuable wireless controller.

18. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 further comprising a predetermined period of dead time between the first and second transmission windows.

19. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 including at least four of the independently radio controllable toy vehicles and four of the separate manually actuable wireless controllers and wherein at least third and fourth transmission windows are synchronized with one another and with the first and second transmission windows such that streams of first, second, third and fourth control signal packets avoid overlap with each other when transmitted to the toy vehicles while user manual inputs are being simultaneously manually entered into the at least four manually actuable wireless controllers.

20. The toy vehicle system of claim 11 wherein at least the streams of first and second control signal packets are transmitted on the same carrier wireless frequency.

21. A method for controlling a plurality of at least two toy vehicles in a wireless controlled toy vehicle system, each of the toy vehicles of the plurality being remotely controlled by separate respective associated hand-held, manually actuable, wireless controllers, the at least two toy vehicles having actuators for controlling the operation of the at least two toy vehicles in accordance with control signals received from the respective associated manually actuable wireless controllers, the method comprising:

defining a series of sequential, repeated first and second transmission windows, each transmission window having a single, common transmission window length (TL);

time synchronizing the first and second transmission windows such that the first and second windows do not overlap each other;

generating a stream of first control signal packets;

generating a stream of second control signal packets;

transmitting the stream of first control signal packets to the plurality of toy vehicles during the first transmission window to control only a first of the plurality of toy vehicles; and

transmitting the stream of second control signal packets to the plurality of toy vehicles during the second transmission window to control only a second of the plurality of toy vehicles.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the step of synchronizing includes connecting together at least two of the plurality of manually actuable wireless controllers associated with the first and second toy vehicles prior to transmission of the streams of first and second control signal packets to synchronize the at least two manually actuable wireless controllers.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the step of synchronizing further includes designating one of the at least two manually actuable wireless controllers as a master controller and designating each other manually actuable wireless controller of the plurality connected to the master controller for synchronization as a slave controller.

24. The method of claim 22 wherein the step of synchronizing comprises the step of connecting together the at least two manually actuable wireless controllers at synchronization ports located on each wireless controller of the plurality.

25. The method of claim 21 further comprising the step of actuating one of the at least two toy vehicles only when at least two sequential identical control signal packets are received by the one of the at least two toy vehicles.

26. The method of claim 21 wherein the first control signal packets are transmitted by a first manually actuable wireless controller of the plurality respectively associated with the first toy vehicle and the second control signal packets are transmitted by a second manually actuable wireless controller of the plurality respectively associated with the second toy vehicle.

27. The method of claim 21 wherein each of the control signal packets include firing information for a respective associated one of the at least two toy vehicles.

28. The method of claim 21 wherein each of the control signal packets include driving commands for a respective associated one of the at least two toy vehicles.

29. The method of claim 21 further comprising the step of inserting predetermined periods of dead time in between the first and second transmission windows.

30. The method of claim 21 further comprising the steps of:

defining at least third and fourth transmission windows, each transmission window having a single, common transmission window length (TL) in the series of sequential, repeated transmission windows;

synchronizing the third and fourth with the first and second transmission windows and one another such that the first, second, third and fourth windows avoid overlap of each other;

generating a stream of third control signal packets;

generating a stream of fourth control signal packets;

transmitting the stream of third control signal packets to the plurality of toy vehicles during the third transmission window of the series to control only a third one of the plurality of toy vehicles; and

transmitting the stream of fourth control signal packets to the plurality of toy vehicles during the fourth transmission window to control only a fourth one of the plurality of toy vehicles.

31. An interactive toy vehicle game system comprising:

at least one wireless controlled toy vehicle having a mobile platform configured to move over a playing surface, an on-board vehicle controller configured to control the at least one toy vehicle based on manual input from a player, at least one vehicle weapon mounted to the mobile platform and configured to fire on an enemy vehicle and at least one damage sensor mounted to the at least one toy vehicle and configured to detect hits on the at least one toy vehicle; and

at least one mobile droid vehicle having a mobile droid platform configured to move over the playing surface, the at least one mobile droid vehicle having an enemy weapon mounted to the mobile droid platform and an on-board mobile droid controller configured to seek the at least one toy vehicle and fire the enemy weapon at the at least one toy vehicle;

wherein the vehicle controller is further configured to disable the at least one toy vehicle when the vehicle controller detects collectively from each damage sensor of the vehicle a predetermined number of hits from the enemy weapon.

32. The toy vehicle game of claim 31 wherein the droid controller is configured to move the at least one mobile droid vehicle over the playing surface in a predefined pattern.

33. The toy vehicle game of claim 31 wherein the droid controller is configured to fire the enemy weapon according to a predetermined firing sequence.

34. The toy vehicle game of claim 31, the mobile droid vehicle comprising a droid damage sensor mounted thereto and coupled to the droid controller, the droid controller being configured to detect hits on the mobile droid vehicle from the at least one vehicle weapon.

35. The toy vehicle game of claim 34 wherein the droid controller is configured to disable the mobile droid when the droid damage sensor detects a predetermined number of hits from the at least one vehicle weapon.

36. The toy vehicle game of claim 31 further comprising at least one border droid having at least two border droid weapons configured to fire in two different directions from the border droid.

37. The toy vehicle game of claim 36 wherein the two directions of fire of the border droid are in opposite directions or at right angles.

38. The toy vehicle game of claim 31 further comprising at least one stationary droid having a rotating turret, the turret including a weapon configured to fire at the at least one toy vehicle.

39. The toy vehicle game of claim 38 wherein the turret is configured to move along a predefined path.

40. The toy vehicle game of claim 39 wherein the vehicle controller is configured to fire the at least one vehicle weapon at another at least one toy vehicle.

41. In a vehicle toy combination including a wireless controlled toy vehicle with a mobile platform (14) configured to move over a surface and a central controller on the platform configured to control at least one aspect of the toy vehicle, and a hand-held, manually actuable wireless controller with at least one user manual input configured to remotely control user selected movement of the toy vehicle, the improvement comprising:

an optical receiver supported from the platform so as to look downward on the surface and coupled to the central controller, the receiver being configured to read at least one predetermined reflective pattern located on the surface over which the toy vehicle moves; and

wherein the central controller decodes information coded in reflections received from the reflective pattern the information being associated with at least one operational mode of the toy vehicle; and

wherein the central controller automatically re-programs itself with the decoded information, to reconfigure control of the at least one operational mode of the toy vehicle.

42. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41 wherein the at least one operational mode is selected from the group consisting of armor strength, weapons strength, hazards, vehicle speed and vehicle steering.

43. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41 further comprising a light transmitter positioned on the platform to irradiate at least a portion of the surface passed over such that the optical receiver receives the irradiated light reflected from the surface.

44. The toy vehicle combination of claim 43 further comprising another optical receiver attached to the platform so as to look upward and away from the surface.

45. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41 wherein the predetermined pattern is composed of alternating marks and spaces and wherein at least the surface within the pattern is monochromatic.

46. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41 wherein the predetermined pattern includes a series of substantially non-reflective portions separated by a series of more highly reflective portions.

47. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41 wherein the predetermined pattern is symmetrical about a central axis;

and

wherein the optical receiver is configured such that the optical receiver reads the predetermined pattern when the toy vehicle traverses the pattern and crosses the central axis sufficiently perpendicularly to the central axis.

48. The vehicle toy combination of claim 41, the improvement further comprising at least one damage sensor configured to determine hits on the toy vehicle by at least one enemy weapon.

49. The vehicle toy combination of claim 48 further comprising an optical receiver dome attached to the mobile platform, the receiver dome including a substantially conical reflective surface having a central axis of rotation, wherein light received by the conical reflector is directed along the axis of rotation toward the at least one damage sensor on the toy vehicle.

50. The toy vehicle combination of claim 49 wherein the at least one damage sensor comprises another optical receiver supported from the platform along the central axis of rotation so as to look upward towards the conical reflective surface and away from the surface over which the toy vehicle moves.