METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE TIMING OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS INVOLVING TELEMATICS-EQUIPPED VEHICLES

• US 20090168742A1
• Filed: 12/26/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors Corporation (Motors Liquidation Co. GUC Trust)
• Inventors: Krause, Kevin R., Yi, Ki Hak, Chesnutt, Elizabeth, Sumcad, Anthony J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,582,499 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/345
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 21/00 Measuring or testing not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/01 Detecting movement of traffic to be counted or controlled G08G1/07 - G08G1/14 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• 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: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]

Abstract

A timing control method for use with wireless communications involving telematics-equipped vehicles. The timing control method generally determines a temporally-distributed sequence of message response times for a group of telematics-equipped vehicles, and then includes these different response times in wireless messages that are sent to the vehicles. In reply, the vehicles use the various message response times to respond in an apportioned or distributed fashion that generally correlates with the temporally-distributed sequence; instead of all at once. In another disclosed method, the response times are determined at each vehicle itself. The methods can be used for requesting data from vehicles via SMS messages.

Claims

1. A method for controlling the timing of wireless communications involving telematics-equipped vehicles, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a wireless request message at each of a plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles;

(b) providing, for each vehicle, a response time that is different than the response time for one or more of the other vehicles;

(c) obtaining, at each vehicle, data requested by the wireless request message; and

(d) sending from each vehicle a wireless response message that includes the requested data, wherein the wireless response message is sent from each vehicle at its associated response time.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining the different response times by utilizing at least one factor selected from the list consisting of:

an estimated response size, an estimated response volume, an estimated response time, an estimated response type, an estimated geographic distribution of the responses, and an intended response recipient.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of dividing the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles into groups of vehicles, wherein each group is assigned its own message response time such that vehicles within each group generally send their wireless response message at the same time.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of dividing the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles into groups of vehicles further involves adjusting the size and/or number of the groups so that the impact to a corresponding wireless system is reduced.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of dividing the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles into groups of vehicles further involves adjusting the message response times of each group so that the impact to a corresponding wireless system is reduced.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of dividing the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles into groups of vehicles further involves selecting the message response types of each group so that the impact to a corresponding wireless system is reduced.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing a response time for each vehicle comprises determining at each vehicle, a response time based on information contained at the vehicle.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of determining a response time at each vehicle further comprises determining a response time based on a unique identifier stored at the vehicle.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing a response time for each vehicle comprises including instructions in the wireless request message that cause each vehicle to respond at its associated response time.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprises receiving short message service (SMS) messages at each of the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles, wherein each SMS message includes the instructions for responding at the associated response time in a payload section of the SMS message.

11. A method for controlling the timing of wireless communications involving telematics-equipped vehicles, comprising the steps of:

(a) determining first and second message response times;

(b) sending wireless request messages to a plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles, wherein at least one of the wireless request messages includes the first message response time and at least one other of the wireless request messages includes the second message response time; and

(c) sending wireless response messages from the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles in reply to the wireless request messages, wherein the wireless response messages that are sent according to the first message response time are generally sent before the wireless response messages that are sent according to the second message response time.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of determining the first and second message response times by utilizing at least one factor selected from the list consisting of:

an estimated response size, an estimated response volume, an estimated response time, an estimated response type, an estimated geographic distribution of the responses, and an intended response recipient.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein each wireless request message to the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles includes the following components:

requested information, an intended recipient and a message response time.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the wireless request messages are short message service (SMS) messages that include the message response times in payload sections of the SMS messages.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the wireless response messages are packet data messages.

16. A method for controlling the timing of wireless communications involving telematics-equipped vehicles, comprising the steps of:

(a) identifying a plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles;

(b) determining a temporally-distributed sequence of message response times that generally attempts to spread out wireless response messages over a period of time, the determination of the temporally-distributed sequence considers at least one factor selected from the list consisting of;

an estimated response size, an estimated response volume, an estimated response time, an estimated response type, an estimated geographic distribution of the responses, and an intended response recipient;

(c) sending wireless request messages from a call center to the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles, each of the wireless request messages includes a message response time that is part of the temporally-distributed sequence; and

(d) receiving wireless response messages from the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles, wherein the wireless response messages are received in an order that generally correlates with the temporally-distributed sequence.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein each wireless request message sent to the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles includes the following components:

requested information, an intended recipient and a message response time.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein step (c) further comprises sending short message service (SMS) messages from the call center to the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles, where the SMS messages include the message response times in payload sections of the SMS messages.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein step (d) further comprises receiving packet data messages from the plurality of telematics-equipped vehicles.