METHODS, APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS FOR ACCESSING VEHICLE OPERATIONAL DATA USING AN INTELLIGENT NETWORK ROUTER

• US 20100263024A1
• Filed: 04/09/2009
• Published: 10/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Mahalingaiah, Pradeep
• Granted Patent: US 9,652,899 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18506 Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2503 Translation of Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2528 Translation at a proxy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/256 NAT traversal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2592 using tunnelling or encapsulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0281 Proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided that allow more efficient access to vehicle health maintenance information within a vehicle. In addition, it is desirable to provide remote access to the health information by a plurality of users.

Claims

1. ) A system for securely accessing a source of data from a vehicle, comprising:

an internet protocol (IP) network;

a remote communication device in communication with the IP network, the remote communication device being configured to transmit and receive data; and

a first intermediary computing device within the IP network, the intermediary computing device preventing communication between the remote communication device and the source of the data, wherein the first intermediary computing device is configured to allow communications between the remote communication device and the source of the data when the first intermediary computing device determines that a first source internet protocol (SrcIP) address of the remote communication device is an authorized first SrcIP address.

2. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the first intermediary computing device includes a first module, the first module containing a list of the authorized first SrcIP addresses.

3. ) The system of claim 1, further including a second intermediary computing device within the network and behind the first intermediary computing device, the second intermediary computing device preventing communication between the remote communication device and the source of the data, wherein the second intermediary computing device is configured to allow communications between the remote communication device and the source of the data when the second intermediary computing device determines that a second SrcIP address of the remote communication device is an authorized second SrcIP address, the authorized second SrcIP address being different from the authorized first SrcIP address.

4. ) The system of claim 3, wherein the second intermediary computing device includes a second module, the second module containing a list of the authorized SrcIP addresses.

5. ) The system of claim 3, wherein when the first intermediary computing device determines that the first SrcIP address of the remote communication device is an authorized first SrcIP address, an internet protocol tunnel is created between the remote communication device and the source of the data.

6. ) The system of claim 3, wherein when the first intermediary computing device determines that the first SrcIP address of the remote communication device is an authorized first SrcIP address, assigning a third SrcIP address to the remote communication device.

7. ) The system of claim 6, wherein the second intermediary computing device includes a register for the second SrcIP address of the remote computing device and for the third SrcIP address of the remote computing device, whereby the register causes access to the source of data to be denied to the remote computing device when a pre-determined number of other remote computing devices are already registered.

8. ) The system of claim 1 wherein the first intermediary computing device is a router.

9. ) The system of claim 1 wherein the source of data includes a gateway server.

10. ) The system of claim 3 wherein the source of data includes protocol server.

11. ) The system of claim 9 wherein the source of data includes an application server controlling information flow to and from a plurality of data source software applications.

12. ) A method for securely accessing a source of data, comprising:

receiving a tunnel request message from a remote communication device, the remote communication device having a first source IP (SrcIP) address;

determining if the first SrcIP address is an authorized first SrcIP address;

if the first SrcIP address is an authorized first SrcIP address then establishing an IP tunnel by assigning a second SrcIP address to the remote communication device, wherein the second SrcIP address is an automatically recognized authorized SrcIP address, otherwise rejecting the tunnel request message; and

sending a reply message to the remote communication device with the second SrcIP address acknowledging access to the source of the data.

13. ) The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a connection request message from the remote communication device for connection to a source of data, the connection request message including the second SrcIP address;

encapsulating the second SrcIP address within an amended connection message;

assigning a third SrcIP address to the amended connection message, wherein the third SrcIP address is recognized as an authorized SrcIP address by the source of the data; and

relaying subsequent messages associated with the data between the remote communications device and the source of the data through the IP tunnel utilizing both the first SrcIP address and the second SrcIP address.

14. ) The message of claim 12, wherein the determining if the first SrcIP address is an authorized first SrcIP address is accomplished by comparing the first SrcIP address to a list of authorized SrcIPs.

15. ) The method of claim 13 wherein relaying subsequent messages occurs at least in part due to a router bit being set in the subsequent messages.

16. ) A method for securely accessing a source of data, comprising:

receiving a connection request message from a computing device within a network, the connection request message including a first source IP (SrcIP) address and an embedded second SrcIP address;

determining if the first SrcIP address is an authorized SrcIP address; and

if the first SrcIP address is an authorized SrcIP address then granting a communication session to the computing device with the first SrcIP address allowing access to the source of the data, otherwise rejecting the connection request message.

17. ) The method of claim 16 further comprising returning an acknowledgement message to the first SrcIP including a flag indicating that the first SrcIP and the embedded SrcIP are authorized SrcIP addresses.

18. ) The method of claim 16 wherein the determining if the first SrcIP address is an authorized address includes looking up the first SrcIP address in a list of authorized SrcIP addresses.

19. ) The method of claim 16 wherein the first source IP (SrcIP) address and an embedded second SrcIP address are registered in a register.

20. ) The method of claim 19 wherein the whereby the register causes access to the source of the data to be denied when a pre-determined number of other remote computing devices are already registered.