Onboard Unit and Method for Charging Occupant Number-Dependent Tolls for Vehicles

• US 20120143786A1
• Filed: 11/11/2011
• Published: 06/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Original Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Inventors: Karner, Georg
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,148 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/400
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/88 Radar or analogous systems specially adapted for specific applications electromagnetic prospecting or detecting of objects, e.g. near-field detection, G01V3/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination

Abstract

Onboard unit for charging occupant number-dependent tolls for a vehicle in the context of a road toll system, comprising a Doppler radar or UWB impulse radar that can be directed onto the vehicle interior for measuring movements and generating at least one measurement signal representing these; and an evaluation device, which is configured to detect signal patterns in the measurement signal that are typical for heart or respiratory activity of an occupant, to count those signal patterns which occur simultaneously at an observation time, and to calculate toll data as a function of that count value.

Claims

1. An onboard unit for charging occupant number-dependent tolls for a vehicle in a road toll system, comprising:

a Doppler radar or ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radar directed onto the vehicle interior for measuring movements and generating at least one measurement signal representing the movements; and

an evaluation device configured to detect signal patterns in the at least one measurement signal that are typical for heart or respiratory activity of an occupant, to count the signal patterns which occur simultaneously at an observation time, and to calculate toll data as a function of a count value of the signal patterns.

2. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein the evaluation device is further configured to average the count values of multiple consecutive observation times to form a mean value, and to calculate the toll data as a function of the mean value.

3. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein the evaluation device is further configured to take only those signal patterns into account during counting that indicate, on an average over multiple observation times, no relative speed of the occupant causing the respective signal pattern.

4. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein the onboard unit has a position determination device to start the observation time or times of the evaluation device when the vehicle reaches a predetermined position.

5. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein an antenna characteristic of the Doppler radar or UWB impulse radar is matched to the vehicle interior.

6. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein for each seat of the vehicle the Doppler radar or UWB impulse radar has a transceiver antenna that is directed thereto for generating a respective measurement signal, in which the signal patterns can be detected separately.

7. The onboard unit according to claim 1, wherein the Doppler radar or UWB impulse radar has a joint transceiver antenna for an entire vehicle interior for generating a joint measurement signal, in which simultaneously occurring signal patterns can be detected by a correlation comparison with predetermined reference signal patterns.

8. The onboard unit according to claim 1, further comprising a transceiver connected to the evaluation device for communicating the toll data calculated dependent on the number of occupants, from the onboard unit to at least one radio beacon of the road toll system.

9. A method for charging an occupant number-dependent toll for vehicles in a road toll system, the method comprising:

directing a Doppler radar or ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radar onto an interior of a vehicle to measure movements therein and to generate at least one measurement signal representing the movements;

detecting signal patterns in the at least one measurement signal that are typical for heart or respiratory activity of an occupant;

counting the signal patterns which occur simultaneously at an observation time; and

calculating toll data as a function of a count value of the signal patterns.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the count values of multiple consecutive observation times are averaged to form a mean value and the toll data are calculated from the mean value.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein during counting, only those signal patterns are taken into account that on an average over multiple observation times indicate no relative speed of the occupant causing the respective signal pattern.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the observation time or times are started when the vehicle reaches a predetermined position.

13. The method according to claim 9, wherein the speed of the vehicle is measured, acceleration phases are determined from the measured speed, and the observation times are selected in acceleration phases of the vehicle.

14. The method according to claim 9, further comprising transmitting the toll data to the road toll system.

15. The method according to claim 9, wherein the method is used for charging tolls for vehicles on high occupancy vehicles (HOV) lanes.