VEHICLE DEVICE, AD HOC NETWORK AND METHOD FOR A ROAD TOLL SYSTEM

• US 20120209776A1
• Filed: 01/18/2012
• Published: 08/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Original Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Inventors: Nagy, Oliver
• Granted Patent: US 8,818,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/063 using wireless information transmission between the vehicle and a fixed station identification of vehicles G08G

Abstract

A vehicle device for a road toll system including: a satellite navigation receiver for continuously generating location data for a processing and transmitting/receiving unit of the vehicle device; and a trusted-element processor configured to log a time segment of the generated location data and to cryptographically signing said time segment. The trusted-element processor is further configured to start said logging upon detection of a predefined time or a predefined location of the vehicle device and to carry out said logging for a predefined time segment.

Claims

1. A vehicle device for a road toll system comprising a satellite navigation receiver for continuously generating location data for a processing and transmitting/receiving unit of the vehicle device;

and

a trusted-element processor configured to log a time segment of the generated location data and to cryptographically sign said time segment,

wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to start said logging upon detection of a predefined time or a predefined location of the vehicle device and to carry out said logging for a predefined time segment.

2. The vehicle device according to claim 1, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to detect the predefined location in its own generated location data.

3. The vehicle device according to claim 1, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to detect the predefined location in external location data that it receives from proximate vehicle devices via a wireless network.

4. The vehicle device according to claim 3, wherein the wireless network is an ad hoc network.

5. The vehicle device according to claim 4, wherein the ad hoc network operates in accordance with the WAVE or WLAN standard.

6. The vehicle device according to claim 3, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to receive and match the external location data of several proximate vehicle devices to detect the predefined location in the matched external location data.

7. The vehicle device according to claim 3, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to anonymously retrieve the external location data.

8. The vehicle device according to claim 3, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to retrieve the external location data by exchanging a key having one or more of temporally and locally limited validity, and to take into consideration only external location data received under a valid key.

9. The vehicle device according to claim 1, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to send the signed time segment to a control center of the road toll system by the transmitting/receiving unit of the vehicle device.

10. The vehicle device according to claim 1, wherein the trusted-element processor is further configured to make the signed time segment available for retrieval via an interface of the vehicle device.

11. An ad hoc network of at least two vehicle devices according to claim 3 that are connected to one another via their transmitting/receiving units, wherein at least one vehicle device is further configured to make available location data to another vehicle device that detects a predefined location therein to start the logging of its own location data.

12. An ad hoc network of at least two vehicle devices according to claim 6 that are connected to one another via their transmitting/receiving units, wherein at least one vehicle device is further configured to make available location data to another vehicle device that detects a predefined location therein to start the logging of its own location data.

13. An ad hoc network of at least two vehicle devices according to claim 8 that are connected to one another via their transmitting/receiving units, wherein at least one vehicle device is further configured to make available location data to another vehicle device that detects a predefined location therein to start the logging of its own location data.

14. A method for logging location data of a location-recording vehicle device of a road toll system with several vehicle devices that can exchange location data in a wireless fashion, the method comprising the following steps performed in a first vehicle device:

receiving location data of a second vehicle device;

detecting a predefined location in the received location data of the second vehicle device;

logging a time segment of the location data of the first vehicle device; and

signing the logged time segment with a cryptographic signature.

15. A method for logging location data of a location-recording vehicle device of a road toll system with several vehicle devices that can exchange location data in a wireless fashion, the method comprising the following steps performed in a first vehicle device:

detecting a predefined time;

logging a time segment of the location data of the first vehicle device and receiving location data of a second vehicle device; and

signing the logged time segment and the received location data with a cryptographic signature.