CONTROL VEHICLE FOR A ROAD TOLL SYSTEM

• US 20130141281A1
• Filed: 11/29/2012
• Published: 06/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Original Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Inventors: Hanisch, Harald, Povolny, Robert, Nagy, Oliver
• Granted Patent: US 9,070,973 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 342/374
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/063 using wireless information transmission between the vehicle and a fixed station identification of vehicles G08G
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/017 identifying vehicles G08G1/015, G08G1/054 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 1/3233 particular used as part of a sensor or in a security system, e.g. for automotive radar, navigation systems
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/24 varying the orientation by switching energy from one active radiating element to another, e.g. for beam switching

Abstract

A control vehicle for a road toll system on the basis of vehicle-mounted onboard units which can be polled via DSRC radio communications, with the control vehicle comprising at least one DRSC transceiver with at least two antenna systems, which are distributed with a mutual distance over the longitudinal direction of the control vehicle, for polling a passing on-board unit.

Claims

1. A control vehicle for a road toll system comprising:

at least one DRSC transceiver with at least two antenna systems, wherein the antenna systems are distributed with a mutual distance over a longitudinal direction of the control vehicle and have omnidirectional characteristics or partially overlapping directional characteristics, to set up an uninterrupted radio communication for polling a passing on-board unit.

2. The control vehicle according to claim 1, wherein a single DRSC transceiver operates all antenna systems via a sequentially controlled antenna switch.

3. The control vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the antenna systems are operated by their own respective DRSC transceivers, and synchronized for a sequential handover of the DSRC radio communication.

4. The control vehicle according to claim 1, wherein each of the antenna systems has a directional characteristic.

5. The control vehicle according to claim 4, wherein the directional characteristic is directed at an angle forward-and-sideward from the control vehicle.

6. The control vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the directional characteristics of the antenna systems partially overlap.

7. The control vehicle according to claim 4, wherein one of the antenna systems which is mounted forward with respect to the direction of travel has a more directional characteristic than another of the antenna systems which is mounted backward with respect to the direction of travel.

8. The control vehicle according to claim 4, wherein the directional characteristic of at least one antenna system is controlled based on information received during the DSRC radio communication.

9. The control vehicle according to claim 8, wherein the antenna system mounted forward with respect to the direction of travel receives said information to control the directional characteristic of at least one of the antenna systems mounted backward with respect to the direction of travel.

10. The control vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising at least one device for one or more of measuring and classifying a passing vehicle.

11. The control vehicle according to claim 10, wherein said device is arranged between at least two of the antenna systems.

12. The control vehicle according to claim 10, wherein the directional characteristic of at least one antenna system is controlled by one or more of a dimension of the vehicle measured by the device and a class of the vehicle determined by the device.

13. The control vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the antenna system mounted forward with respect to the direction of travel emits a wake up message to the passing on-board unit.

14. The control vehicle according to claim 13, wherein the wake up message is a BST message according to the CEN-DSRC standard, or a WSA message according to the WAVE or ITS-G5 standard.

15. The control vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising means of writing a control information into the on-board unit at the end of the polling with a timestamp indicating its period of validity.