Rental/Car-Share Vehicle Access and Management System and Method
First Claim
1. A method of supporting registration of a control module with a rental vehicle to enable a remote computing system to wirelessly communicate instructions to the rental vehicle via the control module, the method comprising:
- prior to the control module communicating with the rental vehicle in response to any instructions received by the control module from the remote computing system via cellular communication, a mobile computing device receiving a first identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the first identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of the control module;
prior to the control module communicating with the rental vehicle in response to any instructions received by the control module from the remote computing system via cellular communication, the mobile computing device receiving a second identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the second identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of the rental vehicle;
the mobile computing device sending the first identifier and the second identifier to the remote computing system for association of the first identifier with the second identifier to register the control module with the rental vehicle within the remote computing system.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A rental/car-share (RCS) vehicle access and management system and method, in some embodiments, utilizes barcodes, QR codes (or NFC/RFID), GPS, and a mobile app coupled with a wireless network to enable customers to bypass the reservation desk and pickup and drop off reserved RCS vehicles using a mobile phone, tablet or laptop. The QR code, RFID, or NFC communication with the mobile application allows for identification of the vehicle by a mobile application, which, if authorized, can access the vehicle via a temporary access code issued by remote servers. The remote servers and/or mobile application communicates with a control module that plugs into the on-board diagnostics module of the rental/car-share (RCS) vehicle and includes a host processing unit with a processor, an accelerometer, data storage, a GPS with internal GPS antenna; a wireless modem with internal antenna, and CAN bus transceivers connected with the processor, and a USB programmable interface.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. A method of supporting registration of a control module with a rental vehicle to enable a remote computing system to wirelessly communicate instructions to the rental vehicle via the control module, the method comprising:
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prior to the control module communicating with the rental vehicle in response to any instructions received by the control module from the remote computing system via cellular communication, a mobile computing device receiving a first identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the first identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of the control module; prior to the control module communicating with the rental vehicle in response to any instructions received by the control module from the remote computing system via cellular communication, the mobile computing device receiving a second identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the second identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of the rental vehicle; the mobile computing device sending the first identifier and the second identifier to the remote computing system for association of the first identifier with the second identifier to register the control module with the rental vehicle within the remote computing system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A computer program product comprising:
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a plurality of instructions that are resident on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and are executable by a processor of a mobile computing device, wherein the instructions comprise an installation program, the installation program configured to be executed by the processor in response to input from a user of the mobile computing device; wherein the installation program, when executed by the processor, is configured to cause the mobile computing device to; receive a first identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the first identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of a control module, wherein the control module is to be registered with a rental vehicle within a remote computing system to enable the remote computing system to wirelessly communicate instructions to the rental vehicle via the control module; receive a second identifier via a wireless data capture technique distinct from cellular communication, the second identifier corresponding to a unique identifier of the rental vehicle; and send the first identifier and the second identifier to the remote computing system for association of the first identifier with the second identifier to register the control module with the rental vehicle within the remote computing system. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19)
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20. An apparatus comprising:
a control module for connection to a vehicle to enable a remote computing system to wirelessly communicate instructions to the vehicle via the control module, the control module comprising; a processor; a wireless network interface configured to interface the processor with a wireless network; and a vehicle interface configured to interface the processor with an on-board diagnostics (OBD) unit and a controller area network (CAN) bus of the vehicle, the vehicle interface comprising a plurality of CAN bus transceivers, each CAN bus transceiver configured to interface the processor with a CAN bus type of at least one vehicle type such that the plurality of CAN bus transceivers are configured to interface the processor with the CAN bus types of a plurality of different vehicle types in the aggregate; wherein the processor is configured to (1) automatically detect an identifier for the vehicle through the vehicle interface, (2) automatically select a CAN bus transceiver, from among the plurality of CAN bus transceivers based on the detected identifier, and (3) communicate with the vehicle'"'"'s CAN bus via the selected CAN bus transceiver. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
Specification