VEHICLE EVENT RECORDER SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS HAVING INTEGRATED CELLULAR WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

• US 20160057342A1
• Filed: 10/30/2015
• Published: 02/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Plante, James
• Granted Patent: US 9,566,910 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 11/04 Mounting of cameras operative during drive; Arrangement of controls thereof relative to the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0232 for measuring vehicle parameters and indicating critical, abnormal or dangerous conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/8006 for monitoring and displaying scenes of vehicle interior, e.g. for monitoring passengers or cargo
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/8073 for vehicle security, e.g. parked vehicle surveillance, burglar detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2209/10 Comprising means for protocol conversion, i.e. format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0891 Video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/64 Computer-aided capture of images, e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/042 Public Land Mobile systems, e.g. cellular systems

Abstract

Vehicle event recorder systems are arranged to be in constant communication with remote servers and administrators via mobile wireless cellular networks. Vehicle event recorders equipped with video cameras capture video and other data records of important events relating to vehicle use. These data are then transmitted over special communications networks having very high coverage space but limited bandwidth. A vehicle may be operated over very large region while maintaining continuous communications connections with a remote fixed server. As such, systems of these inventions may be characterized as including a mobile unit having: a video camera; a microprocessor; memory; an event trigger; and mobile wireless transceivers, and a fixed network portion including: mobile wireless cellular network, a protocol translation gateway, the Internet and an application-specific server.

Claims

1. A vehicle event recorder system comprising:

a video camera configured to capture image data, wherein the video camera has a field of view arranged to include an environment in and/or around a vehicle;

a communications transceiver configured to transmit information via a communication network to a server computer;

an electronic memory configured to electronically store information; and

a microprocessor configured to;

effectuate storage of captured image data in the electronic memory,

responsive to physical anomaly event triggers, create detailed complete datasets that correspond to individual physical anomaly event triggers, wherein the detailed complete datasets include image data captured by the video camera;

create abbreviated datasets by parsing the detailed complete datasets such that the abbreviated datasets include less bytes of data than the corresponding detailed complete datasets;

effectuate storage of the abbreviated datasets in the electronic memory, and

facilitate transmission of an individual one of the detailed complete datasets and the abbreviated datasets via the communications transceiver based on an amount of available bandwidth in the communication network,

wherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of an individual one of the abbreviated datasets responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the abbreviated datasets in real-time or near real-time, and

wherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of an individual one of the detailed complete datasets responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the detailed complete datasets.

2. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is further configured to determine the amount of available bandwidth in the communication network for use by the communications transceiver, wherein the amount is determined prior to transmission of one or both of the abbreviated datasets and the detailed complete datasets.

3. The event recorder system of claim 1, wherein the captured image data includes video images associated with a prescribed moment in time, wherein the prescribed moment corresponds to a given physical anomaly event trigger, and wherein the captured image data includes video images captured prior to and after the prescribed moment in time.

4. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 3, wherein the given physical anomaly event trigger corresponds to a collision.

5. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, wherein the detailed complete datasets include a first detailed complete dataset and a second detailed complete dataset, wherein the first detailed complete dataset corresponds to a first physical anomaly event trigger, wherein the second detailed complete dataset corresponds to a second physical anomaly event trigger, wherein the first detailed complete dataset includes more bytes of data than the second detailed complete dataset wherein the abbreviated datasets include a first abbreviated dataset and a second abbreviated dataset, wherein the first abbreviated dataset corresponds to the first detailed complete dataset, and wherein the second abbreviated dataset corresponds to the second detailed complete dataset.

6. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 5, wherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of the first detailed complete datasets responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the first detailed complete dataset, and wherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of the second detailed complete datasets responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the second detailed complete dataset.

7. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, further comprising a vehicle system transducer configured to detect occurrences of events during use of the vehicle, wherein the physical anomaly event triggers are based on the detected occurrences of events.

8. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, wherein the electronic memory includes managed loop memory and buffer memory, wherein the microprocessor is configured to effectuate storage of captured image data in the managed loop memory, and wherein the microprocessor is further configured to transfer, responsive to the physical anomaly event triggers, the captured image data from the managed loop memory to the buffer memory.

9. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 8, wherein the microprocessor is configured to effectuate storage of the abbreviated datasets in the buffer memory, and wherein the communications transceiver is configured to transmit information from the buffer memory via the communication network to the server computer.

10. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is configured to create the abbreviated datasets through compression of the detailed complete datasets.

11. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, wherein transmission of the individual one of the abbreviated datasets via the communications transceiver is performed wirelessly.

12. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 1, further comprising the server computer configured to receive transmission from the communications transceiver.

13. The vehicle event recorder system of claim 12, further comprising an authentication client configured to provide authentication services, wherein the server computer includes an authentication component and vehicle event recorder application specific software, wherein the authentication component authenticates transmissions of one or both of the abbreviated datasets and the detailed complete datasets using the authentication client.