Hidden acquisition module for acquiring data from a vehicle
First Claim
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1. A data acquisition device for a vehicle comprising:
- a controller responsive to an input signal, said input signal being periodically on and off where each time the signal is on is an event, said controller including a counter providing a count of the number of events, said controller further providing a duration signal indicative of the time of each event; and
at least one non-volatile memory responsive to and storing the duration signal, wherein the at least one memory is a plurality of non-volatile memories, each of the memories being separately identified by a different address where the count identifies a memory address.
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Abstract
A data acquisition module that monitors the operation and duration of the operation of an electrical vehicle device, such as starter motor, and is readily mounted at an inconspicuous location in the vehicle. The data acquisition module stores each activation of the vehicle device and its duration in an electrical erasable programmable read-only memory to be downloaded at a future time. A microprocessor and a bank of EEPROMs are provided where the activation count is stored in the microprocessor and the duration is stored in the bank of EEPROMs. The address of a particular EEPROM is the location where an event duration is stored.
18 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A data acquisition device for a vehicle comprising:
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a controller responsive to an input signal, said input signal being periodically on and off where each time the signal is on is an event, said controller including a counter providing a count of the number of events, said controller further providing a duration signal indicative of the time of each event; and
at least one non-volatile memory responsive to and storing the duration signal, wherein the at least one memory is a plurality of non-volatile memories, each of the memories being separately identified by a different address where the count identifies a memory address. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A data acquisition module mounted to a vehicle for monitoring the number of events and the duration of each event of an electrical vehicle device, said module comprising:
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a data input circuit responsive to an electrical output signal from the vehicle device, said electrical output signal being a high signal if the vehicle device is operating and being a low signal if the vehicle device is not operating;
a controller being responsive to the electrical output from the data input circuit, said controller incrementing an event counter to identify the number of the event when the electrical output signal goes from a low signal to a high signal, said controller storing the number of the event counter in a non-volatile memory, said controller also providing a count signal of the duration that each high signal remains high during an event; and
a bank of non-volatile memories responsive to the count signals from the controller, said bank of memories storing the count signals in a predetermined manner, wherein each of the memories in the bank of memories is identified by a distinct address, wherein each event number is an address of one of the memories and wherein the memories are loaded with the event duration by the memories address. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method of acquiring data from an electrical vehicle device, said method comprising the steps of:
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monitoring an output signal from the vehicle device that is indicative of the activation of the device;
storing a count of the number of times the device is activated;
storing a value of the duration of the length of time when the device is activated, said steps of storing including storing the count and value in a plurality of non-volatile memories, where each memory is separately identified by a different address and where the count identifies a memory address; and
simultaneously downloading the data of the activation and the length of time the device is activated. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification