Land vehicle identification by flickering lamps
First Claim
1. A set of land vehicles wherein each one of the vehicles comprises a flickering lamp further comprising a vehicle brake lamp or a vehicle rear running lamp, and wherein a flickering light from the lamp comprises an identifier of that vehicle;
- andwherein a flickering rate interval is shorter than an interval of human persistence of vision, whereby the flickering is invisible.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Vehicles are identified by flickering LED'"'"'s that may be mounted on their sides and/or incorporated into the brake lights or running lights. The flickering encodes an identifier, preferably the VIN (vehicle identification number), in binary format using a barcode type of encoding, ASCII, etc. The VIN is decoded by a detector. The detector may be coupled to a database to record a vehicle'"'"'s identifier and/or to determine if the vehicle is stolen or wanted. If the identifier of a wanted vehicle is found, an alarm is sounded and/or information about the vehicle can be displayed. The flicker may repeat continuously or be repeated continually, at intervals. The intervals are preferably greater than the flickering duration, so that the flickers are spaced apart and therefore flickers from a group of vehicles will not overlap, permitting each vehicle to be individually identified without spatial localization. Because the LED'"'"'s turn on and off rapidly, the flickers provide a very clean signal and mis-readings are minimal.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A set of land vehicles wherein each one of the vehicles comprises a flickering lamp further comprising a vehicle brake lamp or a vehicle rear running lamp, and wherein a flickering light from the lamp comprises an identifier of that vehicle;
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wherein a flickering rate interval is shorter than an interval of human persistence of vision, whereby the flickering is invisible. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. In combination:
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(a) a set of land vehicles wherein each one of the vehicles comprises a flickering lamp further comprising a vehicle brake lamp or a vehicle rear running lamp, and wherein a flickering light from the lamp comprises an identifier of that individual vehicle;
wherein a flickering rate interval is shorter than an interval of human persistence of vision, whereby the flickering is invisible; and
(b) at least one detector to decode the flickering light of the vehicle into the vehicle identifier; and
(c) at least one identifier database communicating with the detector. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19)
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20. A set of land vehicles wherein each one of the vehicles comprises a flickering vehicle lamp,
wherein a flickering light from the lamp comprises an identifier of that vehicle, wherein the flickering is shorter than an interval of human persistence of vision, and wherein the flickering is invisible to the human eye.
Specification