Passenger entertainment system, method and article of manufacture employing object oriented system software

• US 6,807,538 B1
• Filed: 05/26/1998
• Issued: 10/19/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Renton, Joseph J., Neugaubauer, Rick, Weinberger, Alan J., Infiesto, Douglas C.
• Primary Examiner(s): ROBINSON, GRETA LEE
• Application Number:
  US09/085,160
• Time in Patent Office: 2,338 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104.1, 707/103, 707/3, 707/102, 709/315, 709/203
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A passenger entertainment system operates using system software to provide services including audio and video on-demand, information dissemination, product and service order processing, and video teleconferencing and data communication. The system software routes and processes passenger transactions and dispatches resources to respond to the transactions. A database contains data relating to services provided by the system and the resources that provide the services. A processor stores object oriented application programming interface calls corresponding to the services provided by the system. The processor receives a passenger transaction requesting a particular service and processes it to generate a database query using a selected object oriented application programming interface call. A database server queries the database using the selected object oriented application programming interface call to generate an appropriate response to the passenger transaction. Appropriate resources are dispatched that are defined in the response to the query to service the passenger transaction.

Claims

1. A system for controlling a passenger entertainment system, including a cabin file server with one or more components for controlling one or more aspects of the passenger entertainment system, comprising:

a database in the cabin file server containing data that includes information relating to services provided by the passenger entertainment system and the resources that provide the services;

the cabin file server comprising a plurality of cabin application programming interface calls corresponding to the plurality of services provided by the passenger entertainment system and for processing an operator request to generate a database query using a selected cabin application programming interface call corresponding to said operator request;

a database server in the cabin file server coupled to the database for querying the database using the selected cabin application programming interface call to generate an appropriate response to the operator request; and

a predefined set of resources, selected ones of which are dispatched to service the operator request in accordance with the response to the query.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the cabin file server processes any cabin application programming interface call relating to passenger entertainment system control services, movie cycle services, video services, video announcement services, game rental services, movie sales services, catalog sales services, drink sales services, duty free sales services, landscape camera services, media server services, Internet services, and video teleconferencing services.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the cabin file server:

initiates the cabin application programming interface call in response to the operator request that corresponds to the particular service; and

generates the database query in response to the cabin application programming interface call.

4. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein the cabin file server:

routes the database query to a database server coupled to the database; and

generates the response to the database query by outputting selected data from the database.

5. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the database server comprises a standard query language (SQL) database server and the database comprises a relational database coupled to the SQL database server.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the database server comprises a standard query language (SQL) database server, and the database comprises a relational database coupled to the SQL database server.

7. The system as recited in claim further comprising a primary access terminal having a graphical user interface that interfaces to the cabin file server and provides an interface for use by an operator to configure and operate the system and provide the operator requests.

8. A system for controlling a passenger entertainment system including a cabin file server with one or more components for controlling one or more aspects of the passenger entertainment system, said cabin file server comprising:

a plurality of interfaces that interface to components of the passenger entertainment system;

a standard query language (SQL) database server having a database containing information relating to each of the components of the system that allow communication with and/or control of these components and information relating to services offered by the system; and

a services function containing a plurality of cabin application programming interface calls that communicate queries relating to the services offered by the system to the SQL database server to retrieve information defining the selected product or service and generate an appropriate response to operator requests.

9. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein the cabin application programming interface calls have predefined formats for each of the services.

10. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein the services include passenger entertainment system control services, movie cycle services, video services, video announcement services, game rental services, movie sales services, catalog sales services, drink sales services, duty free sales services, landscape camera services, media server services, Internet services, and video teleconferencing services.

11. The system as recited in claim 8 further comprising a primary access terminal having a graphical user interface that interfaces to the services function and provides an interface for use by an operator to configure and operate the system with the operator requests.

12. The system as recited in claim 11 further comprising a cabin applications programming interface library for receiving operator requests from the graphical user interface and providing the request to the services function.

13. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein the cabin file server:

initiates the cabin application programming interface call in response to the operator request that corresponds to the particular service; and

generates the database query in response to the cabin application programming interface call.

14. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein the cabin file server:

routes the database query to the SQL database server coupled to the database; and

generates the response to the database query by outputting selected data from the database.