Infrastructure and method for geography based vehicle alert

• US 8,031,114 B2
• Filed: 02/25/2009
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lautenbach, Frank, Kellermeier, Dirk, Lorenz, Simon
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAN, DAO LINDA
• Application Number:
  US12/392,291
• Publication Number:
  US 20090243925A1
• Time in Patent Office: 951 Days
• Field of Search: 342/357.25, 342/357.43, 342/357.64, 342/450, 342/457
• US Class Current: 342/357.64
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/102 a signal being sent to a remote location, e.g. a radio signal being transmitted to a police station, a security company or the owner
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/14 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/14 by lifting or attempted removal of hand-portable articles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/207 with respect to certain areas, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas with possible alerting when inside or outside boundaries
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

With the present invention a cost effective infrastructure for geofencing of vehicles is provided which is able to monitor a large amount of complex geofences. In addition, a reliable method for geofencing of vehicles in real-time is provided.

Claims

1. An infrastructure for geofencing of vehicles, comprising

means for monitoring a vehicle'"'"'s geographical position;

means for storing geofence data;

means for comparing the vehicle'"'"'s geographical position with said geofence data to determine a geofence violation; and

means to trigger a predefined action in case of geofence violation;

said infrastructure being characterized by

means for defining geographical subregions of the whole area covered by said geofence data;

means for subdividing said geofence data into sub-geofences matching said geographical subregions and for generating association information associating said sub-geofences to the corresponding geographical subregions;

a first storage device for keeping all sub-geofence data and association information;

a second storage device for keeping association information and the sub-geofence data of at least one selected geographical subregion;

means for locating the vehicle in one of said geographical subregions on the base of the vehicle'"'"'s geographical position and said definition of geographical subregions; and

means for restricting the determination of a geofence violation to a comparison of the vehicle'"'"'s position with the sub-geofence data of the thus identified geographical subregion.

2. The infrastructure according to claim 1, wherein said means for monitoring the vehicle'"'"'s geographical position comprise a GPS receiver.

3. The infrastructure according to claim 1, wherein an off-line compiler is for defining geographical subregions.

4. The infrastructure according to claim 3, wherein an off-line compiler is provided for subdividing said geofence data into sub-geofences matching said geographical subregions.

5. The infrastructure according to claim 4, wherein an off-line compiler is provided for generating association information associating said sub-geofences to the corresponding geographical subregions.

6. The infrastructure according to claim 5, wherein an off-line compiler is also provided for storing the resulting data structures-sub-geofence data together with association information-on said first storage device.

7. The infrastructure according to claim 1, wherein said first storage device comprises a non volatile memory for storing said sub-geofence data together with said association information.

8. The infrastructure according to claim 1, wherein said second storage device comprises a RAM memory for storing association information and the sub-geofence data of at least one selected geographical subregion.

9. The infrastructure according to claim 1, wherein said first storage device and said second storage device are accessible by a μ

-controller

said second storage device for identifying those sub-geofences which are associated with the geographical subregion, where the vehicle has been located,

said first and second storage device for loading said identified sub-geofence data from said first storage device into said second storage device, and

said second storage device for comparing the vehicle'"'"'s position with the said identified sub-geofence data.

11. The method according to claim 7, wherein said sub-geofence data is associated to the tiles of a tile map representing the subregions of the whole geofence area.

12. The method according to claim 7, wherein once before monitoring the vehicle'"'"'s position to determine geofence violation all sub-geofence data of the whole area to be observed together with the corresponding association information is stored in a first storage device;

and

association information is stored in a second storage device.

13. The method according to claim 8, wherein said tile map association information is grouped according to geographically linked subsets of tiles of said tile map and wherein only a group of association information is loaded into the second storage device depending on the geographical subregion where the vehicle has been located.

14. The method according to claim 9, wherein only the sub-geofence data of that geographical subregion, where the vehicle has been located, is loaded into the second storage device for comparison with the vehicle'"'"'s position.

10. A method for geofencing of vehicles, comprising

monitoring of the vehicle'"'"'s geographical position;

comparing the vehicle'"'"'s position with geofence data to determine geofence violation; and

triggering a predefined action in case of geofence violation;

said method being characterized by

defining geographical subregions;

subdividing said geofence data into sub-geofences matching said geographical subregions;

generating association information associating said sub-geofences to the corresponding geographical subregions;

locating the vehicle in one of said geographical subregions on the base of the vehicle'"'"'s geographical position and said definition of geographical subregions; and

restricting the determination of a geofence violation to a comparison of the vehicle'"'"'s position with the sub-geofence data of the thus identified geographical subregion.