Local decision policies about the sharing of sensed data that enhance privacy and lower communication costs for services that aggregate data from personal devices

• US 8,315,786 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Issued: 11/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric J., Canan, Jonathan David, Kimchi, Gur
• Primary Examiner(s): BEAUCHAINE, MARK J
• Application Number:
  US12/163,631
• Publication Number:
  US 20090326791A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,607 Days
• Field of Search: 701/119, 701/117, 701/118, 701/120, 340/934, 340/936, 340/991, 340/901, 340/902, 340/903, 340/933
• US Class Current: 701/119
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3438 Rendez-vous, i.e. searching a destination where several users can meet, and the routes to this destination for these users; Ride sharing, i.e. searching a route such that at least two users can share a vehicle for at least part of the route
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3461 Preferred or disfavoured areas, e.g. dangerous zones, toll or emission zones, intersections, manoeuvre types, segments such as motorways, toll roads, ferries
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/00 Traffic control systems for road vehicles arrangement of road signs or traffic signals E01F9/00 ; automatic vehicle control B62D
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0104 Measuring and analyzing of parameters relative to traffic conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0112 from the vehicle, e.g. floating car data [FCD]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0141 for traffic information dissemination
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/052 with provision for determining speed or overspeed speed measuring in general G01P
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0965 responding to signals from another vehicle, e.g. emergency vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0968 Systems involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/20 Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/22 Platooning, i.e. convoy of communicating vehicles

Abstract

Velocity information can be beneficial to various entities including other vehicles and a central traffic monitoring and routing system. Vehicles with sensors can serve as velocity probes to update speeds that are shared via a more global service. However, individuals may be reluctant to provide location and velocity information given privacy preferences. Local policies about sharing personal data are described that can be harnessed to enhance privacy while minimizing communication costs. The local data-sharing policies allow devices to monitor their own speeds and locations and to employ models and analyses that determine the value of sharing flow information with a larger service in accordance with privacy preferences, and to make local decisions as to when to respond to broadcasted queries for specific information, while minimizing the redundancy of signals from multiple vehicles.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a resolution component that determines that travel information for a vehicle is to be transmitted to an auxiliary entity, the determination based at least in part on a balance among a policy to regulate velocity information, a need of an entity that requests the travel information, and at least one contextual factor; and

a contact component that enables emission of the travel information based at least on the determination by the resolution component, wherein the contact component further enables sending to at least one supplemental vehicle a suppression notice to suppress sending of similar travel information for the at least one supplemental vehicle.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the travel information is location and velocity information of the vehicle that associates with the resolution component and the contact component.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a range component that obtains a distance from a personal landmark;

a check component that automatically determines that the travel information is not to be transmitted, based at least on a determination that the vehicle associated with the resolution component is within a standard distance from the personal landmark; and

an identification component that designates a location as the personal landmark based at least on a measurement of an amount of time spent at the location by at least one of a user, the vehicle associated with the resolution component and the contact component, or an entity that retains the resolution component and the contact component.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a choice component that selects at least one instance when the travel information is to be transmitted, the resolution component determines if the travel information is to be transmitted as a function of the selection and the travel information is location and velocity information of the vehicle that associates with the resolution component and the contact component and at least one instance is selected when velocity of the vehicle is above, at, or below a threshold.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a choice component that selects at least one instance when the travel information is to be transmitted, the resolution component determines if the travel information is to be transmitted as a function of the selection and the travel information is velocity information, location information, and direction of travel of the vehicle that associates with the resolution component and the contact component and at least one instance is selected as a function of a current velocity and an anticipated velocity derived from either posted speeds, an expected speed for a road segment that is transmitted from a central service or shared amongst vehicles autonomously in an ad-hoc fashion, a stored table of velocities, or use of a predictive traffic model.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the travel information is the velocity information, the location information, and the direction of travel and the velocity information is selected based on a difference of the current velocity and the anticipated velocity derived from the posted speeds, the expected speed for the road segment that is transmitted from the central service or shared amongst vehicles autonomously in an ad-hoc fashion, the stored table of velocities, use of the predictive traffic model, or a combination thereof.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the travel information is the velocity information, the location information, the direction of travel, and historical variance of road speeds of a region overall or based on a current or related context is employed in the determination to share velocity information.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the travel information is the velocity information, the location information, the direction of travel, and a measure of expected value of information or expected value of information weighted by usage of a segment is used in the determination to share velocity information.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transmission component that emits the travel information to the auxiliary entity when emission is enabled, the transmission component transfers the suppression notice to the at least one supplemental vehicle, the resolution component and the contact component associated with the vehicle.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a transmission component that emits the travel information to the auxiliary entity when emission is enabled; and

a transaction component that performs a reward function in relation to the emission of the travel information, wherein the reward function includes at least one of transfer of money to an account associated with a user, transfer of a pathway toll credit, or transfer of points that can be used to obtain a product or service.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a transmission component that emits the travel information to the auxiliary entity when emission is enabled;

a track component that measures a number of instances the transmission component emits the travel information; and

a relationship component that determines that the number of instances is at or above a threshold to enable the vehicle associated with the resolution component and the contact component to gain membership in a travel group, membership in the travel group enables the vehicle to gather travel information that concerns at least one other vehicle of the travel group or other services.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising an obtainment component that collects a request to transmit the travel information, and wherein the travel information is emitted at a random time after collection of the request within a specified tolerance.

13. A method, comprising:

selecting at least one vehicle;

determining an appropriate time to request to collect velocity information from the at least one vehicle;

transferring an instruction to the at least one vehicle that the velocity information is to be emitted at the determined appropriate time; and

collecting the velocity information, including relocating the velocity information from the at least one vehicle to at least one other vehicle.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

identifying a previous instance of collecting information; and

determining that the information collected in the previous instance is of an appropriate freshness level.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising classifying an area upon which the velocity information is to be collected, the selected vehicle is located upon the classified area.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

transferring the instruction to a group of more than one vehicle;

obtaining a response from one vehicle of the group of more than one vehicle; and

transmitting a suppression order to at least one member of the group of more than one vehicle, the suppression order requests that the velocity information not be sent.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

scanning for a matching vehicle that matches a location range and directional range; and

halting scanning upon discovering the matching vehicle, discovery occurs upon a response from the matching vehicle.

18. A computer-readable storage media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform actions, comprising:

identifying that velocity information of a vehicle is to be transmitted to an auxiliary entity based at least on a comparison of a sensed velocity against a threshold;

determining that the vehicle is outside a specified range of a personal landmark;

determining that the vehicle has not received a suppression instruction from a supplemental vehicle, the suppression instruction instructing against transmission of the velocity information for the vehicle; and

enabling the velocity information to be transferred based at least on the determination that the vehicle is outside the specified range and on the determination that the vehicle has not received the suppression instruction from the supplemental vehicle.