Software architecture for developing in-vehicle software applications

• US 9,081,648 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2012
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Motor Company
• Original Assignee: Ford Motor Company
• Inventors: Srinivasan, Hari, Watson, David Leslie, Whitaker, Matthew, Reyna, Emily
• Primary Examiner(s): DAO, THUY CHAN
• Application Number:
  US13/420,786
• Publication Number:
  US 20120173044A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,216 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/113 for determining or recording eye movement
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/18 for vehicle drivers or machine operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/76 Adapting program code to run in a different environment; Porting

Abstract

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a software architecture encoded on a computer readable medium is disclosed. The software architecture can be utilized for developing in-vehicle software applications for installation and execution on an in-vehicle computer system. The software architecture includes a number of vehicle application program interfaces (APIs) for accessing vehicles systems or data and for developing in-vehicle software applications; and a number of policy restrictions underlying the vehicle APIs for restricting the level of access to vehicle systems and data while the in-vehicle software application is being developed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a request, from an in-vehicle application, for vehicle system or data access;

determining a current practical-driver-attention load based at least in part on time-of-day; and

at least based on the current practical-driver-attention load, restricting the request access to the vehicle system or data by preventing the request access to a driver-viewable system display while permitting the same request access to a passenger-viewable system display not viewable by the driver.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the current practical-driver-attention load also varies with navigable degree of difficulty of road or route.

3. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request, from an in-vehicle application, for vehicle system or data access;

determining a current practical-driver-attention load based at least in part on time-of-day; and

at least based on the current practical-driver-attention load, restricting the request access to the vehicle system or data by preventing access to a driver-viewable system display and permitting the same request access to another passenger-viewable system display not viewable by the driver.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the restricting increases in degree as a current practical-driver-attention load decreases.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the current practical-driver-attention load is lowered based on a late-night time of day.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the current practical-driver-attention load also varies with navigable degree of difficulty of road or route.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the restricting includes locking out requests requiring a level of projected driver attention above a threshold.

8. A system comprising:

a processor configured to

receive a request, from an in-vehicle application, for vehicle system or data access;

determine a current practical-driver-attention load based at least in part on time-of-day; and

at least based on the current practical-driver-attention load, restrict the request access to the vehicle system or data by preventing the request access to a driver-viewable system display while permitting the same request access to a passenger-viewable system display not viewable by the driver.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the current practical-driver-attention load is lowered based on a night driving condition.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the current practical-driver-attention load varies with a navigable degree of difficulty of road or route.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to restrict the request access by locking out requests requiring a level of projected driver attention above a threshold.