Detecting the presence of a handheld communication device in a vehicle

• US 9,408,043 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2014
• Issued: 08/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Mannikka, Matthew R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Michael T
• Application Number:
  US14/282,840
• Publication Number:
  US 20150341757A1
• Time in Patent Office: 805 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561-4565
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/48 for in-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

A system and method for determining whether a handheld communication device (HCD) is located inside a vehicle includes: receiving at a central facility a request to locate the HCD; sending a message to the vehicle with an instruction to determine if the HCD is present in the vehicle; receiving a response from the vehicle that indicates whether or not the HCD is present in the vehicle; and transmitting a message to a user of the HCD indicating whether the HCD is located inside of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A method of determining whether a handheld communication device (HCD) is located inside a vehicle, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving at a central facility a request to locate the HCD;

(b) sending a message from the central facility to the vehicle with an instruction to begin listening for an acoustical signal that is generated by the HCD;

(c) sending a message from the central facility to the HCD with an instruction to generate the acoustical signal;

(d) receiving a response from the vehicle at the central facility that indicates whether or not the HCD generated the acoustical signal; and

(e) transmitting a message from the central facility to a user of the HCD indicating whether the HCD is located inside of the vehicle based on whether or not the vehicle detected the acoustical signal.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining whether the acoustical signal is detected at the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of receiving a smart phone identifier at the central facility and transmitting the smart phone identifier to the vehicle.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of receiving a vehicle identifier at the central facility and transmitting the vehicle identifier to the vehicle.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of transmitting from the central facility to a second central facility an instruction for the HCD to generate an acoustical signal.

6. A method of determining whether a handheld communication device (HCD) is located inside a vehicle, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving at a central facility a request to locate the HCD;

(b) sending a message from the central facility to the vehicle with an instruction to begin listening for an acoustical signal that is generated by the HCD;

(c) sending a message from the central facility to the HCD with an instruction to generate the acoustical signal;

(d) determining whether the acoustical signal is detected at the vehicle; and

(e) transmitting a message from the central facility to a user of the HCD indicating whether the HCD is located inside of the vehicle based on step (d).

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of storing at the vehicle one or more sound files that each contain a recording of an acoustical signal for a particular smart phone.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising the steps of receiving a smart phone identifier at the central facility and transmitting the smart phone identifier to the vehicle.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising the steps of receiving a vehicle identifier at the central facility and transmitting the vehicle identifier to the vehicle.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of transmitting from the central facility to a second central facility an instruction for the HCD to generate an acoustical signal.

11. A method of determining whether a handheld communication device (HCD) is located inside a vehicle, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving at the vehicle an instruction to begin listening for an acoustical signal generated by the HCD;

(b) listening at the vehicle for the acoustical signal generated by the HCD in response to a message sent to the HCD from a central facility;

(c) detecting the absence or presence of the acoustical signal generated by the HCD at the vehicle; and

(d) transmitting a message to a central facility indicating whether the vehicle detected the acoustical signal.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of storing at the vehicle one or more sound files that each contain a recording of an acoustical signal for a particular smart phone.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of receiving a smart phone identifier at the vehicle.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of receiving a vehicle identifier at the vehicle.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of transmitting from the central facility to a second central facility an instruction for the HCD to generate an acoustical signal.