Unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system

• US 9,443,360 B1
• Filed: 02/27/2015
• Issued: 09/13/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TrueLite Trace, Inc.
• Original Assignee: TrueLite Trace, Inc.
• Inventors: Kwak, Sung Bok
• Primary Examiner(s): Zanelli, Michael J
• Application Number:
  US14/634,496
• Publication Number:
  US 20160253849A1
• Time in Patent Office: 564 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/007 using microprocessors or computers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2205/02 using a vehicle scan tool
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• 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: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561

Abstract

A novel on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system is capable of dynamically decoding commonly-known standard OBD formats as well as esoterically-customized and/or non-standard OBD formats that are initially unrecognized by a generic OBD data reader unit. The novel OBD protocol interpreter and conversion system includes an OBD protocol converter (OPC) unit that can be plugged to a vehicle OBD unit for seamlessly converting any types of standard and non-standard OBD formats to an OBD format compatible for real-time remote vehicle monitoring. For the esoterically-customized and/or non-standard OBD formats that cannot be decoded within the OPC alone, an unknown OBD protocol analysis module and a new OBD protocol interpreter development unit that are located remotely outside the vehicle can create installable new OBD interpreter codes, and update the OPC'"'"'s OBD library and decoding units accordingly to enable seamless decoding of the esoterically-customized and/or non-standard OBD formats.

Claims

1. An unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system for remote vehicle OBD monitoring, the unknown OBD protocol interpreter and conversion system comprising:

a vehicle on-board diagnostics (OBD) unit connected to an engine control unit or a vehicular control chipset of a vehicle to record, diagnose, and generate vehicle speed data, acceleration and deceleration data, ambient air temperature data, and other vehicle diagnostics data as a raw OBD data stream;

an on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol converter unit connected to the vehicle on-board diagnostics unit, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit is configured to decode an unknown OBD protocol to an OBD protocol library as well as a known OBD protocol to the OBD protocol library, wherein the unknown OBD protocol is correctly decoded by saving the raw OBD data stream, transmitting the raw OBD data stream and a request for analysis of the unknown OBD protocol to a remote monitoring station located remotely outside of the vehicle, receiving installable new OBD interpreter codes from a new OBD interpreter development unit, which is a machine-learning module with artificial intelligence in the remote monitoring station, and interpreting the unknown OBD protocol with the installable new OBD interpreter codes updated in the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit;

an on-board data transceiver unit connected to the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit, wherein the on-board data transceiver unit is configured to transmit information to or receive the information from the new OBD interpreter development unit via a data communication network; and

the data communication network configured to provide a wireless data information transfer between the OBD data transceiver unit and the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit.

2. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, further comprising an unknown OBD protocol analysis module connected to the new OBD interpreter development unit in the remote monitoring station, wherein the unknown OBD protocol analysis module generates a preliminary comparison between a data format of the unknown OBD protocol sent by the vehicle on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit and another data format of a standardized OBD protocol.

3. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit includes an OBD protocol detection module, a known OBD protocol interpreter module, an unknown OBD protocol capture module, an unknown OBD protocol upload module, a new OBD interpreter download module for the unknown OBD protocol, an unknown OBD protocol interpreter module, a vehicle OBD unit connector module, and an OBD data transceiver unit connector module.

4. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 3, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit further includes a memory unit and a CPU to execute one or more modules in the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit.

5. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit includes an installer unit for incorporating the installable new OBD interpreter codes in the OBD protocol library.

6. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit detects the known OBD protocol to the OBD protocol library by comparing the raw OBD data stream received from the vehicle on-board diagnostics unit with a plurality of OBD data formats in the OBD protocol library, and finding a successful match for a particular OBD data format.

7. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 6, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit decodes the known OBD protocol by utilizing a decoder of the particular OBD data format that matched correctly with the raw OBD data stream.

8. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit detects the unknown OBD protocol to the OBD protocol library by comparing the raw OBD data stream received from the vehicle on-board diagnostics unit with a plurality of OBD data formats in the OBD protocol library, and then failing to find a successful match between the raw OBD data stream and the plurality of OBD data formats.

9. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit further includes one or more OBD interpreter chips for decoding the unknown OBD protocol and the known OBD protocol.

10. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the unknown OBD protocol is in a region-specific, model-specific, or maker-specific custom OBD data format, which is not recognizable by a generic OBD data reader unit.

11. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the on-board diagnostics protocol converter unit interprets the known OBD protocol and the unknown OBD protocol from the raw OBD data stream, and generates a different OBD data format that is compatible to various components of a remote vehicle OBD monitoring system.

12. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle is a truck, a van, a bus, a taxi, or a passenger vehicle.

13. The unknown on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol interpreter and conversion system of claim 1, wherein the data communication network is a cellular network, a satellite network, or a land-mobile radio network.