Automobile lamp device and method for transmitting signals through light thereof

• US 9,505,406 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2013
• Issued: 11/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Shanghai Koito Automotive LAMP Company Limited (City of Shanghai)
• Original Assignee: Shanghai Koito Automotive LAMP Company Limited (City of Shanghai)
• Inventors: Zhou, Shengyan, Ao, Jinlong, Li, Jingquan, Zhang, Yuan
• Primary Examiner(s): CAMBY, RICHARD M
• Application Number:
  US15/033,127
• Publication Number:
  US 20160257306A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,077 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 1/0023 the element being a sensor, e.g. distance sensor, camera
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2420/00 Indexing codes relating to the type of sensors based on the principle of their operation
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2420/403 Image sensing, e.g. optical camera
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/65 Data transmitted between vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/09 Taking automatic action to avoid collision, e.g. braking and steering
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 23/04 using light waves, e.g. infrared
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/163 involving continuous checking
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM] H04L51/04; selective video distribution H04N21/00

Abstract

It divides the network communication protocol for the communication between automobile into a software protocol layer (L1), a signal protocol layer and a physical protocol layer wherein the software protocol layer is used for checking coding and decoding the data required to be sent and received by a system, and the signal protocol layer is used for performing combined coding of data package signals and basic light signal on data packages produced by the software protocol layer according to the protocol agreement, and the physical protocol layer is used for converting digital signals and light signals mutually. A device comprises a light receiving apparatus arranged at the head of the automobile and a light emitting device, which collects the operating status information of automobile, performs information exchange with surrounding automobiles through digital information, arranged at the tail of the automobile.

Claims

1. An automobile lamp device comprises a head lamp arranged at the head of an automobile and a tail lamp arranged at the tail of the automobile, a lamp light receiving apparatus installed inside the head lamp;

and a lamp light emitting apparatus installed inside the tail light, wherein

the lamp light emitting apparatus comprising a bus data receiver, an emitting end microcontroller, a lamp driver and lamps;

the input end of said bus data receiver connects with an automobile'"'"'s CAN bus, it'"'"'s used to collect operating data of the automobile, and the input end of said emitting end microcontroller connects with the output end of the bus data receiver, it'"'"'s used to acquire the operating data of the automobile and to check a code;

the output end of said emitting end microcontroller connects with the input end of said lamp driver, it'"'"'s used to generate data after code check, and the output end of said lamp driver drives and connects with the tail lamps, it'"'"'s used to drive the luminance of the tail lamps;

the tail lamps are used to generate light signals including the operating data of the automobile and to send them out;

the lamp light receiving apparatus is composed of lens, a photosensitive module and a receiving end microcontroller, the lens is used to conduct focusing processing for the light signal received and send the light signal processed to the photosensitive module which connects with an AD port of the receiving end microcontroller, it'"'"'s used to send a voltage signal converted from the light signal to the receiving end microcontroller, the output end of said receiving end microcontroller connects with the input end of the automobile controller, it'"'"'s used to conduct analog-digital conversion and filtering processing for the voltage signal it receives, and to conduct output control signal to the automobile controller;

the lamp light receiving apparatus and the lamp light emitting apparatus including a software protocol layer, a signal protocol layer and a physical protocol layer;

the emitting end microcontroller and the receiving end microcontroller constitute the software protocol layer and the signal protocol layer;

the lamp driver, the lamp, the lens and the photosensitive module constitute physical protocol layer;

the software protocol layer is used for code checking and decoding for the data that needs to be sent and received, generating data package signal;

the signal protocol layer is used to realize the combined coding for the key light signal and data package signal generated by the software protocol layer;

the physical protocol layer is used to realize the mutual conversion between the digital signal and the optical signal.

2. The automobile lamp device of claim 1, wherein the photosensitive module receives the ray of light focused by the lens and samples the ray of light with a predetermined frequency, converts the optical signal after sampling into the voltage signal, then conducts operational amplification for the voltage signal;

then it sends the amplified voltage signal to an AD acquisition port of the receiving end microcontroller, then processes the acquired signal and obtains the final digital signal, thus completing the receiving of digital signal.

3. The automobile lamp device of claim 1, wherein the data after the code check is the check code of data is obtained from the automobile'"'"'s operational data through the code check, add the check code to the tail of automobile'"'"'s operational data, then the data after the code check is obtained.

4. The automobile lamp device of claim 1, wherein the photosensitive module is photosensitive sensor.

5. A method for transferring signals through lamplight by device of claim 1 comprises following steps:

(1) the lamp light receiving apparatus is set inside head lamps of a front automobile and a rear automobile, respectively, and the lamp light emitting apparatus is set inside tail lamps;

the lamp light receiving apparatus and the lamp light emitting apparatus;

the software protocol includes a check encoder;

the signal protocol layer in the lamp light emitting apparatus includes a data package signal transmitter, a key light generator and a data signal generator;

the signal protocol layer in the lamp light receiving apparatus includes a data package signal receiver;

the physical protocol layer in the lamp light emitting apparatus includes a signal modulator and a lamplight generator;

the physical protocol layer in lamp light receiving apparatus includes a light signal receiver and a signal demodulator;

(2) the lamp light emitting apparatus of the front automobile collects its own operational data via a bus and the check encoder in the software protocol layer conducts the code check for the operational data, gets the check code of the operational data and sends the data after the code check to the data package signal transmitter;

the check code is used for checking the data sent and received in the signal protocol layer;

(3) the data signal generator in the signal protocol layer of the lamp light emitting apparatus in the front automobile waits for the rising edge of the key light signal generated by the key light generator, when it receives the rising edge signal, it will, according to the data package generated by the data package signal transmitter, generates a data signal waveform and combines the data signal waveform with the key light signal waveform, after signal modulation, it will generate an analog-modulated luminance signal, which will drive the tail lamps through a voltage driver together with a modulated PWM signal which corresponds to the analog-modulated luminance signal and generates an optical signal;

through the luminance difference of optical signal, the data package that needs to be sent is contained in the tail lamps and sent to air medium in the form of luminance, and it'"'"'s received by the rear automobile, thus data transmission is completed;

(4) the photosensitive module in the light signal receiver in the physical protocol layer of the lamp light receiving apparatus in the rear automobile receives the optical signal sent by the front automobile, after filtering and deburring by a filter module for an analog signal received by the photosensitive module, the filtrated analog signal is obtained, then through analog-digital conversion for the filtrated analog signal, an analog-digital converter gets the signal, through sampling average for the electric level of reference voltage calibration start cycle, a reference signal is obtained;

input the signal obtained by the analog-digital converter and the reference signal to the signal comparator for signal comparison, the digital signal is obtained, thus data receiving is completed.

6. The method for transferring signals according to claim 5, wherein the lamp light receiving apparatus of the rear automobile will compare the digital signal that it gets with its own position and speed data;

obtaining the relative position relationship between the front automobile and the rear automobile;

if there is a risk of collision, the rear automobile will take the corresponding braking measure.

7. The method for transferring signals according to claim 6, wherein the rear automobile receives the speed and position information sent by the front automobile and compares the information with its own speed and position information, obtaining the time of collision that is about to happen to the automobile, namely:

8. The method for transferring signals according to claim 6, wherein the analog signal received by said photosensitive module is:

S_rec=ƒ

(S_send)+N_air

wherein S_rec is the analog signal received, S_send is original optical signal, ƒ

( ) is attenuation function in the process of optical propagation, N_air is outside noise signal.

9. The method for transferring signals according to claim 6, wherein a check coding method for the operational data of automobile in Step (2) is:

10. The method for transferring signals according to claim 6, wherein the signal protocol layer stipulates a reference luminance calibration start cycle as follows:

set valid period of lamplight in the signal protocol layer;

after the rising edge of valid period of lamplight is generated, the carrier luminance whose duration is the first predetermined cycle will be generated, and this first predetermined cycle is the reference luminance calibration start cycle.

11. The method for transferring signals according to claim 10, wherein the check code of data is obtained through the check coding of automobile'"'"'s operational data, after the check code is added to the tail of automobile'"'"'s operational data, the data after code check is obtained.

12. The method for transferring signals according to claim 11, the method for checking the data received in the physical protocol layer in the lamp light receiving apparatus:

within the reference luminance calibration start cycle and the reference luminance calibration stop cycle, sample the optical signal received by the rear automobile respectively and obtain the two reference luminance voltage averages, if their voltage difference is greater than 5%, the signal received shall be deemed invalid, the data received this time shall be discarded;

the aforesaid reference luminance calibration stop cycle means that the carrier luminance whose duration is the second predetermined cycle is sent after the data signal is sent, the duration of the second predetermined cycle is the reference luminance calibration stop cycle.

13. The method for transferring signals according to claim 12, wherein the method for checking the data sent and received in the signal protocol layer:

when the data received in the physical protocol layer is valid, in the signal protocol layer of the lamp light receiving apparatus, when the data received by the rear automobile is inconsistent with the data sent from the front automobile in the check code, the data received this time shall be discarded.