Management of moving objects

• US 9,538,327 B1
• Filed: 07/17/2015
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gotoh, Yasuhisa, Nishimura, Yasutaka, Tashiro, Takahito
• Primary Examiner(s): Bolourchi, Nader
• Application Number:
  US14/802,289
• Publication Number:
  US 20160373892A1
• Time in Patent Office: 536 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.3
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• 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 4/024 Guidance services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]

Abstract

A system comprising a plurality of first subsystems respectively operable to manage a plurality of first regions in a geographic space; and a plurality of second subsystems respectively operable to manage a plurality of second regions in the geographic space, wherein the plurality of first regions and the plurality of second regions are arranged such that at least one of the first regions covers a border of one or more of the second regions and at least of the second regions covers a border of one or more of the first regions.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computing device containing a processor and a computer-readable tangible storage device, the method comprising:

respectively managing, by the computing device, a plurality of first regions in a geographic space by a plurality of first subsystems; and

respectively managing, by the computing device, a plurality of second regions in the geographic space by a plurality of second subsystems,

managing, by the computing device, a moving object from among at least a candidate first subsystem of the plurality of first subsystems and a candidate second subsystem of the plurality of second subsystems based on the location of the moving object within the first region managed by the candidate first subsystem and the second region managed by the candidate second subsystem;

wherein the plurality of first subsystems and the plurality of second subsystems are further operable to manage moving objects that travel routes in the plurality of the first regions and the plurality of the second regions, respectively; and

wherein the plurality of first regions and the plurality of second regions are arranged such that at least one of the plurality of the first regions covers a border of at least one of the plurality of the second regions and at least one of the plurality of the second regions covers a border of at least one of the plurality of the first regions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of first regions and the plurality of second regions are arranged such that each of the plurality of the first regions covers the border of at least one of the plurality of the second regions and each of the plurality of the second regions covers a border of at least one of the plurality of the first regions.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the region manager selects the main subsystem based on the distance between the location of the moving object and the center of a first region of the plurality of the first regions managed by the candidate first subsystem relative to the distance between the location of the moving object and the center of a second region of the plurality of the second regions managed by the candidate second subsystem.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the region manager changes the main subsystem to the candidate second subsystem if the center of the second region managed by the candidate second subsystem is the second closest to the location of the moving object and the candidate first subsystem is down.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the region manager selects the main subsystem based on the distance between the location of the moving object and the border of the first region managed by the candidate first subsystem relative to the distance between the location of the moving object and the border of the second region managed by the candidate second subsystem.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the region manager further selects the main subsystem based on a travelling direction of the moving object.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the main subsystem provides the moving object with information that assists the moving object with traveling in the geographic space.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the size and shape of each of the plurality of the first regions and each of the plurality of the second regions are substantially identical.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of the first regions and the plurality of the second regions are quadrangular areas.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising a plurality of third subsystems operable to respectively manage a plurality of third regions in the geographic space,

wherein the plurality of first regions, the plurality of second regions, and the plurality of third regions are arranged such that each of the plurality of the third regions covers the border of at least one of the plurality of the first regions and a border of at least one of the plurality of the second regions.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of the first regions, the plurality of the second regions, and the third regions are hexagonal areas.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of the second regions covers an intersection point of the borders of at least two first regions.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the size of each of the plurality of the first regions is substantially identical, the size of each of the plurality of the second regions is substantially identical, and the size of each of the plurality of the first regions and the size of each of the plurality of the second regions are different.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the size of each of the plurality of the second regions is larger than the size of each of the plurality of the first regions, and each second subsystem is operable to execute tasks using information relating to a broader region than tasks executed by each first subsystem.