Communication device

• US 9,549,369 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2015
• Issued: 01/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Suzuki, Tadao
• Primary Examiner(s): Elliott, IV, Benjamin H
• Application Number:
  US14/660,158
• Publication Number:
  US 20150282065A1
• Time in Patent Office: 672 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/102 a signal being sent to a remote location, e.g. a radio signal being transmitted to a police station, a security company or the owner
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 where the origin of the information is a central station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096791 where the origin of the information is another vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental
• 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 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• 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 52/02 Power saving arrangements in wired systems H04L12/12; signaling of mobile application services, e.g. low battery notifications H04W4/20
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A communication device has an information transmission setting process that obtains state information indicative of a self-vehicle state, and determines whether the state information satisfies a transmission stop condition for stopping a transmission of position information. Further, based on the obtained state information, the process determines whether the self-vehicle is in an abnormal state indicative of an abnormality of the self-vehicle. Then, if the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and the abnormal state is not detected, the process stops the transmission of the position information. If the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and the abnormal state is already detected, the process allows a periodic transmission of the position information.

Claims

1. A communication device that is installed in a movable object to perform information communication with an other communication device, the communication device comprising:

a vehicle state obtainer obtaining state information indicative of a state of the movable object;

a position obtainer obtaining position information that includes a position of the movable object;

a stop condition determiner determining whether external information incoming from an external device satisfies a preset transmission stop condition for stopping a transmission of information via the information communication;

an abnormality detector detecting that the movable object is in an abnormal state based on the state information obtained by the vehicle state obtainer; and

a transmission controller performing the transmission of position information according to a satisfaction of the preset transmission stop condition, wherein

when the transmission controller determines that (i) the stop condition determiner has determined that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and (ii) the abnormality detector has not detected the abnormal state, the transmission controller stops the transmission of the position information obtained from the position obtainer, and

when the transmission controller determines that (i) the stop condition determiner has determined that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and (ii) the abnormality detector has detected the abnormal state, the transmission controller performs the transmission of the position information obtained from the position obtainer as the information communication.

2. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the abnormality detector detects the abnormal state of the movable object when the state information obtained from the vehicle state obtainer is an accident-fault state that indicates at least one of an abnormality of the movable object or an accident involving the movable object.

3. The communication device of claim 2, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer obtains the state information based on an operation state of a hazard lamp switch that switches ON/OFF a hazard lamp on the movable object, and

the abnormality detector detects the accident-fault state based on the state information indicating a switch ON operation state of the hazard lamp switch.

4. The communication device of claim 2, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer obtains the state information based on a deployment state of an airbag, and

the abnormality detector detects the accident-fault state based on the state information indicating that the airbag is deployed.

5. The communication device of claim 2, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer obtains the state information indicating whether an other device installed in the movable object has a fault, and

the abnormality detector detects the accident-fault state based on the state information indicating that the other device has a fault.

6. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the abnormality detector detects the abnormal state when the state information from the vehicle state obtainer indicates that the movable object is in a stolen state.

7. The communication device of claim 6, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer obtains the state information indicating whether the movable object is in the stolen state from the other communication device operating outside of the movable object.

8. The communication device of claim 6, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer obtains, from a theft prevention device that is installed in the movable object, the state information based on the state information indicating whether the movable object is in the stolen state.

9. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the movable object is an automobile,

the vehicle state obtainer obtains an open-closed state of a door of the movable object as the state information, and

the abnormality detector detects the abnormal state as the state information of the vehicle state obtainer indicating that the door of the movable object is in an open state.

10. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the external device is an internal combustion engine, and

the stop condition determiner determines that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied when the external information incoming from the external device in the movable object indicates that the engine is stopped.

11. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

when the external information is information regarding whether a transmission of the position information is required, which is indicated by an operation state of a transmission controller operation switch that is installed in the movable object, the stop condition determiner determines that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied if the external information incoming from the transmission controller operation switch indicates that the transmission of the position information is not required.

12. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the stop condition determiner determines based on external information that is transmitted from the other communication device and indicative of whether the other communication device is allowed to transmit position information, and

the stop condition determiner determines that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied when the external information that is transmitted from the other communication device indicates that the transmission of the position information is prohibited.

13. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the movable object is an automobile, and

the transmission controller stops the transmission of the position information when the position information from the position obtainer indicates that a current position of the movable object is not on a road.

14. The communication device of claim 1, wherein

the vehicle state obtainer repeatedly obtains the state information,

the position obtainer repeatedly obtains the position information,

the stop condition determiner determines whether the state information satisfies the preset transmission stop condition when the stop condition determiner obtains the state information, and

the transmission controller is equipped with a transmission interval adjuster that

(i) performs the transmission of position information at predetermined intervals when the stop condition determiner determines that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and the abnormality detector detects the abnormal state, and

(ii) sets a longer transmission interval in proportion to an amount of a lapse time after the detection of the abnormal state by the abnormality detector when the stop condition determiner determines that the preset transmission stop condition is satisfied and the abnormality detector detects the abnormal state.