Autonomous vehicle theft prevention

• US 9,688,244 B2
• Filed: 06/15/2015
• Issued: 06/27/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Martin, Douglas Raymond, Rockwell, Mark Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Zecher, Dede
• Assistant Examiner(s): LAKHIA, VIRAL S
• Application Number:
  US14/739,637
• Publication Number:
  US 20160362084A1
• Time in Patent Office: 743 Days
• Field of Search: 705 13, 455414
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/00 Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles locks for vehicles E05B77/00-E05B85/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/34 Route searching; Route guidance
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/362 received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/88 Detecting or preventing theft or loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/84 Vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0866 involving user or device identifiers, e.g. serial number, physical or biometrical information, DNA, hand-signature or measurable physical characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0872 using geo-location information, e.g. location data, time, relative position or proximity to other entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3297 involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps

Abstract

A destination request may specify a destination location for an autonomous vehicle identified by a vehicle identifier. The request may be for uniqueness of a timestamp of the destination request. An encrypted payload of the request may be decrypted to identify the destination location using a long key associated with the vehicle identifier and indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp. A driving command may be sent to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination location.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a server, including memory and one or more hardware processors, configured to

receive, over a network from a requesting device, an encrypted payload of a destination request specifying a destination location for an autonomous vehicle, the destination request including a vehicle identifier in a header of the destination request,

validate uniqueness of a timestamp of the destination request,

retrieve a long key from a data store of the server by querying the data store for the Ion key associated with the vehicle identifier,

decrypt the encrypted payload to identify the destination location using a long key indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp, and

send a driving command to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination location.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to raise an alert when validation of uniqueness of the timestamp of the destination request fails.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the encrypted payload.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to decrypt the encrypted payload by performing an inverse of a mathematical operation performed, using an unencrypted payload and the long key, to encrypt the encrypted payload.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the encrypted payload includes the vehicle identifier in encrypted form, and the server is further configured to validate the destination request by comparing the vehicle identifier included in the header and a vehicle identifier decrypted from the encrypted payload.

7. A system comprising:

a mobile device configured to

receive a destination location for an autonomous vehicle;

generate a destination request, including a packet header specifying a timestamp and a vehicle identifier of the autonomous vehicle, specifying the destination location;

identify a key offset into a long key using the timestamp;

encrypt a payload of the destination request using the key offset; and

send the destination request to a server to forward to the autonomous vehicle.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the mobile device is further configured to retrieve the long key from storage of the mobile device.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the payload of the destination request.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the mobile device is further configured to encrypt the payload by performing a reversible mathematical operation using the payload and the long key.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

12. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a request specifying a destination for an autonomous vehicle identified by a vehicle identifier included in a header of the request;

validating uniqueness of a request timestamp for the vehicle identifier;

retrieving a long key from a data store by querying the data store for the long key associated with the vehicle identifier;

decrypting a request payload to identify the destination using the long key indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp; and

sending a driving command to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising raising an alert when validation of uniqueness of the request timestamp fails.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the payload.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising decrypting the payload by performing a reverse of a mathematical operation performed using an unencrypted payload and the long key to encrypt the payload.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the payload includes the vehicle identifier in encrypted form, and further comprising validating the request by matching the vehicle identifier included in the header and a vehicle identifier decrypted from the payload.