Systems and methods for processing vehicle sensor data

• US 10,810,806 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2018
• Issued: 10/20/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Woven By Toyota US Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Renovo Motors, Inc. (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Petousis, Ioannis, Heiser, Christopher, Davis, Owen
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Tuan C
• Application Number:
  US15/916,546
• Publication Number:
  US 20180261020A1
• Time in Patent Office: 956 Days
• Field of Search: 701 315
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0841 Registering performance data recording measured values G01D; information storage G11B
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]

Abstract

A system and method that includes collecting vehicle sensor data, wherein prioritizing vehicle sensor data includes identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data; generating a vehicle sensor data schedule, wherein generating the vehicle data schedule includes one or more of (i) identifying a transmission order for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types and (ii) identifying a storage scheme selected from a hierarchy of data storage types for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types; transforming vehicle sensor data into message data, wherein the transforming includes selectively converting one or more of the vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data to a messaging format based on the prioritization; and transmitting, via one or more selected communication networks, the message data according to the vehicle sensor data schedule.

Claims

1. A vehicle system for dynamic data selection and transmission, the vehicle system comprising:

one or more onboard vehicle sensors;

and

a vehicle computing system comprising a scheduling module wherein the vehicle computing system further comprises one or more computer processors and a non-transitory medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more computer processors, implement steps of;

collecting vehicle sensor data obtained from the one or more onboard vehicle sensors, wherein vehicle sensor data comprises one or more of raw data collected by one or more on-board sensors of a vehicle and data derived from the one or more on-board sensors of the vehicle that is synthesized or transformed from the raw to a derivative data by one or more components of the vehicle;

prioritizing the vehicle sensor data, wherein prioritizing vehicle sensor data includes identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data;

generating by the scheduling module a vehicle sensor data schedule, wherein generating the vehicle data schedule includes one or more of (i) identifying a transmission order for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types and (ii) identifying a storage scheme selected from a hierarchy of data storage types for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types, wherein the scheduling module identifies an order and time of transmission of each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data;

transforming vehicle sensor data into message data, wherein the transforming includes selectively converting one or more of the vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data to a messaging format based on the prioritization;

estimating network quality of one or more communication networks based on a vehicle route of the vehicle and data received from at least one other vehicle along the route of the vehicle;

selecting at least one communication network based on the estimated network quality; and

transmitting, via at least one selected communication network, the message data according to the vehicle sensor data schedule.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the scheduling module determines:

a transmission order of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data, and

a communication network for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the vehicle computing system selects one of a plurality of prioritization schemes for prioritizing the vehicle sensor data.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein

the route of the vehicle is a predetermined traveling path of the vehicle.

5. A method, the method comprising:

collecting vehicle sensor data, wherein vehicle sensor data comprises one or more of raw data collected by one or more on-board sensors of a vehicle and data derived from the one or more on-board sensors of the vehicle that is synthesized or transformed from the raw to a derivative data by one or more components of the vehicle;

prioritizing vehicle sensor data, wherein prioritizing vehicle sensor data includes identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data;

generating a vehicle sensor data schedule, wherein generating the vehicle data schedule includes one or more of (i) identifying a transmission order for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types and (ii) identifying a storage scheme selected from a hierarchy of data storage types for each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types;

transforming vehicle sensor data into message data, wherein the transforming includes selectively converting one or more of the vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data to a messaging format based on the prioritization;

estimating network quality of one or more communication networks based on a vehicle route of the vehicle and data received from at least one other vehicle along the route of the vehicle;

selecting at least one communication network based on the estimated network quality; and

transmitting, via at least one selected communication network, the message data according to the vehicle sensor data schedule.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

receiving a prioritization request from a remote computing system, wherein the prioritization request comprises a request for a vehicle sensor data type that is generated by the vehicle;

in response to receiving the prioritization request, identifying the vehicle sensor data type from a plurality of vehicle sensor data types within the collected vehicle sensor data,

wherein prioritizing the vehicle sensor data comprises advancing a transmission order of the vehicle sensor data type in the vehicle sensor data schedule.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

collecting network quality metrics of the one or more communication networks, wherein the network quality metrics comprises at least an available data transmission bandwidth of each of the one or more communication networks; and

determining a network quality for each of the one or more communication networks,

wherein generating the vehicle sensor data schedule is based on the determined network quality for each of the one or more communication networks.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

evaluating data packet content of the vehicle sensor data;

selectively filtering out select data frames from the data packet content redundant data with differences from prior data frames that are below a redundancy threshold,

wherein the prioritizing vehicle sensor data is based on the evaluation of the data packet content.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein

generating the vehicle sensor data schedule includes allocating each of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data to the one or more communication networks.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein

generating the vehicle sensor data schedule includes:

identifying a data buffer from a plurality of different data buffers for temporarily storing a first subset of the one or more vehicle sensor data types of the vehicle sensor data; and

selecting a second subset of the one or more vehicle sensor data types from the vehicle sensor data to transfer to a transformation module of the vehicle.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the prioritization request comprises a third-party prioritization request from a remote computing system,

the prioritization request includes a request for a specific vehicle data type of the vehicle sensor data,

prioritizing the vehicle sensor data is based on the third-party prioritization request.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprises:

dynamically re-prioritizing a ranking position of the specific vehicle data type based on the third-party prioritization request; and

scheduling the transmission of the vehicle data type based on a new ranking position in accordance with the re-prioritization.

13. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

selecting a prioritization scheme from a plurality of prioritization schemes, wherein each of the plurality of prioritization schemes includes a different set of predetermined rules for prioritizing one or more vehicle sensor data types,

wherein prioritizing one or more vehicle sensor data types is based on the selected prioritization scheme.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the plurality of prioritization schemes include prioritizing using one or more of characteristics of the vehicle sensor data, prioritizing using a prioritization request, prioritizing using an internal vehicle criterion, prioritizing using vehicle sensor data analysis, and prioritizing using derivative data of the vehicle sensor data.

15. The method of claim 5, wherein:

identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data comprises;

using a trained machine learning algorithm to predict the level of importance of vehicle sensor data for at least one of the plurality of vehicle sensor data types.

16. The method of claim 5, wherein:

identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data comprises;

determining a level of importance of at least one vehicle sensor data type based on a prioritization scheme received with a prioritization request from a remote computing system.

17. The method of claim 5, wherein:

identifying a level of importance for each of a plurality of vehicle sensor data types included in the vehicle sensor data comprises;

determining a level of importance of at least one vehicle sensor data type based on a third-party application operating with the vehicle, wherein the third-party application includes an application-specific prioritization method and/or algorithm for determining the level of importance.

18. The method of claim 5,

wherein prioritizing the vehicle sensor data includes estimating a compressibility of the vehicle sensor data type, and

wherein estimating the compressibility of the vehicle sensor data type includes identifying a minimum compression size for the vehicle sensor data type that can be used for scheduling the vehicle sensor data type to be transformed into message data and transmitted according to the vehicle sensor data schedule.

19. The method of claim 5, wherein:

transforming vehicle sensor data into message data includes converting the vehicle sensor data into a suitable format for transmission over at least one selected communication network based on prioritizing the vehicle sensor data.

20. The system according to claim 5, wherein

the route of the vehicle is a predetermined traveling path of the vehicle.