Vehicle event recorder systems and networks having integrated cellular wireless communications systems

• US 20070219686A1
• Filed: 03/16/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Omnitracs Holdings, LLC)
• Sponsoring Entity: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Omnitracs Holdings, LLC)
• Inventors: Plante, James
• GRANTED PATENT: US 9,201,842 B2
• Time in patent office: 0 Days
• US Class Current: 701/35
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/00 Optical viewing arrangements house mirrors and spies A47G1/00; antiglare equipment, e.g. polarising, for windscreens or windows B60J3/00; visual aids for tractors B62D49/0614; devices per se G02B
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 11/04 Mounting of cameras operative during drive; Arrangement of controls thereof relative to the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0232 for measuring vehicle parameters and indicating critical, abnormal or dangerous conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/8006 for monitoring and displaying scenes of vehicle interior, e.g. for monitoring passengers or cargo
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/8073 for vehicle security, e.g. parked vehicle surveillance, burglar detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2209/10 Comprising means for protocol conversion, i.e. format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0866 the electronic data carrier being a digital video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0891 Video recorder in combination with video camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 adapted for proprietary or special purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in a car or remote metering networks home automation networks H04L12/2803; total factory control characterised by the network communication G05B19/4185; games involving transmission systems A63F13/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/23222 Computer-aided capture of images, e.g. transfer from script file into camera, check of taken image quality, advice or proposal for image composition or decision on when to take image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/23229 comprising further processing of the captured image without influencing the image pickup process image processing in general G06T
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/042 Public Land Mobile systems, e.g. cellular systems

Abstract

Vehicle event recorder systems are arranged to be in constant communication with remote servers and administrators via mobile wireless cellular networks. Vehicle event recorders equipped with video cameras capture video and other data records of important events relating to vehicle use. These data are then transmitted over special communications networks having very high coverage space but limited bandwidth. A vehicle may be operated over very large region while maintaining continuous communications connections with a remote fixed server. As such, systems of these inventions may be characterized as including a mobile unit having: a video camera; a microprocessor; memory; an event trigger; and mobile wireless transceivers, and a fixed network portion including: mobile wireless cellular network, a protocol translation gateway, the Internet and an application-specific server.

Claims

1. ) Vehicle event recorder systems comprising:

a video camera;

a microprocessor;

wireless communications transceivers;

a communications network; and

a server computer, said video camera having a field-of-view coupled to environments about a vehicle and further having an electronic output coupled to said microprocessor;

said microprocessor electronically coupled to said wireless communications transceiver whereby image data captured by said video camera may be transmitted via electromagnetic radiation to said communications network; and

said communications network is coupled with said server computer.

2. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, said communications network is further defined as comprising a plurality of transceivers each spatially removed from another, each transceiver having a communication range which forms a partial overlap with the communication range of at least one other thus defining a coverage space, the extent of said coverage space being at least a few cubic miles.

3. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, said electromagnetic radiation being characterized as including frequencies between about 750 MHz and 2000 MHz whereby a system supports links of long range and modest power.

4. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 2, said communications network is further characterized as a cellular type wireless communications network, said cellular type wireless communications network includes handoff mechanisms whereby a mobile transceiver which moves from a first coverage space into a second coverage space does so without interruption in network connectivity.

5. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 2, said communications network is further characterized as comprising a wireless side and a wired side, said wireless side being a cellular type wireless communications network and said wired side including the Internet, the wireless side being coupled to the wired side via a communications and protocol gateway.

6. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 5, said gateway includes means for protocol translation between a high bandwidth wired network and a lower bandwidth wireless network.

7. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, further comprising an event trigger to detect a physical anomaly and trigger a dataset transfer from a vehicle event recorder to said communications network.

8. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, said server computer further comprises vehicle event recorder application specific software.

9. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 4, said communications network has a communications range which provides substantially continuous connectivity over the service area in which a vehicle associated with the system is used.

10. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 9, said cellular wireless communications network is comprised of a plurality of towers dispersed spatially whereby they are separated by about at least 300 meters.

11. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 5, said high bandwidth wired side comprises means for transmission of data in accordance with standards from the group including:

IP;

UDP;

TCP;

FTP;

XML; and

HTML.

12. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 5, said low bandwidth wireless side comprises means for transmission of data in accordance with standards from the group including:

PCS;

CDMA;

W-CDMA;

EDGE;

TDMA;

GPRS;

GSM;

EvDo; and

TDCDMA.

13. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, further comprising a managed loop memory arranged in conjunction with said video camera to save video series images associated with a prescribed moment in time;

said images include those captured prior to and after the prescribed moment.

14. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 13, further comprising an event trigger arranged to effect a transfer of data from said managed loop memory to a buffer memory in response to a physical anomaly.

15. ) Vehicle event recorder systems of claim 1, further comprised of a module responsive to information requests transmitted by said server computer, whereby a response returned to the server includes images from said camera.

16. ) Vehicle event recorders comprising:

a video camera;

a microprocessor; and

a cellular wireless transceiver, said cellular wireless transceiver and video camera are coupled to said microprocessor whereby images captured by said video camera are converted to first to electronic signals and thereafter to electromagnetic signals suitable for wireless transfer to cellular wireless network receiving base stations.

17. ) Vehicle event recorders of claim 16, further comprising a local memory buffer and download module, said local memory buffer being arranged to store image information associated with a plurality of events until the download module directs its transmission via said cellular wireless transceiver.

18. ) Vehicle event recorders of claim 17, said download module including a throttle responsive to a network availability measure whereby downloads are throttled in agreement with preferred network availability conditions.

19. ) Vehicle event recorders of claim 16, further comprising an event trigger arranged to detect physical anomalies and cause dataset transfers from a vehicle event recorder via said cellular wireless transceiver.

20. ) Vehicle event recorders of claim 16, further comprising a fleet member authentication client, said fleet member authentication client arranged to transact authentication procedures with a remote server whereby only authorized connections are permitted.