AUTOMATIC SEQUENCING BASED ON WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY

• US 20110060828A1
• Filed: 11/12/2010
• Published: 03/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Shackleton, John J., Yi, Yunjung
• Granted Patent: US 8,081,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/161 Decentralised systems, e.g. inter-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/22 Platooning, i.e. convoy of communicating vehicles

Abstract

A method of determining the sequence of traversing nodes in a communication network is provided. The method comprises with each node, determining other nodes in the network it can reach in a single hop. Creating a local sequence connection order based on the determined other nodes the node can reach in a single communication hop. Storing historical data of local sequence connection order information and determining a new local sequence connection order based in part on the historical data and communication information.

Claims

1. A method of determining sequence order in a vehicle convoy, the method comprising:

forming a communication network with the vehicles in the convoy;

determining a local sequence of communicatively linked neighbor vehicles associated with each vehicle, wherein the local sequence is based in part on past history and received messages from neighbor vehicles in the convoy; and

changing the local sequence based in part on a change in the received messages.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the past history based on a change in local sequence.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a local sequence further comprises:

determining other vehicles that can be communicated with in a single hop.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the local sequence further comprises:

using probabilities on the historical data and on the change in received messages to determine a change in the local sequence.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the local sequence is further based at least in part on one of receiving messages from vehicles that are not established as nodes within the current convoy, on not receiving messages from vehicles in the current convoy and on a time period since a message was last received from a vehicle in the convoy.