VEHICLE BLACK BOX

• US 20120109447A1
• Filed: 06/29/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yousefi, Nariman, Kim, Yongbum, Walley, John, Chen, Sherman (Xuemin), Diab, Wael W., Ilyadis, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US13/171,639
• Publication Number:
  US 20120109447A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/32.2
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 50/00 Electric propulsion with power supplied within the vehicle with power supply from force of nature, e.g. sun or wind, B60L8/00; for monorail vehicles, suspension vehicles or rack railways B60L13/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/023 for transmission of signals between vehicle parts or subsystems
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/03 for supply of electrical power to vehicle subsystems or for circuit arrangements for charging batteries H02J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0315 using multiplexing techniques multiplexing for transmission of signals G08C15/00; multiplexing for electrical communication in general H04J
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 19/03 characterised by material, e.g. composite B60R19/18 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/26 Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof for memories G11C
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/266 Arrangements to supply power to external peripherals either directly from the computer or under computer control, e.g. supply of power through the communication port, computer controlled power-strips
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/76 Arrangements for rearranging, permuting or selecting data according to predetermined rules, independently of the content of the data
• 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: G08G 1/16 Anti-collision systems road vehicle drive control systems for predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision otherwise than by control of a particular sub-unit B60W30/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3822 specially adapted for use in vehicles H04B1/3827 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/10 Current supply arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/46 Interconnection of networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/56 Packet switching systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/6275 : based on priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/76 : using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation requested by the user or requested by the network in response to changing network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/821 : Prioritising resource allocation or reservation requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 : Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• 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: H04L 69/08 : Protocols for interworking; Protocol conversion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 : Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 : characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 : for receiving images from a single remote source
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 : Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/08 : Load balancing or load distribution transferring a connection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 : for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• 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 4/46 : for vehicle-to-vehicle communication [V2V]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/02 : Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 : using the level of interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/56 : based on priority criteria
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 : Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 : Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

A vehicle black box includes a memory device for receiving and storing real-time data associated with the vehicle during a recording time window. Upon determining that an accident has occurred, circuitry freezes the recording time window and stores the real-time data within the frozen recording time window within a one-time programmable (OTP) memory.

Claims

1. An apparatus within a vehicle, comprising:

a memory device for receiving real-time data associated with the vehicle and storing the real-time data therein during a recording time window;

a one-time programmable (OTP) memory coupled to the memory device; and

circuitry for determining that an accident involving the vehicle has occurred, and in response thereto, freezing the recording time window to produce a frozen recording time window and storing the real-time data within the frozen time window in the OTP memory.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the recording time window has a fixed duration such that the recording time window includes the real-time data received over the fixed duration.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the real-time data at the beginning of the recording time window is older data and the memory device overwrites the older data in the recording time window with recently received real-time data to maintain the fixed duration.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the circuitry freezes the recording time window such that the frozen recording time window includes at least the real-time data immediately prior to the accident within the fixed duration.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the circuitry freezes the recording time window such that the frozen recording time window includes the real-time data immediately prior to and immediately after the accident within the fixed duration.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the real-time data includes at least one of sensor data captured by one or more sensors within the vehicle and video data captured by one or more video cameras attached to the vehicle, the video data including at least one of exterior video data of an exterior of the vehicle and interior video data of an interior of the vehicle.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the real-time data is produced by a single device within the vehicle.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the real-time data is produced by multiple devices within the vehicle.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the real-time data is produced and stored in the memory device during operation of the vehicle.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the real-time data is produced and stored in the memory device when the vehicle is not in operation.

11. A vehicle black box within a vehicle, comprising:

a vehicle network interface operable to couple to a vehicular communication network;

a memory device for receiving real-time data associated with the vehicle via the vehicular communication network and storing the real-time data therein during a recording time window;

a one-time programmable (OTP) memory coupled to the memory device; and

a processing module for;

facilitating storage of the real-time data within the memory device;

determining that an accident involving the vehicle has occurred;

in response thereto, freezing the recording time window within the memory device to produce a frozen recording time window; and

downloading the real-time data within the frozen time window from the memory device to the OTP memory.

12. The vehicle black box of claim 11, further comprising:

a local power source for providing power to the vehicle black box.

13. The vehicle black box of claim 12, wherein the processing module activates the local power source upon determining that the accident has occurred to enable the real-time data within the frozen time window to be downloaded from the memory device to the OTP memory.

14. The vehicle black box of claim 12, wherein the local power source further provides power to external devices within the vehicle via the vehicular communication network.

15. The vehicle black box of claim 11, further comprising:

a radio frequency (RF) interface coupled to the OTP memory and providing a wireless connection to a remote device outside of the vehicle to enable the real-time data within the frozen recording time window to be retrieved by the remote device via the wireless connection.

16. The vehicle black box of claim 11, wherein the real-time data within the frozen recording time window is accessible by an external computer device coupled to the vehicular communication network via the vehicular network interface.

17. The vehicle black box of claim 11, wherein:

the recording time window has a fixed duration such that the recording time window includes the real-time data received over the fixed duration;

the real-time data at the beginning of the recording time window is older data; and

the memory device overwrites the older data in the recording time window with recently received real-time data to maintain the fixed duration.

18. The vehicle black box of claim 11, wherein the processing module freezes the recording time window such that the frozen recording time window includes at least the real-time data immediately prior to the accident within the fixed duration.

19. The vehicle black box of claim 11, wherein the real-time data includes at least one of sensor data captured by one or more sensors within the vehicle and video data captured by one or more video cameras attached to the vehicle, the video data including one or more of exterior video data of an exterior of the vehicle and interior video data of an interior of the vehicle.

20. The vehicle black box of claim 11, wherein the real-time data is produced and stored in the memory device while the vehicle is in at least one of the following states:

operating and not operating.