Vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus

• US 6,920,379 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2002
• Issued: 07/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Renesas Technology Corporation (Renesas Electronics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Renesas Technology Corporation (Renesas Electronics Corporation)
• Inventors: Miyamoto, Taiyu
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thu V.
• Application Number:
  US10/330,091
• Publication Number:
  US 20040019412A1
• Time in Patent Office: 932 Days
• Field of Search: 701/1, 701/36, 340/825.06, 340/825.15, 340 56- 561, 340/5.64, 340/5.65, 340/5.66
• US Class Current: 701/1
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/063 using wireless information transmission between the vehicle and a fixed station identification of vehicles G08G

Abstract

In a vehicle-onboard dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) apparatus for the DSRC communication system, a command judgment unit of an electronic toll communication-security application module (ETC-SAM) judges the type of command included in a communication signal transmitted between a HOST and an IC card with user information held therein. A command control unit of the ETC-SAM controls whether the command is to be analyzed, according to a result of judgment by the command judgment unit. Therefore, it is possible to simplify a communication procedure and reduce a communication time.

Claims

1. A vehicle-onboard dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) apparatus comprising:

a DSRC processing unit that processes a radio communication signal transmitted by DSRC;

an electronic toll collection (ETC) processing unit that performs transactions of an ETC command and ETC data included in the radio communication signal communicated with the DSRC processing unit; and

a security module including

a security processing unit including an encryption/decryption unit for performing encryption/decryption of the ETC data included in a communication signal transmitted between the ETC processing unit and an IC card with user information held therein,

a host interface for communication between the security processing unit and the ETC processing unit, and

an IC card interface for communication between the security processing unit and the IC card,

wherein the security processing unit further includes;

a command judgment unit for judging a type of command included in a communication signal transmitted between the ETC processing unit and the IC card, and

a command control unit for controlling whether the command is to be analyzed, according to a result of judgment by the command judgment units

wherein the command judgment unit judges whether the command included in the communication signal transmitted between the ETC processing unit and the IC card is an ETC command; and

the command control unit transmits an execution command obtained by analyzing the ETC command to the IC card when the command judged by the command judgment unit is the ETC command, and when the command judged by the command judgment unit is an undefined command that is not the ETC command, transmits the undefined command to the IC card without being analyzed.

2. The vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the security processing unit further includes a mode setting unit for setting a plurality of modes based on a mode entry command transmitted from the ETC processing unit,

wherein the modes includes

an ETC mode in which a command included in a communication signal transmitted from the ETC processing unit is analyzed to perform encryption/decryption of the ETC data included in the communication signal transmitted between the ETC processing unit and the IC card with user information held therein, and

a non-ETC mode in which when it is judged that the command included in a communication signal transmitted from the ETC processing unit is an undefined command that is not the ETC command, the undefined command is transmitted to the IC card without being analyzed.

3. The vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the non-ETC mode includes

an encryption/decryption mode in which upon reception of an encryption/decryption request of data from the ETC processing unit, the security processing unit performs encryption/decryption of the data, and transmits encrypted data/decrypted data of the data to the ETC processing unit, and

a serial-parallel conversion mode in which a signal form of the data is converted for the data communication performed between the ETC processing unit and the IC card.

4. The vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the ETC processing unit identifies an application based on a frequency band used in the DSRC, and

the mode setting unit sets any one of the ETC mode, the encryption/decryption mode, and the serial-parallel conversion mode to execute the application identified according to the mode entry command transmitted from the ETC processing unit.

5. The vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the security processing unit further includes

an IC card activation detecting unit for detecting whether the IC card is activated,

the ETC processing unit identifies the IC card based on an IC card activation signal transmitted from the IC card activation detecting unit, and

the mode setting unit sets any one of the ETC mode, the encryption/decryption mode, and the serial-parallel conversion mode to execute the processing to the IC card identified according to the mode entry command transmitted from the ETC processing unit.

6. The vehicle-onboard DSRC apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising either one of or both of a USB interface and a Blue Tooth interface for communication with general-purpose equipment.