Vehicle information system

• US 9,990,781 B2
• Filed: 09/08/2015
• Issued: 06/05/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vinli, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Vinli, Inc.
• Inventors: Haidar, Mahmoud, Harper, Scott Clifton, Kinney, Powell McVay, Alkhoury Fallouh, Samer, Turney, Kyle Justin, Gingrich, Nathanael Lloyd, Moore, Benjamin David, Hall, Daniel Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Sweeney, Brian P
• Application Number:
  US14/848,316
• Publication Number:
  US 20160071333A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 701 293
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/006 Indicating maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005

Abstract

A vehicle information system is described. The vehicle information system may include an OBD interface device configurable for communication with a vehicle computer system. The OBD interface device may include at least a first transmitter and a first receiver. One or more communication protocols may be configured for communication between at least one of the OBD interface device and a client electronic device, the OBD interface device and a server computer, and the OBD interface device and a wireless receiver. An application programming interface may be configured to allow interaction between the OBD interface device and at least one of a server computer and a client electronic device.

Claims

1. A vehicle information system comprising:

a vehicle information platform executed by one or more servers to provide one or more Tier 1 and Tier 2 services;

a plurality of different telemetry data sources that supply vehicle information to the vehicle information platform, wherein the vehicle information is normalized to create normalized vehicle information, the normalized vehicle information is placed into a queue, and the normalized vehicle information is egressed to be accessed and consumed by one or more applications; and

an application programming interface corresponding to the vehicle information platform configured to provide one or more applications access over HTTP/SSL to the normalized vehicle information,

wherein the one or more applications consume the normalized vehicle information and access the one or more Tier 1 and Tier 2 services on the vehicle information platform without regard for which of the plurality of different telemetry data sources the normalized vehicle information originated,

wherein the one or more Tier 1 services include authorization services, platform services, event services, rule services, and telemetry services, and

wherein the one or more Tier 2 services include trip services, diagnostic services, behavioral services, and safety services.

2. The vehicle information system of claim 1,

wherein the one or more applications are accessible via one or more client electronic devices.

3. The vehicle information system of claim 1, wherein:

at least one of the plurality of different telemetry data sources is an OBD interface device comprising a housing comprising a user facing endface and an engine facing endface, the engine facing endface comprising an OBD connector and a support, the OBD connector and support arranged to suspend the OBD interface device relative to an OBD output port of a vehicle; and

an OBD interface in electrical communication with the OBD connector;

wherein the first transmitter and the first receiver comprise one or more of a cellular antenna, GPS antenna, or Wi-Fi antenna.

4. The vehicle information system of claim 1, wherein:

the platform services provide administrative actions for the one or more applications, the administrative actions including managing one or more devices, getting the vehicle information, and monitoring transactions.

5. The vehicle information system of claim 1, further comprising:

a software development kit for developing the one or more applications operable on a client electronic device operating system.

6. The vehicle information system of claim 1, wherein the telemetry services provide access to time-series data for vehicle telemetry gathered on a device-by-device basis.

7. The vehicle information system of claim 1, wherein the event services provide access to vehicle events and ability to create subscriptions to the vehicle events.

8. The vehicle information system of claim 1, wherein the rule services provide tools to create rules based on vehicle parameter limits or geofences.

9. A method of consuming vehicle data from more than one different telemetry data source, the method comprising:

collecting the vehicle data from the more than one different telemetry data source, the more than one different telemetry data source selected from the group comprising a telematics control unit, a mobile device, a dash camera, and other cloud-based services for telematics data;

normalizing the vehicle data collected from the more than one different telemetry data source to create normalized vehicle data;

placing the normalized vehicle data into a queue for utilization by one or more Tier 1 and Tier 2 services, wherein the one or more Tier 1 and Tier 2 services operate independent of one another but communicate with each other over the queue,

wherein the one or more Tier 1 and Tier 2 services include authorization services, platform services, event services, rule services, telemetry services, trip services, diagnostic services, behavioral services, and safety services; and

egressing the normalized vehicle data from the queue to be accessed and consumed by one or more applications over an application programming interface without regard for which of the more than one different telemetry data source the normalized vehicle data originated.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

defining a set of boundaries for a space which a vehicle can occupy in accordance with a vehicle information platform application rule;

maintaining a vehicle state cache, comprising a set of at least one of parameters and messages, used to determine whether the vehicle is inside the set of boundaries; and

triggering an event in response to determining that the vehicle moved outside the set of boundaries.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein one of the more than one different telemetry data sources is a plurality of OBD interface devices, the method further comprising:

collecting vehicle-model-specific data from the plurality of OBD interface devices across a plurality of cohorts; and

analyzing the vehicle-model-specific data to determine potential failures in the vehicle model for the plurality of cohorts.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein one of the more than one different telemetry data sources is a plurality of OBD interface devices, the method further comprising:

generating a driver score based on the vehicle information received from the plurality of OBD interface devices;

wherein the vehicle data is from a plurality of vehicles having the same model; and

wherein the driver score is further based on a geographic area of the vehicles.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

verifying permission for the one or more applications to consume the normalized data from the queue.