2905 results about "Vehicle identification" patented technology

Provided is a method of receiving data from a vehicle onboard computer. The onboard computer is configured to transmit vehicle identification data in response to receipt of an identification request, which is transmitted in a basic communication protocol. The onboard computer is further configured to transmit private operational data in response to receipt of a private data request. The private data request is transmitted in a diagnostic protocol. The method includes connecting a scan tool to the onboard computer, and polling the onboard computer to identify the basic communication protocol. The identification request is then transmitted to the onboard computer. Vehicle identification data is subsequently received from the onboard computer. A protocol database having a plurality of diagnostic protocols is then accessed. Each diagnostic protocol is associated with respective vehicle identification data. The diagnostic protocol is then determined based on the received vehicle identification data.

A parking management system that facilitates motorist guidance, payment, violation detection, and enforcement using highly accurate space occupancy detection, unique vehicle identification and guidance displays is described. The system enables reduced time to find parking, congestion mitigation, accurate violation detection, and easier enforcement, and increased payment and enforcement revenues to cities. A system facilitating intersection management is also described having applicability to road intersections and railway crossings.

A vehicle status device and system for remotely updating and monitoring the status of a vehicle. The vehicle status device is located in a vehicle and reports status information for the vehicle and an owner to an interrogating unit. The device includes a database of status information for the vehicle and owner. An update receiver in the device receives updated information from a wide area paging network for storage in the database. An interrogation receiver receives an interrogation signal from the interrogating unit, and a response transmitter transmits encoded status information, including a vehicle identification (VID), to the interrogating unit in response. The updating and monitoring system also includes an interrogating unit which includes an interrogation transmitter for transmitting the interrogation signal to the vehicle status device, and a response receiver for receiving the encoded status information from the vehicle status device. A processor decodes the encoded status information and translates it into plain language for presentation to an operator. The system may be implemented as a ticket-less toll system by providing a database of subscribers in which VIDs are matched to subscriber identities, credit card information, and current status as valid subscribers.

The present invention relates to a ‘smart parking system’ comprising of 1) ‘smart parking meter’ containing a radiofrequency reader (RF reader); 2) radiofrequency tag (RF tag) containing vehicle identification information, that is mounted on vehicles; 3) a central control station communicating with a multitude of ‘smart parking meters’ to form a network; 4) the said central control station having a central computer system programmed with parking enforcement instructions. RF reader is provided with means to interrogate the RF tag of a vehicle parked in the corresponding parking stall; and transmit information obtained thereby to a central control station. The central control station has means to identify the said vehicle and determine whether or not the said vehicle is legally parked. If a parking violation is detected, the central computer system remotely instructs the corresponding ‘smart parking meter’ to issue a parking ticket. Means are also provided in the ‘smart parking system’ to determine if a vehicle parked in a parking stall has previous unpaid parking tickets. The ‘smart parking system’ also has means to determine if a vehicle wanted by law enforcement personnel is present in a parking stall within its network. According to yet another aspect, the ‘smart parking system’ has means to determine if a parking stall in its network is vacant and to reserve the said vacant stall for an authorized driver. Further, means are provided in the ‘smart parking meter’ to accept multiple forms of payment.

A system for monitoring and tracking vehicles in parking locations, public roadways and highway entrances and exits and other public vehicle access areas is provided, such as to monitor and track vehicles in parking spaces, public roadways and highways without the need for parking or traffic personnel. The system includes a meter system that generates image data of a vehicle in a parking space, public roadway and highway entrances and exits such as by creating an array of pixel data in a predetermined field of view that includes a vehicle identification tag and facial imaging. An enforcement and tracking system receives the image data and generates a vehicle license number, vehicle tag identification number and facial image from the image data, such as by analyzing the image data to identify the vehicle license number, vehicle tag identification number and facial image based on the expected location of the license tag, identification tag and field of view image data characteristics of the license tag, facial image or other suitable data. From the image data acquired, monitoring of parking spaces is performed and violation citations or notices are generated for errant vehicles in parking locations as well as notification to law enforcement and homeland security agencies of vehicles and facial images identified as being on a watch list.

A transceiver in a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and safety system that regularly broadcasts safety messages, comprising location, heading and speed, of a subject vehicle, that are free of MAC and IP addresses. The V2V system uses the location of the subject vehicle for vehicle identification, in place of a pre-assigned vehicle ID. Some embodiments broadcast safety message in self-assigned time slots in a synchronized TDMA broadcast architecture, with unusually short inter-message gaps and unusually short messages. The TDMA frame is partitioned into three prioritized time interval classes with differing priorities and dynamically changing sizes based on demand of higher-priority messages. Time slot selection uses weighted algorithms. Selected time slots are held until either a message collision or a timeout occurs. A transceiver equipped vehicle may proxy a different subject vehicle. Embodiments include optimized traffic flow and signal timing.

Methods and systems are disclosed for monitoring vehicular traffic congestion through the use of inter-vehicle communication and traffic chain counters. Data packets including counter, vehicle identification, direction, location, and speed information are transmitted between vehicles via short-range wireless communications. A receiving vehicle edits a data packet if the data packet reflects that the receiving vehicle has not yet edited the packet and is traveling in substantially the same direction as the vehicle which transmitted the packet to the receiving vehicle. If a receiving vehicle is the last vehicle to edit a packet, the receiving vehicle transmits a reporting packet to a traffic monitoring server via long-range wireless communications.

A method and a system for identifying a vehicle in a parking area includes receiving video data from a video camera observing a parking area from a first field of view over duration of time and receiving image data from a still camera observing a second field of view overlapping the first field of view. The method includes tracking a location of a vehicle across a sequence of frames. The tracking includes determining a time instant at which each frame was captured. The method includes comparing a select frame captured by the video camera with an image captured by the still camera. Based on the comparing, the method includes matching the vehicle in the image with the vehicle in the frame. The method includes determining a license plate number of the vehicle by locating a license plate on the vehicle in the image.

The invention is directed to method and system for providing automatic vehicle registration and control via transceiver-facilitated wireless communication of a unique vehicle identification code and a vehicle location code from a vehicle.

A method and network for transmitting a message from a sender to a recipient wherein the sender has no previous knowledge of the recipient's identity. A method is provided for registering a user with a web-enabled database service by providing correlating data on the user's identity and vehicle license plate number and/or other vehicle identifying information. A sender observing a vehicle can send a message to the recipient by logging onto the service and sending a message including the license plate number of the vehicle or other vehicle identifying information. The service will forward the message to the recipient by looking up the vehicle information, discerning the most appropriate communications method(s), and causing the message to be transmitted to the recipient or stored for later delivery.

The present invention relates generally to automatic insurance verification, and more specifically, to a non-invasive method and system for automatically determining, by any person with computer, wireless, or telephone access and in real-time, if an insured object of value is or is not insured irrespective of insurer location, jurisdiction, language, type, time, and also the internal operations, software platform and communications protocols used by insurers and/or governmental entities. It is an insurance verification, not an insurance reporting or tracking system and because it maintains no personal data of any kind, and can modify no record, it can deliver only very limited features regarding reporting or tracking. The present invention can however, provide absolute assurance of current insurance status at all times, provides a unique method of access which resolves all current failures and is non-invasive, providing complete privacy for all parties involved, (the absence of all personal information and the access method used ensures that all access and data is inherently non-invasive). This invention further ensures that any check of status, at insurer or governmental registration, (including “e-registration”, inspection, or any other location and time when and where a jurisdiction or insurer requires such a status check, will result in an instant and totally accurate status response. This system is based upon the assignment of a unique identifier, also known in this present art as a “UC” or “Unique Code” which then provides a method of accurate data, (including status checks), without reliance on “VINs”, (vehicle identification numbers), policy number or other identifiers which are often incorrect. The UC is assigned to any combination of two or more elements that are “gleaned”, (file field extraction and related system and methods), one of which is always current status. The extraction of these selected fields from data streams may be done by a number of prior art techniques, and the three most common have been detailed. First demonstrated to government officials in 1999 as a medical version and later the same year as a vehicle version, it has been demonstrated and documented since to a great many Federal and State governmental entities. This present invention has also been demonstrated to several foreign governments but incorporates no technologies that create any possible security risk for any government, insurer, individual, and especially to the national security of the United States.

A health monitoring system is provided for a vehicle with an identity configured to travel on a surface. The system includes a body positioned on the surface and configured to stimulate a dynamic response from the vehicle as the vehicle travels over the body; a response sensor associated with the body and configured to measure the dynamic response from the vehicle; and an identification sensor associated with the body and configured to collect data corresponding to the identity of the vehicle.

The invention belongs to the field of intelligent automobile road detection and relates to a method for detecting road information and identifying forward vehicles based on vision. The method comprises image preprocessing, lane line characteristic parameter extraction, region-of-interest segmentation and vehicle outline identification. According to the method for detecting the road information and identifying the forward vehicles based on vision, the complexity of computation is simplified by extracting the regions of interest, filtering out background regions and reducing the processing scope; the processing result of each frame of image is obtained through fixed computation times by use of a line-by-line retrieval method, and differing from the characteristic, namely linear fitting on each bright spot, of Hough conversion, the method has outstanding advantages in algorithm instantaneity; the instantaneity of the Robinson direction model operator is improved, and an intermediate variable is set to reduce the computation times of each pixel point. The regions of interest are screened and judged by use of an information entropy and a vehicle tail symmetry characteristic in the target region, and therefore, the omission factor and the false drop rate of the algorithm are reduced.

The illustrative embodiments provide a method and apparatus for controlling and coordinating multiple vehicles. In one illustrative embodiment, machine behaviors are assigned to multiple vehicles performing a task. The vehicles are coordinated to perform the task using the assigned behaviors and a number of signals received from other vehicles and the environment during performance of the task. In another illustrative embodiment, a role is identified for each vehicle in a group of vehicles. A number of machine behaviors are assigned to each vehicle depending upon the identified role for the vehicle. The machine behaviors are selected from coordinating machine behaviors stored in a behavior library. Each vehicle is then coordinated to perform the task according to the role and machine behaviors assigned.

A vehicle control system includes a first controller including a wireless mechanism for determining a vehicle identification number. A second controller includes wireless mechanisms for communicating with the first controller and for controlling a velocity of the targeted vehicle without restricting the braking and steering capabilities thereof. The system includes a service provider including a database containing authorization codes unique to vehicle identification numbers. A communications link transmits confidential data streams to the service provider. The communications link includes a wireless cellular telephone network. The system includes a request signal, an authorization signal, and a deactivation signal. The second controller sends the response signal to the first controller, which transmits the request signal to the service provider. An authorization signal is transmitted to the law enforcement officer. The first controller transmits the deactivation signal to the vehicle, causing the second controller to disable selected operating characteristics thereof.

A system for providing vehicle information at an automobile point of purchase includes a user device having a camera or other image capturing device that is used to capture an image of an automobile. An application on or associated with the image capturing device can either transmit the image to a service provider for processing, or can implement one or more steps in a feature recognition process locally, and thereafter transmit the data to a service provider. In either case, the service provider can then complete the feature recognition processing and identify the automobile from the image. The service provider can then communicate with a make and model database to provide useful information on the vehicle, which can then be transmitted to the user device and conveniently displayed.

The described method and system provides for dynamic adjustment of the lower charge threshold of an electrically-powered vehicle to allow a fuel-depleted vehicle also low on battery charge to continue to be operated. The vehicle's telematics unit monitors the fuel level and charge level via the vehicle bus or other vehicle resources to determine if the vehicle is running low on fuel and electric charge. If the telematics unit determines that the fuel is depleted and the charge level is approaching, meets or falls below the lower threshold, the telematics unit communicates the vehicle fuel status and vehicle position to a call center along with vehicle identification data. The call center determines the amount of charge required to reach one or more local fueling stations or other points of interests and propose destination recommendations to the driver. The driver may then select one of the recommendations, and the call center transmits a new lower charge threshold to the vehicle.

A vehicle identification system. The system includes an electronic access card for storing information associated with a user of the electronic access card, a card reader for receiving the electronic access card and for reading the associated information and a display for receiving at least a portion of the associated information from the card reader and for displaying the portion of associated information when the user operates a vehicle. The display is located on the vehicle, and the displayed information includes at least a unique identifier assigned to the user of the electronic access card. In one arrangement, the unique identifier assigned to the user of the electronic access card can be transferrable to other vehicles such that the identifier can be displayed on any vehicle having the card reader and the display when the user operates such vehicle.