Unified Vehicle Cloud Interface for Heterogeneous Fleet Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managing a fleet of heterogeneous vehicles with different cloud services and user interfaces becomes impractical due to varying APIs, communication protocols, and security requirements, posing challenges for both individual users and large entities like car rental companies.
Innovation Solution
A unified cloud service that integrates multiple vehicle-clouds, providing a unified user interface for managing vehicles through a digital user-token system, enabling seamless control and management of diverse vehicles using a single application.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple vehicle-clouds with different APIs and protocols are used to manage heterogeneous vehicles, then vehicle compatibility and coverage are improved, but system complexity and operational difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a unified cloud service as an intermediary layer between the user and multiple vehicle-clouds. This unified cloud handles the complexity of different APIs, communication protocols, and authentication mechanisms by providing standardized interfaces. The unified cloud translates user requests into vehicle-specific commands and manages the heterogeneity of underlying vehicle-cloud systems, thereby improving vehicle compatibility while maintaining manageable system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The unified cloud service is designed with universal functionality to manage diverse vehicle types through a single interface. It implements multiple functions including unified authentication, command translation, protocol adaptation, and centralized vehicle management. This multi-functional approach allows the system to handle heterogeneous vehicles without requiring separate management systems for each vehicle-cloud.
2Reliability
If multiple dedicated applications are used to access different vehicle-clouds, then vehicle-specific functionality is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The unified cloud service provides a single universal application that can control multiple vehicles from different manufacturers. This unified interface maintains vehicle-specific control reliability by translating generic commands into vehicle-specific protocols while presenting a consistent user experience. Users can manage their entire vehicle fleet through one application rather than switching between multiple dedicated applications.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges multiple vehicle management applications into a single unified application. By combining the functionality of various vehicle-specific applications into one interface, the system maintains reliable vehicle control through proper protocol translation while significantly improving ease of operation. The unified application consolidates authentication, vehicle selection, and control functions into a single workflow.
3Reliability
If direct access to multiple vehicle-clouds is implemented, then data security is improved, but operational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The unified cloud acts as a secure intermediary that centralizes authentication and authorization management. Instead of users directly accessing multiple vehicle-clouds with different security requirements, the unified cloud implements a single authentication mechanism that issues standardized tokens. This approach maintains data security by enforcing consistent access control policies while reducing management complexity through centralized security handling.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts security management functions from individual vehicle-cloud access points and consolidates them into the unified cloud service. By taking out authentication, authorization, and token management from the distributed vehicle-clouds and centralizing them in the unified cloud, the system maintains robust data security while significantly reducing operational complexity. Users only need to authenticate once with the unified cloud rather than managing multiple security credentials.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a unified system between a fleet of heterogeneous vehicles and the vehicles' heterogeneous cloud services for delivering a unified user interface to remotely control the fleet of vehicles. The system performs several functions, including obtaining digital vehicle tokens for each vehicle, which allow commands to be triggered on the associated vehicle clouds to manage the vehicles. Sets of APIs corresponding to the vehicle clouds are obtained, and when a user sends a request for a specific vehicle, a digital user token is generated and mapped to the vehicle's digital vehicle token. Subsequently, when user commands for managing the vehicle are received, the system constructs vehicle commands using the APIs of the vehicle's cloud service. Finally, the digital vehicle token and the vehicle commands are transmitted to the corresponding vehicle cloud for executing the commands and managing the vehicle accordingly.