Vehicle Command Routing Across Disparate Smart Home Ecosystems

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing smart home and IoT ecosystems often restrict interoperability, requiring devices from the same manufacturer or using the same communication protocol and operating system, limiting user choice and flexibility.

Innovation Solution

A cloud-based artificial intelligence system in vehicles analyzes user commands and routes them to the appropriate smart home or IoT ecosystem using natural language understanding and speech recognition, modifying commands as necessary to ensure compatibility across disparate systems.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If a user interacts with multiple separate electronic ecosystems (e.g., Apple and Android devices), then the user can access diverse device functionalities and services, but the user must manually manage and switch between different ecosystems, increasing operational complexity and time consumption

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaccess to diverse device functionalitiesVSAvoidmanual management and switching between ecosystems
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a message router as an intermediary component that automatically routes user commands between different electronic ecosystems. The router intercepts commands from a first ecosystem, determines the target device in the second ecosystem, and forwards the command appropriately, eliminating the need for manual ecosystem switching while maintaining seamless interoperability between devices

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Ease of operation

If user commands are routed automatically across ecosystems, then operational ease is improved, but the routing system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveautomatic command routingVSAvoidrouting system structure
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The routing system is segmented into distinct functional components: a message router for command interception and forwarding, a device graph for structured device relationship representation, and a command interpreter for determining routing logic. This modular segmentation manages complexity by organizing the routing functionality into manageable, independent modules that can be developed and maintained separately

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

3Measurement precision

If device relationships are represented using a device graph, then command routing precision is improved, but the data structure complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecommand routing accuracyVSAvoiddevice graph data structure
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The device graph uses universal node and edge structures that can represent multiple types of device relationships (ownership, proximity, pairing, etc.) through a unified data model. Each node represents a device with standardized attributes, and each edge represents a relationship type, allowing the same graph structure to handle diverse routing scenarios without requiring separate data structures for each relationship type

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentEP4264599B1Routing of user commands across disparate ecosystems
Publication Date: 2026.05.06 CERENCE OPERATING CO
  • EP4264599B1 patent drawingFigure 1
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  • EP4264599B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A system for routing commands issued by a passenger of a vehicle to a Smart Home and/or an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem via a connection manager. Issued commands are obtained from utterances using speech recognition and analyzed using natural language understanding and natural language processing. Using the output of the natural understanding analysis, the connection manager determines where to send the command by identifying a target Smart Home and/or IoT ecosystem.