Vehicle Key Status Controller for Driver-Specific Safety Locks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional vehicles lack the ability to differentiate between drivers and prevent secondary drivers, such as teenagers, from disabling essential safety and notification features, which are intended to be maintained by primary drivers.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle system that uses a controller to determine key status, allowing a master driver to assign and change the status of keys as either primary or secondary, ensuring that safety and notification features remain enabled for secondary drivers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If keys are shared between multiple drivers for convenience, then ease of operation is improved, but the ability to control driver-specific settings deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments key functionality into master keys and non-master keys, where master keys have administrative privileges to control safety features and non-master keys have limited access. This segmentation allows different levels of control for different drivers while maintaining the convenience of key sharing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by giving different keys different properties - master keys have the capability to enable/disable safety features while non-master keys do not. This localized differentiation allows specific control rights to be assigned to specific keys based on the driver's role.
2Reliability
If safety and notification features are enabled for all drivers, then driver safety is improved, but the ability of primary drivers to customize settings deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the system dynamic by allowing safety feature settings to change based on which key is being used. When a master key is detected, the driver can enable or disable safety features; when a non-master key is detected, the settings are locked based on the master driver's preferences. This dynamic behavior resolves the contradiction between maintaining safety and allowing customization.
3Ease of operation
If teenagers are given keys to drive, then ease of operation is improved, but the risk of disabling safety features increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by pre-configuring non-master keys with restricted permissions that prevent disabling of safety features. Before a teenager can even attempt to disable safety features, the system has already prevented this capability through the key's inherent limitations. The master driver sets these restrictions in advance, and the system automatically enforces them.
Data Source
AI summary
In at least one embodiment, a vehicle apparatus for changing status for a key is provided. The vehicle apparatus comprises a controller. The controller is configured to receive a key identification signal from a first key and to transmit a key status signal indicative of whether the first key is one of a master key and a non-master key based on the key identification signal. The controller is further configured to receive a change request signal corresponding to a request to change status for an additional key from a primary key to a secondary key if the first key is master key.