Communications: electrical – External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-05
2003-08-12
Wu, Daniel J. (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm
C340S903000, C340S905000, C340S936000, C340S438000, C340S441000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06606033
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an information system, and in particular to a local information system which may be used by pedestrians or as a vehicle information system. Such an information system may be arranged to provide data concerning local services, may allow local businesses to advertise or may advise the locally pertaining speed limits to the driver of a vehicle. The system may be used in some pedestrian environments, for instance airports or railway stations, to deliver relevant contextual information such as timetables, arrival and departure data and so on.
BACKGROUND
There have been proposals to crack down on speeding. There has even been a suggestion of zero tolerance of minor speed violations. In the United Kingdom, the Council for the Protection of Rural England is calling for a 40 mph speed limit on rural roads. Reductions in speed limits on roads are often largely ignored since drivers have become used to travelling on the road at the higher speed limit. Furthermore, local driving culture may be such that speed limits are generally ignored. In the UK for example, a great deal of motorway traffic travels at between 80 and 85 mph.
Police forces have already installed speed cameras in order that speeding motorists can be photographed and have points awarded to their licence or fines imposed without the need for intervention by a policeman. Conventional film based cameras have tended to have a margin of tolerance set into them in order that they only catch the worst offenders and thereby can be expected to have a reasonable lifetime before the film needs replacing. Film based cameras are slowly being replaced by digital cameras which do not have the same data storage problems. Furthermore, if the cameras have a telecommunications link then they are able to capture an image of every speeding vehicle that goes past them. If such cameras are set to a zero tolerance limit, it becomes entirely feasible for a driver committing only minor speeding offences to achieve sufficient speeding violations within a single journey to lose his license without him ever being aware of it.
Such a zero tolerance regime might result in many drivers spending a considerable amount of time looking at their speedometer and consequently less time looking at the road. Furthermore, excessively cautious drivers may drive at a larger margin below the actual speed limit causing unnecessary congestion, possibly frustration amongst other road users and even additional accidents.
For the rigid enforcement of speed limits, there are two numbers that the driver needs to know. These are what the local speed limit is, and the vehicle's speed is. Whilst the UK has, in general, a reasonably good sign posting system, it is always possible to miss a road sign when the driver's attention is directed elsewhere. This may be because of local traffic conditions requiring driver attention. Furthermore, it is not uncommon, especially on rural roads, for road signs to become obscured by overhanging trees in the summer or to appear as silhouettes when driving into bright sunlight. There has also been a tendency to increase the number of roadside signs, and this may increase further if roadside advertising or sign sponsorship is allowed, thus giving the driver far more peripheral and nonessential information to sift through before he can identify the local speed limit.
In the car, the speedometer is the most visible of instruments, but it is still provided in an instrument binnacle which requires the driver to avert his eyes from the road and to refocus on the distance to a few feet in front of him in order to read the vehicle's speed. Often an experienced motorist knows his approximate speed by the sound of the engine of his car. Where some minor speeding is tolerated, this is a sufficiently accurate technique for a motorist to regulate his road speed. However, if a zero tolerance regime is enforced, then the motorist can no longer rely on this audio clue, and will be forced to examine his speedometer far more frequently and consequently be looking at the road less frequently.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle information system comprising a receiver responsive to local data transmissions from roadside transmitters and an audio and/or visual communications device for communicating information to a vehicle's occupant.
It is thus possible to provide an information system which is responsive to roadside transmitters in order to capture and hold data which may, for example be indicative of the local speed limit. Preferably the information system is arranged to receive broadcast data representative of at least a local speed limit. The information system, or some other vehicle system, can be arranged to compare this speed limit information with locally derived data representative of the vehicle's speed and to indicate to the occupant, preferably the driver, the result of the comparison. Thus, for example, a warning may be issued to the driver if he is at or exceeding the speed limit. Additionally, an advisory warning may also be issued if the driver is close to the limit, for example in excess of 95% of the speed limit. Additionally or alternatively data representing the local speed limit may be provided to a vehicle's engine management system or cruise control system so as to cause the vehicle to automatically stay within the speed limit until the driver intervenes to deliberately exceed the limit for example by switching the speed control system off or by “kicking down” the accelerator in a manner similar to that used to force a gear change in automatic vehicle boxes.
Preferably the receiver is a forward looking receiver. The receiver advantageously has a narrow acceptance aperture such that it is substantially responsive only to signals coming from an expected direction with respect to the vehicle. Thus if the receiver has a restricted acceptance aperture in the horizontal plane it can be arranged to receive data from roadside transmitters as the vehicle approaches them. The acceptance in the vertical plane may need to subtend nearly 90° such that it can accept signals from transmitters mounted near the roadway or on buildings or on gantries extending over the road. In the UK, where vehicles travel on the left hand side of the carriageway, the receiver may be squinted to look towards the left to a position where traffic information signs are normally located. In other jurisdictions, the receiver's antenna may have its primary lobe angled to the right.
Preferably the transmitter is arranged to transmit data representative of one or more of the local speed limit, distance to the next transmitter, emergency text messages, geographical data, transmitter identity data, local community data and advertisement data. This, list should not be considered exhaustive.
Advantageously, in a radio or microwave based system, only a limited number of radio channels or microwave channels would be required due to the limited transmission range associated with each transmitter. In a preferred embodiment of the invention only one transmission channel (frequency) is required. This has the advantage of simplifying manufacture of the vehicle information system and enable communication between parts of, or parties using, the system, i.e. car to roadside, roadside to car, police to car, police to roadside and so on. However transmissions from vehicles to the roadside could be on different frequencies to transmissions from the roadside to vehicles.
By providing data indicating the distance to the next transmitter, the system can perform an integral data validity check to estimate if the current speed limit is likely to be valid. Thus if the distance travelled from the last transmitter to the present location exceeds the distance indicated as being the valid distance to the next transmitter, the system can assert a signal to indicate that the speed limit data that it currently holds should not be considered as accurate and
Bishop Frank M
Brandwood John D
Crocker Timothy R.
Last Mile Communications/Tivis Limited
Marshall Gerstein & Borun
Nguyen Hung
Wu Daniel J.
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