System and methods for fast, secure and power efficient occupancy session management

A system for validating a vehicle for parking, said system comprising:

• a plurality of sensing devices each comprising a respective sensing device identifier and operable to detect a vehicle in close proximity thereto and the plurality of sensing devices further operable to wirelessly communicate a plurality of a first encrypted messages comprising the respective sensing device identifier responsive to detecting the vehicle;
• an application program operable to execute on a mobile electronic device comprising an identifier wherein the mobile electronic device is a smart phone or vehicle's embedded computer, wherein the application program is operable to receive said plurality of first encrypted messages and to generate a second message comprising:
• said identifier of the mobile electronic device;
• and all or part of the plurality of first encrypted messages, wherein the second message comprises said plurality of first encrypted messages;
• and
• a remote server comprising a database, said remote server operable to:
• receive said second message;
• validate said identifier of the mobile electronic device based on the sensing device identifiers and the second message;
• communicate a third message indicating a validation result thereof;
• record a parking state associated with the vehicle;
• validate said plurality of sensing devices, wherein the third message further comprises a list of validated sensing devices of the plurality of sensing devices, wherein the application program on the smart phone or vehicle's embedded computer is further operable to select a selected sensing device from the list of validated sensing devices using one of:
• a user input using additional data, including at least one of:
• wireless signal strengths of the plurality of first encrypted messages;
• times of vehicle detection of the sensing devices;
• a status of the sensing devices;
• and
• sensor measurements of the sensing devices;
• and wherein further the application program on the smart phone or vehicle's embedded computer is further operable to cause an identity of the selected sensing device to be communicated to the remote server.

A method of automatically detecting and validating a vehicle, the method comprising:

• detecting the vehicle using a plurality of sensing devices in proximity to the vehicle, wherein the plurality of sensing devices stores a shared area encryption key (AEK);
• the plurality of sensing devices encrypting one-time security tokens (OTSTs) using the shared AEK;
• the plurality of sensing devices transmitting the OTSTs to a visitor tag device (VTAG) associated with the vehicle;
• the VTAG decrypting and validating the OTSTs using the shared AEK;
• the VTAG selecting a selected sensing device from the plurality of sensing devices according to the decrypting and validating;
• the VTAG generating a visitor token using an encryption key of the VTAG;
• the VTAG transmitting the visitor token to the selected sensing device;
• and
• validating the visitor token.