# US 12,004,063 B2 · Infrastructure controller for an infrastructure

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- Number: US 12,004,063 B2
- Document ID: US12004063B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 17/643,853
- Filed: 2021-12-13
- Published: 2022-06-23
- Granted: 2024-06-04
- Earliest claimed: 2020-12-17
- Assignees: NXP B.V.
- Applicants: NXP B.V.
- Inventors: Mehmet Ufuk Buyuksahin; Wolfgang Eber; Dorian Haslinger
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US12004063B2

## CPC

- H04W 4/24: Accounting or billing
- H04W 4/80: Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
- H04M 15/8033: {location-dependent, e.g. business or home}
- H04W 4/33: for indoor environments, e.g. buildings
- H04W 4/40: for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
- H04W 4/70: Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
- H04W 36/18: for allowing seamless reselection, e.g. soft reselection
- H04W 40/12: based on transmission quality or channel quality
- H04W 40/248: {Connectivity information update}
- H04W 40/36: due to handover
- H04W 40/38: adapting due to varying relative distances between nodes
- H04W 84/18: Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
- B60R 25/24: using electronic identifiers containing a code not memorised by the user
- G01C 21/206: {specially adapted for indoor navigation}
- G07C 2209/63: Comprising locating means for detecting the position of the data carrier, i.e. within the vehicle or within a certain distance from the vehicle
- H04W 36/035: {in self-organising networks}
- H04W 36/302: {due to low signal strength}
- H04W: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (broadcast communication H04H; communication systems using wireless links for non-selective communication, e.g. wireless extensions H04M1/72)
- H04M: TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION (circuits for controlling other apparatus via a telephone cable and not involving telephone switching apparatus G08)
- B60R: VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G01C: MEASURING DISTANCES, LEVELS OR BEARINGS; SURVEYING; NAVIGATION; GYROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS; PHOTOGRAMMETRY OR VIDEOGRAMMETRY (measuring liquid level G01F; radio navigation, determining distance or velocity by use of propagation effects, e.g. Doppler effects, propagation time, of radio waves, analogous arrangements using other waves G01S)
- G07C: TIME OR ATTENDANCE REGISTERS; REGISTERING OR INDICATING THE WORKING OF MACHINES; GENERATING RANDOM NUMBERS; VOTING OR LOTTERY APPARATUS; ARRANGEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS FOR CHECKING NOT PROVIDED FOR ELSEWHERE

## Abstract

An infrastructure-controller (206) for an infrastructure (202), wherein the infrastructure has a plurality of Bluetooth Low Energy, “BLE”, nodes (208, 210, 212) associated with it. The infrastructure-controller (206) is configured to: identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as a current-BLE-node (212), and activate the current-BLE-node (212) for communication with a key (204) using BLE signals; determine a communication-quality-indicator for each of the plurality of BLE nodes (208, 210, 212), that represents the quality of communication with the key (204); based on the communication-quality-indicators, identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as a next-BLE-node (210); and provide connection-information to the next-BLE-node (210) using out-of-band signalling (214). The infrastructure-controller (206) can then deactivate the current-BLE-node (212); and activate the next-BLE-node (212) for continued communication with the key (204) using BLE signals.

## Claims

### Claim 1

An infrastructure-controller for an infrastructure, wherein the infrastructure has a plurality of Bluetooth Low Energy, “BLE”, nodes associated with it, the infrastructure-controller configured to:
identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as a current-BLE-node, and activate the current-BLE-node for communication with a key using BLE signals;
determine a communication-quality-indicator for each of the plurality of BLE nodes, that represents the quality of communication with the key;
based on the communication-quality-indicators, identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as a next-BLE-node;
provide connection-information to the next-BLE-node using out-of-band signalling;
deactivate the current-BLE-node; and
activate the next-BLE-node for continued communication with the key using BLE signals.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, wherein the plurality of BLE nodes are for sending and receiving signals to and from a key at a frequency of 2.4 GHz.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, wherein the communication-quality-indicators comprise RSSI-values.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller claim 1, wherein the communication-quality-indicators comprise a count of missed connection events.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, configured to:
determine a communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node; and
determine the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node satisfying a consider-node-change-criterion.

### Claim 6 (depends on 5)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 5, wherein:
the communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node comprises an RSSI-value; and
the consider-node-change-criterion comprises an RSSI-threshold such that the infrastructure-controller is configured to determine the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the RSSI-value for the current-BLE-node being less than the RSSI-threshold.

### Claim 7 (depends on 5)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 5, wherein:
the communication-quality-indicators for the current-BLE-node comprises a count of missed connection events; and
the consider-node-change-criterion comprises a missed-connection-threshold such that the infrastructure-controller is configured to determine the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the count of missed connection events for the current-BLE-node being greater than the missed-connection-threshold.

### Claim 8 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, configured to:
identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as the next-BLE-node by selecting the BLE node that has the communication-quality-indicator that represents the highest quality connection.

### Claim 9 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, configured to:
determine a relative-key-location, which represents the location of the key relative to the infrastructure; and
identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as the next-BLE-node based on the relative-key-location.

### Claim 10 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, configured to:
determine a key-node-distance for each of the plurality of BLE nodes, which represents the distance between the key and the respective BLE node; and
identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as the next-BLE-node based on the key-node-distances.

### Claim 11 (depends on 10)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 10, configured to:
identify one of the plurality of BLE nodes as the next-BLE-node by selecting the BLE node that has the lowest key-node-distance.

### Claim 12 (depends on 1)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 1, configured to activate or deactivate the plurality of BLE nodes by sending out-of-band signalling to the BLE nodes, wherein the out-of-band signalling is out of band with respect to the BLE signals.

### Claim 13 (depends on 12)

The infrastructure-controller of claim 12, wherein the out-of-band signalling comprises signalling sent over a Controller Area Network bus.

### Claim 14

A computer-implemented method comprising:
identifying one of a plurality of Bluetooth Low Energy, “BLE”, nodes as a current-BLE-node, and activating the current-BLE-node for communication with a key using BLE signals;
determining a communication-quality-indicator for each of the plurality of BLE nodes, that represents the quality of communication with the key;
identifying one of the plurality of BLE nodes as a next-BLE-node based on the communication-quality-indicators;
providing connection-information to the next-BLE-node using out-of-band signalling;
deactivating the current-BLE-node; and
activating the next-BLE-node for continued communication with the key using BLE signals.

### Claim 15 (depends on 14)

The method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of BLE nodes are for sending and receiving signals to and from a key at a frequency of 2.4 GHz.

### Claim 16 (depends on 14)

The method of claim 14, wherein the communication-quality-indicators comprise RSSI-values.

### Claim 17 (depends on 14)

The method of claim 14, wherein the communication-quality-indicators comprise a count of missed connection events.

### Claim 18 (depends on 14)

The method of claim 14, further comprising:
determining a communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node; and
determining the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node satisfying a consider-node-change-criterion.

### Claim 19 (depends on 18)

The method of claim 18, wherein:
the communication-quality-indicator for the current-BLE-node comprises an RSSI-value; and
the consider-node-change-criterion comprises an RSSI-threshold such that the infrastructure-controller is configured to determine the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the RSSI-value for the current-BLE-node being less than the RSSI-threshold.

### Claim 20 (depends on 18)

The method of claim 18, wherein:
the communication-quality-indicators for the current-BLE-node comprises a count of missed connection events; and
the consider-node-change-criterion comprises a missed-connection-threshold such that the infrastructure-controller is configured to determine the communication-quality-indicators for each of the plurality of BLE nodes in response to the count of missed connection events for the current-BLE-node being greater than the missed-connection-threshold.