Portable vehicle diagnostic tool
AssigneeInternational Engine Intellectual Property Company, LLC
InventorRandall R. Roepke
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A diagnostic application for a motor vehicle is incorporated into a handheld device such as a cell phone through a portable application. The handheld device includes video capture and display capability. The application operates to qualify flashes generated on a vehicle instrument cluster by vehicle on-board diagnostics. These flash codes are processed for qualification and decoding resulting in display a textual description corresponding to the vehicle diagnostic flash code.
Claims9
A diagnostic tool for a motor vehicle, comprising:
- a handheld device including a video capture feature and a display;
- the video capture feature having a field of view;
- an application installed on the handheld device for qualifying a series of flashes captured in video frames by the video capture feature as corresponding to a vehicle diagnostic flash code;
- and
- a processor in the handheld device responsive to qualification of a vehicle diagnostic flash code for decoding the flash code and displaying a textual description corresponding to the vehicle diagnostic flash code on the display.
An installable application for a handheld electronic device having a video capture feature, the installable application comprising:
- means for locating a flashing light source within a field of view of the video capture feature;
- means for qualifying a series of flashes within the field of view as a vehicle diagnostic flash code and determining a number for the flash code;
- and
- means for retrieving a text message correlated with the number for the flash code;
- and
- means for displaying the text message.
A method of decoding motor vehicle diagnostic flash codes comprising the steps of:
- recording a series of image frames of an instrument cluster for a motor vehicle equipped to display diagnostic flash codes in a video buffer;
- electronically processing the series of image frames to locate a flashing light source recorded in the series of image frames;
- qualifying the flashing light source as a source of diagnostic flash codes;
- generating numbers corresponding to diagnostic codes from the diagnostic flash codes;
- interrogating a memory device to recover text messages corresponding to the numbers;
- and
- displaying the text messages on a display device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.