Low latency inside/outside determination for portable transmitter
AssigneeLear Corporation
InventorsRiad Ghabra, Nikolay Yakovenko, Hilton W. Girard
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and system is disclosed for determining presence of a portable transmitter relative to a boundary. The presence may be determined according to whether the portable transmitter is interior or exterior to the boundary. The boundary may be defined as a wireless boundary that corresponds with an intersection or overlapping portion set by multiple antenna fields.
Claims20
A method of facilitating passive entry dependent, exterior unlock of a vehicle as a function of signals communicated to a vehicle-based passive entry controller from a passive entry fob, the vehicle including at least an exterior antenna having an exterior antenna field and at least an interior antenna having an interior antenna field, the method comprising:
- transmitting a exterior signal to the fob from the exterior antenna;
- determining a state of an interior flag of the fob to be in one of an exterior state and an interior state;
- and
- allowing the passive entry controller to unlock the vehicle without transmitting an interior signal to the fob from the interior antenna in the event an exterior signal strength of the exterior signal received by the fob is greater than an exterior threshold and the interior flag is in the exterior state.
A passive entry controller being operable to:
- issue instructions to facilitate control of one or more vehicle systems according to passive entry wireless signals received from a fob;
- passively unlock the vehicle in the event each of the following conditions:
- (i) an exterior search detects the presence of the fob and an interior status flag of the fob is set to an exterior state;
- and
- (ii) the exterior search detects the presence of the fob, an interior search fails to detect the presence of the fob, and the interior status flag of the fob is set to the exterior state.
A method of determining a portable transmitter to be interior or exterior of a wireless boundary defined by at least a first antenna having a first antenna field and at least a second antenna having a second antenna field, the method comprising:
- transmitting a first signal to the portable transmitter from the first antenna;
- determining a state of an state flag of the portable transmitter to be in one of an exterior state and an interior state;
- measuring a first signal strength for the first signal received by the portable transmitter;
- and
- determining the portable transmitter to be exterior of the boundary in the event the first signal strength is greater than an exterior threshold and the state flag is in the exterior state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.