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US 9,187,099 B2Granted
Systems and methods for predicting weather performance for a vehicle
OwnerRichard M. Powers, John C. Mickey +1inventors
InventorsRichard M. Powers, John C. Mickey, E. Duer Reeves
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for obtaining data about road conditions as they pertain to an individual vehicle, using this information to build a model of vehicle behavior as a function of its environment, and aggregating information concerning multiple vehicles along with data from other sources in order to predict vehicle behavior in future environments.
Claims20
A method for use in predicting vehicle performance over a road segment, comprising:
- establishing a wireless connection between a processing unit of a vehicle and a database having road surface information for a travel path of the vehicle, wherein said road surface information is compiled from vehicles previously passing over at least a portion of said travel path;
- receiving, at the processing unit, road surface information for upcoming road segments along said travel path;
- accessing stored profile information for the vehicle, wherein said profile information includes wheel slip information indexed to at least a portion of said road surface information;
- calculating an estimated wheel slip of said vehicle for at least one upcoming road segment along said travel path using said stored profile information and said road surface information;
- and
- upon said estimated wheel slip exceeding a predetermined threshold, generating a safety output.
3 more elements
A method for use in predicting vehicle performance over a road segment, comprising:
- receiving, via wireless connections, a plurality of road surface reports from vehicles traveling over one or more roads, said road surface reports each including a location of a reporting vehicle and coefficient of friction information associated with tire to road interface information for said location as determined by said vehicles;
- storing said road surface information to a database;
- identifying a vehicle for provision of road surface information for a travel path of the vehicle;
- identifying prior road surface information for one or more road segments of said travel path from said road surface reports;
- and
- sending, via said wireless connection, said prior road surface information including coefficient of friction information for said one or more road segments to said vehicle, wherein said vehicle is operative to utilize said coefficient of friction information from said prior road surface information to calculate an estimated wheel slip of the vehicle for at least one upcoming road segment of said travel path.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.