Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110166731 | Energy Management Control of a Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle - A drive-home button is provided in the dashboard of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The driver presses this button when heading home or to other predetermined destination at which charging is routinely performed. The actual route, the driving style, and other relevant vehicle/road information during the trip home are stored to build up a statistical database. During a present trip home, a highly probably route is predicted based on prior trips and an energy management profile is calculated. The commands to the internal combustion engine and the electric motor are selected to cause the vehicle's battery to be substantially discharged upon arriving at home based on actual data of energy usage by the operator of the vehicle during prior trips. By using actual data, the prediction of energy usage is more accurate allowing more complete discharge of the battery. | 07-07-2011 |
20110270468 | Methods and Apparatus for Dynamic Powertrain Management - A computer-implemented method includes determining that a vehicle powertrain feature is engaged. The method further includes relaying, to a remote computing source, a request for a computation to be performed relating to the engaged powertrain feature. The method additionally includes receiving a result of the computation at a vehicle computing system and transferring the result of the computation to a powertrain for use in controlling the powertrain feature. | 11-03-2011 |
20120035795 | DISTANCE ORIENTED ENERGY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR A HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLE - A vehicle and a method to control a vehicle includes selecting a trip route for the vehicle using a user interface, generating a charge reference profile of a battery coupled to an electric motor based on the trip, and commanding propulsion devices in the vehicle based on a location of the vehicle with respect to the trip route such that a state of charge (SOC) of the battery tracks the reference profile. | 02-09-2012 |
20120290149 | Methods and Apparatus for Selective Power Enablement with Predictive Capability - A computer implemented method includes examining a travel route to determine the presence of emission control zones along the route. The method further includes determining how much power will be required to operate a vehicle along the portions of the route within the emission control zones. Also, this method includes preserving the determined amount of power required to operate the vehicle along the portions of the route within the emission control zones. Further, the method includes selectively activating a vehicle electric power mode using the preserved power while the vehicle is operating within the emission control zones. | 11-15-2012 |
20120290159 | Location Enhanced Distance Until Charge (DUC) Estimation for a Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) - A method and a system augment or improve a distance until charge (DUC) estimation for a vehicle such as a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) by using location information. Such location information may be provided by a global positioning system (GPS) or the like associated with the vehicle. The method and the system generally estimate the DUC value as a function of past driving pattern historical data that is relevant to a current driving situation. To this end, the method and the system ignore past driving pattern historical data that is not relevant to the current driving situation when estimating the DUC value. | 11-15-2012 |
20130073113 | VEHICLE AND METHOD FOR ESTIMATING A RANGE FOR THE VEHICLE - A method to control a vehicle includes assigning a predicted driving pattern to a predicted path for the vehicle, and providing a range for the vehicle using the predicted energy efficiency and an amount of energy available to the vehicle. The predicted driving pattern has an associated predicted energy efficiency. A vehicle includes a propulsion device coupled to wheels of the vehicle via a transmission, and a controller electronically coupled to the propulsion device. The controller is configured to: (i) assign a predicted driving pattern to a predicted path for the vehicle, the predicted driving pattern having a predicted energy efficiency, and (ii) provide a range for the vehicle using the predicted energy efficiency and an amount of energy available to the vehicle. | 03-21-2013 |
20130144481 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETECTING ACCELERATOR PEDAL FAILURE - A system for detecting accelerator pedal failure in an accelerator pedal system including a vehicle control system, the pedal failure detecting system having an accelerator pedal; a pedal arm; a sensor configured to interpret a force applied to the accelerator pedal and further configured to transmit a signal as a sensor output to the vehicle control system, wherein the vehicle control system is configured to correlate the sensor output to an accelerator pedal position, and to indicate a failure condition when it is not feasible the to read the sensor output given the accelerator pedal position. A method for detecting accelerator pedal failure conditions in an accelerator pedal system. | 06-06-2013 |
20130151149 | VEHICLE NAVIGATION SYSTEM SYNCHRONIZATION WITH USER CALENDAR - A Vehicle navigation system connects to a user's smart-phone or an online internet-based calendar service to download a user event schedule/calendar containing a list of upcoming user appointments. The next event within the list is identified, and is searched for the presence of a location identifier, i.e., an appointment venue or the name of the person with whom the appointment is fixed. Upon finding a location identifier, the user is prompted to confirm whether the identified location corresponds to the user's next intended destination, when the time of arriving at the identified location is close to the time when the next appointment occurs. Once the user confirms, the identified location is construed as the next intended destination and a destination input to the navigation system is automatically provided to plan the next trip accordingly. | 06-13-2013 |
20130179070 | ADAPTIVE METHOD FOR TRIP PREDICTION - A method for predicting a final destination of a vehicle comprises the steps of acquiring a start location of the vehicle, providing a predetermined waypoint distance from the start location, determining a current waypoint location once the vehicle travels the predetermined waypoint distance, receiving historical destination data from a database, including previous destinations associated with the current waypoint location. Then, making a prediction at the current waypoint location of the final destination based on the historical destination data. | 07-11-2013 |
20130218379 | Methods and Apparatus for Predicting a Driver Destination - A computer implemented trip-planning method includes accessing one or more destination elements of a matrix of driver information, the accessing based at least in part on a trip start time and day of week. Each accessed element has a probability associated therewith, indicating the likelihood of the element being the destination at which a vehicle trip will end, based at least the start time and day of week. The method also includes selecting, from the one or more elements, a destination having the highest probability of being the destination at which the vehicle trip will end. Further, the method includes utilizing the selected destination as an end destination for the purposes of trip planning. | 08-22-2013 |
20130332054 | STOP/START VEHICLE AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING ENGINE OF SAME - A stop/start system of a vehicle can issue auto stop commands and auto start commands. An engine of the vehicle is auto stopped in response to the auto stop commands and auto started in response to the auto start commands. The stop/start system can prevent an auto stop of the engine based on a predicted stop duration for a predicted stop location for the vehicle such that the engine remains running when the predicted stop duration is less than a threshold duration and the vehicle is stopped in a vicinity of the predicted stop location. | 12-12-2013 |
20140172292 | Methods and Apparatus for Context Based Trip Planning - A system includes a processor configured to receive vehicle location and context information. The processor is also configured to execute a prediction algorithm to predict one or more next-destinations based on the location and context information compared to observed driver behavior stored in a database and deliver the one or more next-destinations to a vehicle computing system. The processor is further configured to receive next-destination input and utilizing the next-destination input as a new vehicle location and estimating new context information, repeat execution of the prediction algorithm, delivery of the predicted next-destinations, and receipt of the next-destination input, until input indicating completed journey assembly is received. | 06-19-2014 |
20140300494 | LOCATION BASED FEATURE USAGE PREDICTION FOR CONTEXTUAL HMI - A vehicle system having a controller configured to receive a sensor input. The controller may generate a feature score based at least in part on the sensor input and a location data within a database. The controller may associate the feature score to a selectable option. The controller may instruct a user interface device to display the selectable option in response to the feature score. | 10-09-2014 |
20140303839 | USAGE PREDICTION FOR CONTEXTUAL INTERFACE - A vehicle interface system may include an interface configured to present icons representing selectable vehicle features; and a controller programmed to generate a score for each of the features based on a contextual variable including one or all of a vehicle location, vehicle speed, past feature usage information, and a predicted end location for the vehicle, and display certain of the icons and hide other of the icons based on the generated scores. | 10-09-2014 |
20140304635 | SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE FOR CONTEXTUAL HMI DETECTORS - A vehicle controller having at least one contextual module configured to receive a sensor input and generate an output representing a driving context. The vehicle controller may have a processor configured to receive the output from the one or more contextual modules. The processor may generate a feature score based on the output and associate the feature score with a selectable option. The processor may select the selectable option with the highest feature score to promote to a user interface device. | 10-09-2014 |