Remote motion control using a wireless mobile device

摘要

In one embodiment, a general-purpose wireless mobile device having a touch-sensitive screen and executing a remote control application is used to remotely control a vehicle (e.g., a marine vessel). The general-purpose wireless mobile device communicates via a wireless network with an interface (e.g., a server) that is coupled to an electronic control system of the vehicle (e.g., the vessel). In operation, environmental information and/or system status information is collected through the electronic control system, propagated to the interface (e.g., server), and then sent over the wireless network to the wireless mobile device. Similarly, control input is sent over the wireless network to the interface (e.g., server), which passes the information to the electronic control system, which in turn issues appropriate control signals to the vehicle subsystems (e.g., marine subsystems) to control the motion of the vehicle (e.g., the vessel).

主权项

1. A system comprising:
an interface coupled to an electronic control system of a vehicle; and a general-purpose wireless mobile device having a touch-sensitive screen in communication with the interface via a wireless network, the general-purpose wireless mobile device configured to execute a remote control application that includes:
a packet delivery module configured to exchange packets with the interface over the wireless network,a network health monitor configured to use packet data for packets exchanged during a sliding window having at least a predetermined length or a predetermined size to calculate one or more performance metrics, at least one of the one or more performance metrics being an instantaneous jitter metric, a cumulative delay metric, an average jitter metric or a retransmission metric to determine anetwork health score for the wireless network based on the one or more performance metrics, to compare the network health score to a health threshold, and based on whether the network health score meets the health threshold, to permit or disable remote motion control of the vehicle via the general-purpose wireless mobile device, anda user interface (UI) configured to display environmental information and/or system status information for the vehicle on the touch-sensitive screen of the general-purpose wireless mobile device, and to receive on the touch-sensitive screen control input indicating desired motion control for the vehicle,wherein, when remote motion control via the general-purpose wireless mobile device is permitted, the control input is passed to the interface to cause the electronic control system to issue control signals to subsystems to control motion of the vehicle, and when remote motion control via the general-purpose wireless mobile device is disabled, motion control responsibility is returned to a main control interface of the vehicle.