Vehicle event recorder systems and networks having integrated cellular wireless communications systems

摘要

Vehicle event recorder systems are arranged to be in constant communication with remote servers and administrators via mobile wireless cellular networks. Vehicle event recorders equipped with video cameras capture video and other data records of important events relating to vehicle use. These data are then transmitted over special communications networks having very high coverage space but limited bandwidth. A vehicle may be operated over very large region while maintaining continuous communications connections with a remote fixed server. As such, systems of these inventions may be characterized as including a mobile unit having: a video camera; a microprocessor; memory; an event trigger; and mobile wireless transceivers, and a fixed network portion including: mobile wireless cellular network, a protocol translation gateway, the Internet and an application-specific server.

主权项

1. Vehicle event recorder systems comprising:
a video camera; a microprocessor; a wireless communications transceiver configured to wirelessly transmit information via a cellular communication network; a managed loop memory configured to electronically store information; a buffer memory configured to electronically store information; and a server computer, said video camera having a field-of-view coupled to environments about a vehicle and further having an electronic output coupled to said microprocessor, said microprocessor electronically coupled to said wireless communications transceiver whereby image data captured by said video camera may be transmitted via electromagnetic radiation to said cellular communications network, said microprocessor configured to:
effectuate storage of the image data in the managed loop memory,responsive to physical anomaly event triggers, transfer the image data electronically stored by the managed loop memory to the buffer memory in detailed complete datasets that correspond to individual physical anomaly event triggers, the detailed complete datasets including a first detailed complete dataset that corresponds to a first physical anomaly event trigger and a second detailed complete dataset that corresponds to a second physical anomaly event trigger, the first detailed complete dataset comprising more bytes of data than the second detailed complete dataset;compress the detailed complete datasets into abbreviated datasets, compressing including parsing the detailed complete datasets such that the abbreviated datasets comprise less bytes of data than the detailed complete datasets, the abbreviated datasets including a first abbreviated dataset that corresponds to the first detailed complete dataset and a second abbreviated dataset that corresponds to the second detailed complete dataset;effectuate storage of the abbreviated datasets in the buffer memory, andfacilitate wireless transmission of the detailed complete datasets and the abbreviated datasets via the wireless communications transceiver based on an amount of available bandwidth in the cellular communication network,
wherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of the first abbreviated dataset and the second abbreviated dataset responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the abbreviated datasets in real-time or near real-time, andwherein the microprocessor is configured to facilitate transmission of the first and second detailed complete datasets responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient to permit transmission of the detailed complete datasets such that, the second detailed complete dataset is transmitted responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient for transmission of the second detailed complete dataset and then the first detailed complete dataset is transmitted responsive to the amount of available bandwidth being sufficient for transmission of the first detailed complete dataset; said cellular communications network is coupled with said server computer, and said server computer further comprises vehicle event recorder application specific software.