CN108711197B

CN108711197B - Method and equipment for adaptively adjusting power of vehicle-mounted unit

Info

Publication number: CN108711197B
Application number: CN201810510506.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 胡振
Original assignee: Beijing WatchSmart Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Beijing WatchSmart Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-05-24
Filing date: 2018-05-24
Publication date: 2021-09-17
Anticipated expiration: 2038-05-24
Also published as: CN108711197A

Abstract

The invention provides a method and equipment for adaptively adjusting the power of an On Board Unit (OBU), wherein the method comprises the following steps: before an ETC entrance is charged by electronic toll collection, setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and finish an entrance transaction process; and after the ETC entrance, before the OBU is in dormancy, setting the power of the OBU as a second parameter so as to communicate with a path identification antenna. The technical scheme of the invention well integrates the functional characteristics of the CPC card and the traditional OBU, not only retains the characteristic of convenience and rapidness of an OBU owner at the entrance and exit of a toll road, but also improves the marking success rate on a path identification road. Compared with other schemes, the method is low in cost, and accurate recording of the entrance and exit and path information on the toll road can be completed without upgrading and reconstructing the OBU, the antenna and even the whole system.

Description

Method and equipment for adaptively adjusting power of vehicle-mounted unit

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to the field of intelligent transportation and more specifically to the field of adaptive adjustment of the power of an On Board Unit (OBU).

Background

At present, the highway networking toll collection system mainly comprises an Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system and an ambiguous path identification composite transit card (CPC). The main function of the ETC is to communicate by dedicated short-range communication DSRC between an on-vehicle electronic tag mounted on a vehicle windshield and a path recognition antenna on an ETC lane at a toll gate. Then, the computer networking technology and the bank are used for carrying out background settlement processing, so that the aim that the vehicle can pay the road and bridge fees through the road and bridge toll station without parking is fulfilled.

When the vehicle owner has installed OBU, the vehicle enters the high-speed lane via ETC lane at the entrance, and when the vehicle passes through a road with path identifying equipment, the RSU sends microwave signals via an antenna, wakes up the OBU and writes path identifying information into the OBU, and reads the path information in the OBU at the high-speed exit and charges according to the set standard.

When the vehicle owner does not install the OBU, the CPC card is received in the manual lane, when the vehicle owner passes through a road provided with the path identification equipment, the RSU sends microwave signals through the antenna, the path identification information is written into the CPC card, the CPC card is returned to lane workers at a high-speed exit, and the corresponding fee is collected by the background according to the access information and the path identification information in the CPC card.

The difference between the OBU and the CPC in physical parameters is mainly that the CPC card has higher microwave communication sensitivity, such as-50 dbm of awakening sensitivity and-65 dbm of receiving sensitivity; whereas the wake-up sensitivity of the OBU is-40 dbm and the receive sensitivity is-50 dbm. In addition, since the antenna direction on the CPC card is omnidirectional, in practical application on the route identification road, the OBU is woken up closer to the route identification antenna than the CPC card under the same condition because the parameter sensitivity of the OBU is lower than that of the CPC card. And vehicles usually run at high speed on the road, so that the marking success rate of the vehicle with the OBU is obviously lower than that of a CPC card. However, at the ETC entrance and exit, because the vehicle speed is limited to 20 kilometers per hour, the OBU at the time can better ensure that the antenna under the same lane interacts with the OBU of the same lane, and the problem of lane-approaching interference is avoided.

In the existing path identification road, a scheme of coexistence of an OBU and a CPC card is generally adopted. To improve the marking success rate of OBUs and CPC cards under the path identification antenna, the identification antenna power is often set to maximum (33 dbm).

The disadvantage of this solution is that although the power of the antenna is increased, the problem of low success rate of marking is still not solved. When the CPC card is used by the owner of the vehicle, if the card is placed at a hidden position in the vehicle or the card is shielded by a metal object, even if the power of the path identification antenna is large enough, the CPC card cannot be ensured to be in an awakenable area on a road running at a high speed.

When the vehicle owner uses the OBU to pass through the path identification antenna, DSRC data interaction is very stable on a low-speed lane due to the parameters of the OBU and the limitation of the antenna, but the vehicle owner cannot consciously reduce the vehicle speed on the identification antenna, so that the marking success rate is still not high.

In order to improve the marking success rate of the OBU on the path identification road, a method combining multiple technologies is adopted in some provinces. For example, the OBU is upgraded to a composite vehicle-mounted equipment unit, namely, a 433MHz radio frequency module is integrated in the OBU. The 5.8GHz band is used for receiving and transmitting DSRC data at the high-speed gateway, and the 433MHz band is used for recording path identification information.

The workflow of this scheme does, when the car owner gets into the ETC entry, accomplishes ETC entry transaction through path identification antenna, and then the OBU opens 433MHz radio frequency module. Meanwhile, on a road with path identification, a plurality of 433MHz base stations are built, the base stations continuously transmit 433MHz radio frequency signals, and the OBU end receives the signals through the 433MHz module and writes the signals into the OBU security module. And at the ETC outlet, the path recognition antenna reads the OBU data and charges corresponding fees according to the entrance and exit information and the identification information.

The disadvantage of this scheme is that the 433MHz base station itself has no security mechanism, the sent data is plaintext, and there is no data interaction with the OBU, and the OBU is only responsible for receiving. The scheme has poor safety, can manually capture communication data through the receiving device, establishes the pseudo base station to send pseudo data to the OBU and avoids toll. In addition, the 433MHz module is added at the OBU end, so that the cost of the OBU is increased, and the 433MHz antenna and the 5.8G antenna coexist on the OBU and easily cause interference to signals.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to overcome the defects of low marking success rate or poor safety of an OBU in the prior art, and provides a method and equipment capable of accurately marking.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for adaptively adjusting power of an On Board Unit (OBU), comprising: before an ETC entrance is charged by electronic toll collection, setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and finish an entrance transaction process; and after the ETC entrance, before the OBU is in dormancy, setting the power of the OBU as a second parameter so as to communicate with a path identification antenna.

Optionally, the method of the present invention further comprises: detecting a Beacon Service Table (BST) in the received signal during travel of the OBU to determine whether the received signal is emitted by a path identification antenna or an ETC antenna.

Alternatively, when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0xA0-0xFE, it is determined that the received signal is transmitted by a path identification antenna.

Optionally, when it is detected that the received signal is emitted by a path identifying antenna, communication with the path identifying antenna is maintained with the second parameter.

Alternatively, when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0x00-0x9E, then it is determined that the received signal was transmitted by the ECT antenna.

Optionally, when it is detected that the received signal is emitted by the ETC antenna, the power of the OBU is set to a first parameter and the OBU is put to sleep.

Optionally, the method of the present invention further comprises: when the OBU is awakened, the current outlet is determined to be the ETC outlet, and the OBU is communicated with the ETC antenna and completes the outlet transaction process.

Optionally, the first parameter comprises a first wake-up sensitivity of-40 dbm and a first receive sensitivity of-50 dbm; and the second parameter comprises a second wake-up sensitivity of-50 dbm and a second receive sensitivity of-65 dbm.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for adaptively adjusting power of an on-board unit OBU, comprising: the first device is used for setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter before an ETC entrance is charged by Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and finish an entrance transaction process; and a second device for setting the power of the OBU to a second parameter after passing through the ETC entrance to communicate with a path recognition antenna.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an on-board unit OBU capable of adaptively adjusting power, comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to perform the method recited in claim above based on instructions stored in the memory.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer program instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, implement the method as described above.

The technical scheme of the invention well integrates the functional characteristics of the CPC card and the traditional OBU, not only retains the characteristic of convenience and rapidness of an OBU owner at the entrance and exit of a toll road, but also improves the marking success rate on a path identification road.

Compared with other schemes, the method is low in cost, and accurate recording of the entrance and exit and path information on the toll road can be completed without upgrading and reconstructing the OBU, the antenna and even the whole system.

Drawings

FIG. 1 illustrates a flow chart of a method of adaptive adjustment of power to an on-board unit in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

fig. 2 shows a scenario in which the technical solution of the present invention is applied;

fig. 3 shows a block diagram of an apparatus for adaptive adjustment of the power of an on board unit OBU according to another aspect of the invention;

FIG. 4 depicts an OBU according to one embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 illustrates a program product according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration, specific features of the invention, such that the advantages and features of the invention may be more readily understood and appreciated. The following description is an embodiment of the claimed invention, and other embodiments related to the claims not specifically described also fall within the scope of the claims. Meanwhile, it should be understood that the sizes of the respective portions shown in the drawings are not drawn in an actual proportional relationship for the convenience of description. The following description of at least one exemplary embodiment is merely illustrative in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention, its application, or uses.

Techniques, methods, and apparatus known to those of ordinary skill in the relevant art may not be discussed in detail but are intended to be part of the specification where appropriate.

FIG. 1 illustrates a flow chart of a method of adaptive adjustment of power to an on-board unit in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; fig. 2 shows a scenario in which the technical solution of the present invention is applied.

As shown in fig. 1, the method of the present invention comprises: setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter to communicate with an ETC antenna and complete an entrance transaction process before an ETC entrance is charged by Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) in operation S110; and setting power of the OBU to a second parameter to communicate with a path recognition antenna after passing through the ETC entry in operation S120.

As described in more detail below in conjunction with fig. 2. It should be understood that, although the antenna at the entrance of the ETC and the path recognition antenna on the expressway belong to the roadside unit RSU, for the purpose of convenience of distinction, the antenna at the entrance of the ETC is referred to as the ETC antenna, and the antenna at the roadside of the expressway is referred to as the path recognition antenna. Such nomenclature does not set any limit on the scope of the invention.

In fig. 2, when the vehicle travels on a road, the vehicle first enters an entrance of the ETC tollgate (indicated by "point a" in fig. 2). At point a, the power of the OBU may be set to parameters that facilitate communication with the ECT antenna to communicate with the ETC antenna and complete the portal transaction process. The parameters described herein may be a wake-up sensitivity of the OBU of-40 dBm and a receive sensitivity of-50 dBm. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, at the entrance of a highway, where multiple ETC lanes exist in parallel, too high a sensitivity will likely result in adjacent lane interference, and therefore, setting the parameters of the OBU so that adjacent lane interference is advantageously reduced, improving the accuracy of the reading.

Next, after the vehicle passes through the ETC entrance, as shown in fig. 2 at point B, the vehicle has completed a transaction flow with the ETC antenna, and the OBU is still in an activated state and has not yet been put to sleep. Next, the vehicle will more likely pass through and communicate with the path identifying antenna. Therefore, after passing point B, the parameters of the OBU may be set to facilitate communication with the path recognition antenna so that the vehicle completes good communication during high-speed driving. The parameter described here may be a wake-up sensitivity of the OBU of-50 dBm and a receive sensitivity of-65 dBm, which would be similar to the receive sensitivity of a conventional CPC card.

It is to be understood that the two sensitivities described above are merely examples, and those skilled in the art can set a more suitable sensitivity according to the actual situation, and are not limited to any one of the above.

Next, according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 1, the method of the present invention further includes: and S130, detecting the beacon service table BST in the received signal during the OBU traveling process so as to determine whether the received signal is sent out by the path identification antenna or the ETC antenna.

Referring further to fig. 2, when the vehicle travels on the highway, for example, reaches point C, it may be woken up by the path identification antenna, and the path identification antenna issues Beacon Service Table (BST) frame data, and according to the BST frame data, when the antenna is analyzed as a path identification antenna, the path marking process is completed.

Therefore, in the present invention, when it is detected that the received signal is emitted from the path recognition antenna, communication with the path recognition antenna at the second parameter is maintained in operation S140. The awakening sensitivity and the receiving sensitivity of the second parameter are higher, so that the vehicle can conveniently complete good communication with the path identification antenna in the high-speed driving process.

There may be various ways of detecting whether the antenna is a path identifying antenna or an ETC antenna, one way being to determine that the received signal is transmitted by the path identifying antenna when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0xA0-0 xFE.

Next, according to an embodiment of the present invention, in operation S150, when it is detected that the received signal is transmitted by the ETC antenna, the power of the OBU is set to a first parameter, and the OBU is put to sleep.

As shown in fig. 2, when the vehicle travels to a point D, i.e., a distance from the ETC outlet, since the current OBU is in the second parameter, both the wakeup sensitivity and the reception sensitivity are high, and thus the vehicle can be awakened at a longer distance from the ETC antenna. At this time, when the ETC antenna is determined, it is possible to quickly switch the parameter to the first parameter with lower sensitivity and quickly enter the sleep state. Due to the distance from the ETC antenna, the OBU has enough time to wake up, switch parameters, sleep, etc. in a row (this process usually does not exceed 50 ms).

Next, when the OBU is woken up, it is determined as an ETC outlet, and communicates with an ETC antenna and completes an outlet transaction process in operation S160.

As shown in fig. 2, at point E, the vehicle is already close to the ETC exit, and the OBU is currently at the first parameter with lower sensitivity, so that the transaction flow can be normally completed with the ETC antenna at the exit. The process is the same as the conventional process of exiting the ETC outlet, and therefore, the description thereof will be omitted.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0x00-0x9E, it is determined that the received signal is transmitted from the ETC antenna.

Fig. 3 shows a block diagram of an apparatus for adaptive adjustment of the power of an on board unit OBU according to another aspect of the invention.

As shown in fig. 3, the apparatus of the present invention comprises: the first device M310 is used for setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter before an ETC entrance is charged by Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and complete an entrance transaction process; and a second device M320 for setting the power of the OBU to a second parameter after passing through the ETC entry to communicate with a path recognition antenna.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or program product. Thus, various aspects of the invention may be embodied in the form of: an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, microcode, etc.) or an embodiment combining hardware and software aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," module "or" system.

In some possible embodiments, the invention may be implemented as an on board unit, OBU, capable of adaptive power adjustment, which may include a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to perform the method as described above based on instructions stored in the memory.

An OBU according to this embodiment of the invention is described below with reference to fig. 4. The OBU shown in fig. 4 is only an example, which should not bring any limitation to the function and the scope of use of the embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 4, the OBU 1 is in the form of a general purpose computing device including, but not limited to: at least one processor 10, at least one memory 20, and a bus 60 connecting the various system components.

Bus 60 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.

The memory 20 may include readable media in the form of volatile memory, such as Random Access Memory (RAM)21 and/or cache memory 22, and may further include Read Only Memory (ROM) 23.

Memory 20 may also include program modules 24, such program modules 24 including, but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which, or some combination thereof, may comprise an implementation of a network environment.

The OBU 1 may also communicate with one or more external devices 2 and also with one or more other devices. Such communication may be via an input/output (I/O) interface 40 and displayed on the display unit 30. Also, the OBU 1 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network, such as the internet) via the network adapter 50. As shown, the network adapter 50 communicates with other modules in the OBU 1 over a bus 60. It should be understood that although not shown in the figures, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with the OBU 1, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, among others.

In some possible embodiments, aspects of the invention may also be implemented in the form of a program product comprising program code for causing a processor to perform the above described method when the program code is executed by the processor.

The program product may employ any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. A readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the readable storage medium include: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable disk, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

As shown in fig. 5, a program product 3 according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown, which may employ a portable compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM) and include program code, and may be run on a terminal device, such as a personal computer. However, the program product of the present invention is not limited in this regard and, in the present document, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server. In the case of a remote computing device, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device over any kind of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., over the internet using an internet service provider).

Moreover, while the operations of the method of the invention are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this does not require or imply that the operations must be performed in this particular order, or that all of the illustrated operations must be performed, to achieve desirable results. Additionally or alternatively, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps combined into one step execution, and/or one step broken down into multiple step executions.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the invention, and that those skilled in the art will be able to design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim.

Claims

1. A method for adaptively adjusting the power of an On Board Unit (OBU), comprising:

before an ETC entrance is charged by electronic toll collection, setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and finish an entrance transaction process;

setting power of the OBU to a second parameter to communicate with a path identification antenna after passing through the ETC portal and before the OBU is dormant,

detecting a beacon service table BST in a received signal during travel of the OBU to determine whether the received signal was transmitted by a path identification antenna or an ETC antenna,

maintaining communication with the path identification antenna at the second parameter when the received signal is detected as being emitted by the path identification antenna,

setting the power of the OBU to a first parameter and enabling the OBU to sleep when the received signal is detected to be sent out by an ETC antenna;

the first parameter and the second parameter comprise awakening sensitivity and receiving sensitivity, and the first parameter is lower than the second parameter;

the size of the first parameter is set to enable signals of OBUs between the ETC entrance adjacent lanes not to interfere with each other.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0xA0-0xFE, it is determined that the received signal is transmitted by a path identification antenna.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein when the BST manufacturer code byte is detected to be 0x00-0x9E, then the received signal is determined to be emitted by an ETC antenna.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

when the OBU is awakened, the current outlet is determined to be the ETC outlet, and the OBU is communicated with the ETC antenna and completes the outlet transaction process.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein,

the first parameter comprises a first wake-up sensitivity of-40 dbm and a first receive sensitivity of-50 dbm; and

the second parameter includes a second wake-up sensitivity of-50 dbm and a second receive sensitivity of-65 dbm.

6. An apparatus for adaptive adjustment of power of an On Board Unit (OBU), comprising:

the first device is used for setting the power of the OBU as a first parameter before an ETC entrance is charged by Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), so as to communicate with an ETC antenna and finish an entrance transaction process;

second means for setting power of the OBU to a second parameter after passing through the ETC portal to communicate with a path identifying antenna,

the second device maintains communication with the path identification antenna at the second parameter when detecting that the received signal is emitted by the path identification antenna,

when detecting that the received signal is emitted by an ETC antenna, the first device sets the power of the OBU to a first parameter and enables the OBU to sleep;

7. An On Board Unit (OBU) capable of adaptive power adjustment, comprising:

a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to perform the method of any of claims 1-5 based on instructions stored in the memory.

8. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer program instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, implement the method of any one of claims 1 to 5.