CN116489615A

CN116489615A - Vehicle owner contact method, device and system

Info

Publication number: CN116489615A
Application number: CN202210791964.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 杜雨轩
Original assignee: Denso Corp
Current assignee: Denso Corp
Priority date: 2022-07-05
Filing date: 2022-07-05
Publication date: 2023-07-25

Abstract

The invention discloses a vehicle owner contact method, which comprises the following steps: a Road Side Unit (RSU) receives a contact request to be verified from a caller, the contact request to be verified indicating that the caller desires to contact a vehicle owner and including ID information of the caller; the RSU authenticates the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party; the RSU sends an authenticated contact request to the in-vehicle device installed in the vehicle of the vehicle owner and having the contact details of the vehicle owner based on the authentication of the caller passing, and the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed; the vehicle-mounted device initiates a communication request to the vehicle owner through a contact way based on the received verified contact request, wherein the communication request comprises ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and does not comprise ID information of a calling party; the in-vehicle device establishes a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for communication between the calling party and the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request. An apparatus and a system for implementing the method are also provided.

Description

Vehicle owner contact method, device and system

Technical Field

The invention relates to Internet of vehicles communication, in particular to a vehicle owner contact method, device and system.

Background

The prior art methods of vehicle owner contact often require that the vehicle owner register a license plate number and a telephone number with a certain service platform (e.g., a vehicle moving service platform) to provide available information retrieval for the caller (e.g., retrieving the telephone number of the vehicle owner via the license plate number and then contacting the vehicle owner via the telephone number). When a caller needs to contact the car owner, the APP provided by the service platform or the two-dimensional code of the car owner left on the car can be used for providing a call request for the service platform. The service platform then performs virtual number encryption on the telephone numbers of the calling party and the car owner, thereby ensuring that the telephone number information of the calling party and the car owner is not revealed. In some prior art solutions, the caller is also location checked to determine if the caller is in the vicinity of the vehicle, thereby preventing unwanted nuisance calls.

However, the prior art solutions have the following problems:

(1) The premise of successfully contacting the car owner is that the car owner actively registers own license plate number and telephone number information on the service platform, so that others can contact themselves when needed. This is highly dependent on subjective awareness of the vehicle owner and it is difficult for the service provider to cover all vehicles, resulting in difficulty in popularization.

(2) Through the means of virtual telephone numbers of both parties, personal information of both parties can be prevented from being revealed, but the possibility of refusal is high because the contact number seen by the car owner is a strange number.

(3) The mode of preventing harassment calls is to compare whether the vehicle position is close to the calling party position or not, which requires the calling party terminal and the vehicle to provide position information together, and has high requirement on system construction.

Accordingly, there is a need for an improved vehicle owner contact method that addresses the above-described problems of the prior art.

Disclosure of Invention

The following presents a simplified summary of one or more aspects in order to provide a basic understanding of such aspects. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated aspects, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all aspects nor delineate the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

The invention provides a vehicle owner contact method executed by vehicle-mounted equipment, wherein the vehicle-mounted equipment is arranged in a vehicle of a vehicle owner and has a contact way of the vehicle owner, and the method comprises the following steps: receiving an authenticated contact request from a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that authentication of the caller has passed; initiating a communication request to the vehicle owner via the contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes ID information of the vehicle-mounted device but not of the caller; and establishing a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for communication between the calling party and the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: in response to the vehicle owner rejecting the communication request or not responding to the communication request, continuing to initiate the communication request after a preset period of time until the vehicle owner accepts the communication request or until the communication request has been initiated a threshold number of times.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle device includes an in-vehicle unit (OBU) and a Telematics Control Unit (TCU), wherein the validated contact request is received by the OBU, and initiating the communication request to the vehicle owner further includes: after the OBU receives the validated contact request, the OBU communicates with the TCU to inform the TCU to initiate a communication request to the vehicle owner.

In some embodiments, the communication between the calling party and the RSU is a V2X communication, the communication between the RSU and the OBU is a V2X communication, the communication between the OBU and the TCU is an in-vehicle communication, and the communication between the TCU and the vehicle owner is a cellular communication.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: in response to either the caller or the owner ending the communication, all communication links from the caller to the owner are severed.

In some embodiments, the verification of the caller is accomplished by credit assessment of the caller based on the caller's ID information.

In some embodiments, the communication between the calling party and the vehicle owner includes at least one of: real-time voice communication, non-voice communication.

The invention also provides a vehicle owner contact method executed by the calling party, which comprises the following steps: transmitting a contact request to be verified to a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the contact request to be verified indicates that the caller desires to contact an owner of the target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller; and after the RSU passes the verification of the calling party, communicating with the vehicle owner over a communication link established between the calling party and the vehicle owner, wherein the communication link is established in response to the vehicle owner accepting a communication request initiated by the vehicle-mounted device in the target vehicle, the communication request including the ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and not including the ID information of the calling party, wherein the verification of the calling party is accomplished by credit evaluation of the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party.

In some embodiments, the communication request is initiated by the in-vehicle device based on receiving an authenticated contact request from the RSU, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed.

In some embodiments, the target vehicle is selected by the calling party from a list of nearby vehicles provided by the RSU or provided to the RSU by the calling party.

The invention also provides a vehicle owner contact method executed by a Road Side Unit (RSU), comprising the following steps: receiving a contact request to be verified from a caller, wherein the contact request to be verified indicates that the caller desires to contact an owner of a target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller; validating the caller based on the caller's ID information; an authenticated contact request is sent to the in-vehicle device of the target vehicle based on the authentication of the caller passing, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed.

In some embodiments, the verification of the caller is done by the RSU with the aid of a cloud server.

The invention also provides a vehicle owner contact device which is arranged in a vehicle of a vehicle owner and has a contact way of the vehicle owner, and the device comprises: a contact request receiving module for receiving a verified contact request from a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the verified contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the verification of the caller has passed; a communication request initiating module for initiating a communication request to the vehicle owner via a contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes ID information of the vehicle owner contact means but not of the caller; and a communication management module for establishing a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

The invention also provides a vehicle owner contact device, which comprises: a contact request sending module for sending a contact request to be verified to a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the contact request to be verified represents that a caller associated with the device desires to contact an owner of the target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller; and a communication management module for enabling the caller to communicate with the vehicle owner on a communication link established between the caller and the vehicle owner after the authentication of the caller by the RSU is passed, wherein the communication link is established in response to the vehicle owner accepting a communication request initiated by the vehicle-mounted device in the target vehicle, the communication request including the ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and not including the ID information of the caller.

The invention also provides a vehicle owner contact system, which comprises: a Road Side Unit (RSU); and an in-vehicle device installed in a vehicle of the vehicle owner and having a contact address of the vehicle owner, wherein the RSU and the in-vehicle device are configured to: the RSU receives a contact request to be verified from a calling party, wherein the contact request to be verified indicates that the calling party desires to contact an owner of the vehicle and comprises ID information of the calling party; the RSU authenticates the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party; the RSU sends an authenticated contact request to the vehicle-mounted device based on the authentication of the caller passing, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed; the vehicle-mounted device initiates a communication request to the vehicle owner through a contact way based on the received verified contact request, wherein the communication request comprises ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and does not comprise ID information of a calling party; the in-vehicle device establishes a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for communication between the calling party and the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle device includes an in-vehicle unit (OBU) and a Telematics Control Unit (TCU), wherein the authenticated contact request is received by the OBU and the communication request is initiated by the TCU, wherein the OBU communicates with the TCU after receiving the authenticated contact request to notify the TCU to initiate the communication request to the vehicle owner.

The present invention also provides a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for vehicle owner contact, the computer program being executable by a processor to perform the aforementioned vehicle owner contact method.

Drawings

The features, nature, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings. In the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the different views. It is noted that the drawings described are only schematic and are non-limiting. In the drawings, the size of some of the elements may be exaggerated and not drawn on scale for illustrative purposes.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the vehicle owner contact system of the present invention.

Fig. 2 shows a flow chart of the vehicle owner contact method performed by the vehicle-mounted device of the present invention.

Fig. 3 shows a flow chart of the owner contact method performed by the calling party of the present invention.

Fig. 4 shows a flow chart of the owner contact method performed by the RSU of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary process for contacting a vehicle owner using the vehicle owner contact method of the present invention.

Fig. 6 illustrates a flow chart of interactions between participants in the owner contact system of the present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary vehicle owner contact device of the present invention.

Fig. 8 illustrates a block diagram of another exemplary vehicle owner contact means of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by the following detailed description of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the described exemplary embodiments. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the described embodiments may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other exemplary embodiments, well-known structures have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the concepts of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. Meanwhile, the various aspects described in the embodiments may be arbitrarily combined without conflict.

As mentioned above, the owner contact method in the prior art has strong subjective awareness of the owner, and the owner has high possibility of refusing to receive the call, and has high requirement on system construction.

With the rapid development of the internet of vehicles (V2X), the popularity of V2X devices is increasing, and the density of coverage is increasing. The invention realizes the contact between the calling party and the vehicle owner by flexibly applying the using mode of the prior V2X equipment, thereby effectively relieving the problems in the prior art.

According to the technical scheme, an in-vehicle and out-vehicle communication system formed by the V2X equipment of the Internet of vehicles and a remote information control unit (TCU) in the vehicle is utilized, and the calling party is contacted with the vehicle owner by carrying out V2X communication between the V2X equipment, carrying out in-vehicle communication between the V2X equipment and the TCU and carrying out cellular communication between the TCU and the vehicle owner.

Specifically, when the caller wishes to contact the vehicle owner, the caller can make a call request to a V2X Roadside Unit (RSU), which performs V2X communication with a V2X On Board Unit (OBU) after authenticating the caller. The OBU in turn communicates with the TCU in-vehicle to inform the TCU to communicate with the vehicle owner via the stored vehicle owner contact.

RSU and OBU all belong to the equipment in the car networking, mainly used near field communication. The RSU is a road side infrastructure, and is mainly used for information transfer, road state sensing, and the like. The RSU is similar to a "base station" in a communication system. An OBU is an embedded processing unit deployed in a vehicle to participate in internet of vehicles communications. OBU is similar to a "mobile terminal" in a communication system.

When the RSU and the OBU communicate, the OBU provides vehicle information (e.g., license plate number, frame number, etc.) to the RSU. The RSU may in turn disclose the license plate number near the RSU to the calling party for the calling party to select a target vehicle from or retrieve based on the license plate number provided by the calling party. Therefore, the implementation premise of the technical scheme of the invention is not dependent on subjective awareness of the vehicle owner.

Meanwhile, the direct communication object of the calling party is RSU, the direct communication object of the vehicle owner is TCU, and the two parties of the call do not need to directly establish communication, so that the privacy information of the two parties can be protected without virtual numbers. By contacting the owner of the vehicle through the TCU, the owner sees information about the own TCU (e.g., the number of the TCU), which is a fixed known information to the owner and is not easily rejected by the owner.

In addition, since the RSU itself is a device for short-range communication on the order of hundred meters, the caller can communicate with the RSU indicating that the caller is in the vicinity of the RSU. Likewise, the ability of the OBU to communicate with the RSU indicates that the owner's vehicle is also in the vicinity of the RSU. Therefore, the technical scheme of the invention does not need the terminal of the calling party and the vehicle of the vehicle owner to provide position information, and has lower requirement on system construction.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an owner contact system 100 of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 1, the system 100 may include a caller, an RSU, an in-vehicle device, an owner, and a cloud server.

The caller may wish to move the nearby target vehicle. For this reason, the caller needs to reach the owner of the target vehicle.

As shown, the calling party may first issue a call request to the RSU. The call request may include ID information of the calling party and information of the target vehicle (e.g., license plate information of the target vehicle).

The ID information of the calling party indicates various information capable of indicating the identity of the calling party, such as a telephone number of the calling party, an identification card number, a passport number, vehicle information carried by the calling party, vehicle-mounted device information in a vehicle carried by the calling party, and the like.

After receiving the call request, the RSU may process the call request, for example, extract ID information of the calling party and license plate information of the target vehicle. In addition, the RSU may also process license plate information of the target vehicle to learn of the vehicle-mounted device (e.g., OBU specified by license plate number) associated with the license plate information.

Meanwhile, the RSU can also verify the calling party. Preferably, the RSU can authenticate the caller by means of a cloud server. For example, the RSU may send a verification request to the cloud server, the verification request including the ID information of the calling party. The cloud server verifies the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party and returns a verification result to the RSU.

The RSU may communicate with the on-board device of the target vehicle if the verification of the calling party is passed. Otherwise, if the verification of the caller is not passed, the RSU does not communicate with the in-vehicle device of the target vehicle, and the call request of the caller fails.

As shown, the in-vehicle device may include an OBU that may be in V2X communication with the RSU and in-vehicle communication with the TCU, and a TCU that may be in-vehicle communication with the OBU and in cellular communication with the vehicle owner. In which in-vehicle communication refers to wired network communication, such as CAN, LIN, flexRay, MOST and LVDS, etc., between various modules/components in the vehicle interior. The TCU is capable of supporting both in-vehicle and cellular communication modes simultaneously, and switching between these two communication modes.

In some embodiments, the OBU and TCU may be separate modules and may communicate in-vehicle via a wired or wireless connection. In other embodiments, the OBU and TCU may also be integrated in the same module.

In the case that the verification of the caller passes, the RSU may perform V2X communication with the OBU of the target vehicle to inform the OBU of the call request about the caller. Since the verification of the calling party has passed, the V2X communication between the RSU and the OBU may not involve the privacy information of the calling party (e.g., the ID information of the calling party), thereby protecting the personal privacy of the calling party from disclosure.

The OBU of the target vehicle, after receiving the V2X communication of the RSU, may communicate in-vehicle with the TCU of the target vehicle to inform the TCU to contact the vehicle owner.

The TCU may store the contact (e.g., phone number) of the vehicle owner. For example, when the owner is purchasing the vehicle, the seller may store the owner's contact details in the TCU's storage space. In some implementations, the relevant rights may also be opened to the owner so that the owner may set the contact in the TCU by himself. Thus, after the TCU receives notification from the OBU, the TCU may contact the vehicle owner (e.g., make a call request to the vehicle owner) via the saved phone number.

When the TCU makes a call request to the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner sees the information of the vehicle TCU (e.g., the number of the TCU) rather than the caller. Since the information of the TCU is known information to the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner has little likelihood of rejecting the call request.

After the owner accepts the call request, a communication link can be established between the owner and the caller, and both parties can make a call. For example, the calling party may make a move request to the owner of the vehicle during a call, and so on.

Because the direct communication object of the calling party is RSU and the direct communication object of the vehicle owner is the vehicle-mounted equipment (such as TCU) of the vehicle, the two parties cannot see the telephone number of the other party, thereby protecting the personal privacy of the two parties. Meanwhile, the vehicle owner is contacted through the vehicle-mounted equipment (such as TCU) of the vehicle owner, and the vehicle owner is unlikely to reject the communication request, so that the success rate of contacting the vehicle owner is improved.

For ease of understanding, fig. 1 is illustrated in connection with a telephone communication scenario between a calling party and an owner of a vehicle, but it should be noted that communication between a calling party and an owner of a vehicle is not limited to telephone communication. For example, the calling party and the vehicle owner may also conduct real-time voice communications such as WeChat voice calls, non-real-time voice communications such as voice messages, or non-voice communications such as text message communications.

It should also be noted that in the present invention, the communication between the caller and the owner of the target vehicle means that the caller and the owner communicate via respective terminal devices. For example, the caller and the owner of the target vehicle may communicate telephonically via respective held smart phones. In other examples, the calling party may be located within the own vehicle. At this time, the caller may also communicate with the terminal device of the owner of the target vehicle through the in-vehicle device of the own vehicle.

Fig. 2 shows a flow chart of a vehicle owner contact method 200 performed by the vehicle-mounted device of the present invention. The vehicle-mounted equipment is arranged in the vehicle of the vehicle owner and has the contact way of the vehicle owner.

The method 200 starts at step 205. At step 205, a verified contact request is received from a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the verified contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the vehicle and that the verification of the caller has passed.

In some embodiments, the verification of the calling party may be done by the RSU by means of a cloud server. For example, the RSU may transmit ID information of the caller to the cloud server, and the cloud server performs credit assessment on the caller based on the ID information of the caller. For example, the cloud server may query the cloud database or a third party database based on the caller's ID information (e.g., phone number) to obtain a credit assessment (e.g., credit value) for the caller.

If the credit rating for the calling party meets a preset condition (e.g., the credit value for the calling party is above a preset threshold), the verification of the calling party may be considered to be passed. For example, in the case where the caller ID information is a telephone number, the telephone number may be considered not to be a nuisance call.

If the credit rating for the calling party does not meet the preset condition (e.g., the credit value for the calling party is below a preset threshold), the verification for the calling party may be deemed to be failed. For example, in the case where the ID information of the caller is a telephone number, the telephone number may be considered as a nuisance call.

It should be noted that the credit assessment (e.g., credit value) for the calling party is not fixed. When the credit record of the calling party changes, the credit rating of the calling party also changes accordingly. For example, as the number of nuisance calls made by a caller increases, individual owners receiving the nuisance calls may feed back to the system to cause the system to alter the credit record of the caller (e.g., decrease the credit value of the caller).

In addition, while the caller is authenticated here by the cloud server, this is merely exemplary and not limiting. In alternative implementations, the caller may also be authenticated locally at the RSU (e.g., by querying a local database of the RSU). In practice, a person skilled in the art can use a suitable verification method according to actual needs.

At step 210, a communication request is initiated to the vehicle owner via contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and does not include ID information of the caller.

The ID information of the in-vehicle apparatus indicates various information capable of indicating the identity of the in-vehicle apparatus, such as a name, a number, a telephone number, an identifier, and the like of the in-vehicle apparatus.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle device may have a separate SIM card and associated phone number. When the vehicle-mounted device contacts the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner sees the telephone number of the vehicle-mounted device of the vehicle instead of the strange number.

In other embodiments, the in-vehicle device may have other ID information (such as a name, number, identifier, etc.) known to the vehicle owner and be able to display such ID information to the vehicle owner when contacting the vehicle owner. In this way, when the vehicle-mounted device contacts the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner can know that the contact party is the vehicle-mounted device of the own vehicle. Since the vehicle-mounted device is a trusted device known to the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner is less likely to reject the communication request, thereby increasing the likelihood of successfully contacting the vehicle owner.

Meanwhile, the communication request does not include the ID information of the calling party, so that the personal privacy of the calling party is protected.

In some embodiments, the in-vehicle devices may include an OBU and a TCU. In such embodiments, the validated contact request may be received by the OBU. After the OBU receives the validated contact request, an in-vehicle communication is made by the OBU with the TCU to inform the TCU to initiate a communication request to the vehicle owner.

After the vehicle is parked, the TCU may typically enter a low power operating state such as sleep or sleep to conserve energy. After the OBU receives the authenticated contact request, the OBU may first wake up the TCU to exit the low power operating state, and then communicate in-vehicle with the TCU to inform the TCU to initiate a communication request to the vehicle owner. In this way, it is ensured that the vehicle owner can be contacted in time, while saving the energy consumption of the vehicle as much as possible.

In step 215, a communication link is established between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

For example, the caller may be in real-time voice communication (e.g., telephone communication, weChat voice call) with the vehicle owner. In other examples, the calling party may also be in non-real-time voice communication (e.g., voice message, weChat voice message), non-voice communication (text message), etc. with the vehicle owner.

In some embodiments, the communication link established between the calling party and the vehicle owner may include a plurality of communication links, such as a communication link from the calling party to the RSU, a communication link from the RSU to the OBU, a communication link from the OBU to the TCU, and a communication link from the TCU to the vehicle owner. That is, the communication link established between the calling party and the vehicle owner is an indirect communication link made up of a plurality of communication links, rather than a direct communication link.

In embodiments of the invention, the communication between the caller and the RSU is a V2X communication, the communication between the RSU and the OBU is a V2X communication, the communication between the OBU and the TCU is an in-vehicle communication (e.g., CAN communication), and the communication between the TCU and the vehicle owner is a cellular communication.

In some embodiments, in response to either the caller or the owner ending the communication, all communication links from the caller to the owner may be severed. For example, when either party hangs up, the call ends, at which point all communication links between the parties may be broken.

Fig. 2 shows a scenario in which a vehicle owner accepts a communication request. In various implementations, the vehicle owner may reject the communication request or not respond to the communication request.

For example, in the case where the vehicle owner is making another call, the vehicle owner does not see the communication request in time, the vehicle owner does not carry the terminal device, or the like, the vehicle owner may reject the communication request or not respond to the communication request. In such cases, the in-vehicle device may continue to initiate the communication request after a preset period of time (e.g., 5 seconds, 1 minute, etc.) until the vehicle owner accepts the communication request or until the communication request has been initiated a threshold number of times (e.g., 3 times, 5 times, 10 times, etc.). The preset time period and the threshold number may be preset by the in-vehicle apparatus, and the user may change according to actual conditions.

In other embodiments, if a certain type of communication request has been initiated up to a threshold number of times and the vehicle owner has not yet responded, an attempt may be made to change the type of communication request. For example, if a real-time voice communication request (e.g., a telephone communication request) has been initiated up to a threshold number of times while the vehicle owner is still not responding, a non-real-time voice communication request or a non-voice communication request (e.g., sending a voice message or text message to the vehicle owner, etc.) may instead be initiated.

In further embodiments, if the vehicle device of the vehicle owner has multiple contact addresses (e.g., phone numbers, weChat, QQ, skype, etc.), one of the contact addresses may be selected. For example, the contact addresses may be prioritized (such as according to the usage preferences of the vehicle owner, frequency of use, etc.). When the in-vehicle device initiates a communication request to the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner may first be attempted to be contacted by the highest priority contact (e.g., telephone number). If the owner fails to be contacted within a predetermined period of time, the owner may be attempted to be contacted by the next priority contact means (e.g., weChat), and so on. In this way, the likelihood of successfully contacting the vehicle owner can be increased.

Fig. 3 shows a flow chart of a method 300 of owner contact performed by a calling party of the present invention.

The method 300 begins at step 305. In step 305, a contact request to be verified is sent to a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the contact request to be verified indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle and includes the caller's ID information.

In the present invention, the target vehicle may be selected by the calling party from a list of nearby vehicles provided by the RSU, or may be provided to the RSU by the calling party.

In embodiments where the caller selects a target vehicle from a list of nearby vehicles, the RSU may broadcast a request for vehicle information to the OBUs of all vehicles nearby (e.g., within communication range of the RSU), and the OBU may provide the RSU with the respective vehicle information (e.g., license plate number, frame number, etc.) after receiving the request. When the calling party sends a request for contact to be verified to the RSU, the RSU may provide information (e.g., license plate number) of all vehicles in the vicinity to the calling party for the calling party to select a target vehicle from which contact is desired. In such embodiments, the information of the target vehicle is not provided in the contact request to be verified sent by the caller to the RSU, and in order to ensure the security of the information, the RSU may first verify the caller after receiving the contact request to be verified, and then provide the caller with a list of neighboring vehicles for the caller to select the target vehicle desired to contact after the caller is verified.

In embodiments where the caller provides the target vehicle to the RSU, the caller may provide information of the target vehicle in a contact request to be authenticated sent to the RSU when the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle.

Taking the implementation scenario of the terminal APP as an example, in some implementations, when a caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle, the caller may indicate, via the terminal APP, that the caller desires to contact the owner's intent but does not provide information about the target vehicle (e.g., the caller selects the option to "contact the owner" on the terminal APP but does not enter the license plate number of the target vehicle). At this time, the terminal APP may send a contact request to be verified to the RSU, and the contact request to be verified does not include information of the target vehicle. The RSU may then authenticate the calling party, and after authentication is passed, provide a list of neighboring vehicles to the calling party's terminal APP (e.g., display a list of license plates of neighboring vehicles on the terminal APP), the calling party may then select a target vehicle from among them and inform the RSU. The RSU can determine the on-board device (e.g., OBU specified by license plate number) in the target vehicle from the information of the target vehicle.

In an alternative implementation, when the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle, the caller may indicate his or her intent to contact the owner of the target vehicle via terminal APP and provide information about the target vehicle (e.g., the caller selects the option of "contact owner" on terminal APP and enters the license plate number of the target vehicle). At this time, the terminal APP may send a contact request to be verified to the RSU and the contact request to be verified includes information of the target vehicle. The RSU can determine the on-board device (e.g., OBU specified by license plate number) in the target vehicle from the information of the target vehicle.

After the verification of the caller by the rsu is passed, the rsu communicates with the vehicle owner over a communication link established between the caller and the vehicle owner, wherein the communication link is established in response to the vehicle owner accepting a communication request initiated by the vehicle-mounted device in the target vehicle, the communication request including the ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and not including the ID information of the caller, wherein the verification of the caller is accomplished by credit assessment of the caller based on the ID information of the caller.

For example, the RSU may learn the caller's ID information from the received contact request to be authenticated and authenticate the caller based on the caller's ID information. In the event that the verification of the calling party is passed, the RSU may send a verified contact request to the vehicle device. The process of verifying the caller is described in detail above with reference to fig. 2, and will not be described again here.

Fig. 4 shows a flow chart of the owner contact method 400 performed by the RSU of the present invention.

The method 400 begins at step 405. At step 405, a contact request to be authenticated is received from the caller, wherein the contact request to be authenticated indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle and includes the caller's ID information.

In step 410, the caller is authenticated based on the caller's ID information.

In step 415, an authenticated contact request is sent to the on-board device of the target vehicle based on the authentication of the caller passing, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed.

In some embodiments, the RSU may reject the contact request of the calling party in response to the verification of the calling party not being passed. For example, if the RSU finds that the caller's telephone number is a nuisance call based on verification, the caller's contact request may be denied and no communication is made to the on-board device of the target vehicle.

As can be seen from fig. 2-4, the direct contact object of the calling party is an RSU, and the direct contact object of the vehicle owner is the vehicle-mounted device (e.g., TCU) of the own vehicle. The calling party and the car owner do not need to directly establish communication, so that the privacy information of the calling party and the car owner is effectively protected. Meanwhile, the communication request received by the vehicle owner is from the in-vehicle apparatus and the ID information of the in-vehicle apparatus is displayed, which is fixed known information to the vehicle owner, so that it is unlikely that the communication request is rejected. In addition, since the RSU itself is a short-range communication device, the ability of the caller and owner's vehicle's OBUs to communicate with the RSU, respectively, indicates that the caller and owner's vehicle are both in the vicinity of the RSU, therefore, the terminal of the calling party and the vehicle of the vehicle owner are not required to provide position information, and the requirement on system construction is low. And moreover, the RSU is used for verifying the calling party, so that potential nuisance calls can be filtered, and the communication safety is further improved.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary process 500 for contacting a vehicle owner using the vehicle owner contact method of the present invention.

When the caller wishes to contact the owner of the target vehicle, the caller can send a contact request to the RSU (505). The contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the vehicle and includes caller ID information (e.g., the caller's telephone number). It should be noted that the caller has not been authenticated at this point, and thus the contact request in 505 corresponds to the contact request to be authenticated in fig. 2-4.

The RSU may then authenticate 510 the calling party to obtain an authentication result 515. For example, the RSU may authenticate the caller based on the caller's ID information included in the contact request.

In a preferred embodiment, the RSU can authenticate the caller with the cloud server. In such embodiments, the RSU may send the ID information of the calling party to the cloud server, which returns the verification result to the RSU after verification.

If the caller's authentication fails ("failed" at block 515), the caller's contact request is denied, the communication ends and all communication links may be broken. For example, if the verification indicates that the caller's telephone number is a nuisance call, the RSU may reject the caller's contact request.

If the verification of the caller passes ("pass" at block 515), an embodiment of the target vehicle is provided in a contact request sent by the caller to the RSU, the RSU may communicate V2X directly with the OBU of the target vehicle (520). For example, the RSU may inform the OBU about the caller's contact request. Since the verification of the calling party has passed, the V2X communication between the RSU and the OBU may not involve the ID information of the calling party, thereby protecting the personal privacy of the calling party.

If the verification of the caller passes ("pass" at block 515), the RSU provides the caller with a list of RSU neighbor vehicles from which the caller selects a target vehicle and informs the RSU that no embodiment of the target vehicle is provided in the contact request sent by the caller to the RSU. The RSU then communicates V2X with the OBU of the target vehicle (520).

The OBU may then communicate in-vehicle with the TCU (525). For example, the OBU may inform the TCU to contact the vehicle owner.

The TCU may contact the owner (530) through a saved contact means (e.g., the owner's phone number).

After the owner accepts the contact request from the TCU, a communication link is established between the caller and the owner and both parties can communicate over the communication link (535).

When any party between the calling party and the vehicle owner ends the communication, the communication ends and all communication links between the calling party and the vehicle owner may be cut off (540).

Fig. 6 illustrates a flow chart 600 of interactions between participants in the owner contact system of the present invention.

For ease of illustration, fig. 6 only shows a scenario in which the verification of the caller is passed and the vehicle owner accepts the communication request. Further, while interactions between the calling party, RSU, OBU, TCU, and the vehicle owner are shown in flowchart 600, this is merely exemplary and not limiting. In some implementations, the OBU and TCU may be combined into the same module. In other implementations, the flowchart 600 may also include other participants (such as cloud servers).

When the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle, a contact request to be validated may be sent to the RSU (605). The contact request to be verified may include information (e.g., license plate number) of the target vehicle to indicate that the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle. In addition, the contact request to be authenticated may also include caller ID information (e.g., caller's telephone number) for the RSU to authenticate the caller.

After receiving the contact request to be verified, the RSU can verify the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party. In some embodiments, the RSU may authenticate the caller with the aid of a cloud server (not shown in fig. 6).

In response to the verification of the caller passing (610), the RSU may send a verified contact request to the OBU of the target vehicle (615). The validated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the target vehicle and that the caller's validation has passed.

The OBU may communicate in-vehicle with the TCU after receiving the validated contact request (620) to inform the TCU to initiate a communication request to the owner of the vehicle.

The TCU then initiates a communication request to the vehicle owner via the vehicle owner's contact (625). The communication request includes ID information (e.g., the telephone number of the TCU) of the in-vehicle device (e.g., the TCU) and does not include ID information of the caller.

After the owner accepts the communication request (630), a communication link is established between the caller and the owner, and both parties can communicate over the communication link (635). As described above, the communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner is an indirect communication link made up of a plurality of communication links including a communication link from the calling party to the RSU, a communication link from the RSU to the OBU, a communication link from the OBU to the TCU, and a communication link from the TCU to the vehicle owner.

When either party between the calling party and the vehicle owner ends the communication (640, 645), all communication links between the calling party and the vehicle owner may be severed (650), and the process 600 ends.

In some embodiments, the to-be-verified contact request sent by the calling party to the RSU may not include information (e.g., license plate number) of the target vehicle, and the RSU may verify the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party after receiving the to-be-verified contact request. If the verification is passed (610), the RSU provides the caller with a list of RSU neighbor vehicles from which the caller selects the target vehicle and informs the RSU. The RSU then sends a validated contact request to the OBU of the target vehicle (615).

As can be seen from fig. 6, the direct contact object of the calling party is RSU, and the direct contact object of the vehicle owner is TCU, so that privacy information of both parties is protected. Meanwhile, the communication request received by the vehicle owner is a TCU from the vehicle owner, and the TCU is a trusted device for the vehicle owner, so that the possibility that the vehicle owner accepts the communication request is high. In addition, the RSU is used for verifying the calling party, so that the harassment call can be filtered. In this way, the caller and the owner can be effectively contacted, and the privacy of both parties is protected.

Fig. 7 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary vehicle owner contact device 700 of the present invention. The vehicle owner contact 700 may be an example of an on-board device. The owner contact 700 is installed in the owner's vehicle and has the owner's contact details.

Referring to fig. 7, the vehicle owner contact device 700 may include a contact request receiving module 705, a communication request initiating module 710, and a communication management module 715. As shown, the contact request receiving module 705, the communication request initiating module 710, and the communication management module 715 may be directly or indirectly connected or in communication with each other over one or more buses 720.

In embodiments of the present invention, the contact request receiving module 705 may be configured to receive an authenticated contact request from the RSU, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the owner of the vehicle and that the authentication of the caller has passed.

In some embodiments, the communication request initiation module 710 may be configured to initiate a communication request to the vehicle owner via a contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes the ID information of the vehicle owner contact device 700 and does not include the ID information of the caller.

In some embodiments, the communication management module 715 may be used to establish a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

Fig. 7 shows particular modules of the vehicle owner contact device 700, but it should be understood that these modules are merely exemplary and not limiting. In different implementations, one or more of these modules may be combined, split, removed, or additional modules added.

Fig. 8 illustrates a block diagram of another exemplary vehicle owner contact device 800 of the present invention. The owner contact 800 may be an example of a terminal device associated with a calling party. For example, the owner contact 800 may be a smart phone held by the caller, an in-vehicle device in a vehicle on which the caller is riding, and so on.

Referring to fig. 8, the vehicle owner contact 800 may include a contact request sending module 805, a communication management module 810, and an optional target vehicle determination module 815. As shown, the contact request sending module 805, the communication management module 810, and the target vehicle determination module 815 may be directly or indirectly connected or in communication with each other over one or more buses 820.

In embodiments of the present invention, the contact request sending module 805 may be configured to send a contact request to be authenticated to the RSU, wherein the contact request to be authenticated indicates that a caller associated with the owner contact device 800 desires to contact an owner of the target vehicle and includes caller ID information.

In some embodiments, the communication management module 810 may be configured to enable a caller to communicate with an owner of a vehicle over a communication link established between the caller and the owner of the vehicle, wherein the communication link is established in response to the owner accepting a communication request initiated by an in-vehicle device in the target vehicle, the communication request including ID information of the in-vehicle device and not including ID information of the caller.

In some embodiments, the target vehicle determination module 815 may be used to select a target vehicle from a list of nearby vehicles provided by the RSU.

Fig. 8 shows particular modules of the vehicle owner contact device 800, but it should be understood that these modules are merely exemplary and not limiting. In different implementations, one or more of these modules may be combined, split, removed, or additional modules added. For example, in some implementations, the contact request sending module 805 and the target vehicle determination module 815 may be combined into one module.

The invention flexibly applies the using mode of the prior V2X RSU, so that the RSU serves as a contact intermediary between the calling party and the vehicle owner, thereby not only effectively realizing the contact between the calling party and the vehicle owner, but also ensuring the privacy of the calling party and the vehicle owner. Meanwhile, the communication security is further improved by the RSU for verifying the calling party. In addition, because the RSU is a short-range communication device, the terminal of the calling party and the vehicle of the vehicle owner are not required to provide position information to judge whether the two parties are nearby, so that the requirement on system establishment is low.

The detailed description set forth above in connection with the appended drawings describes examples and is not intended to represent all examples that may be implemented or fall within the scope of the claims. The terms "example" and "exemplary" when used in this specification mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration," and not "over or superior to other examples.

Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, the use of such phrases may not merely refer to one embodiment. Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

The previous description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but is to be accorded the full scope consistent with the language claims, wherein reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean "one and only one" unless specifically so stated, but rather "one or more". The term "some" means one or more unless specifically stated otherwise. The elements of each aspect described throughout this disclosure are all structural and functional equivalents that are presently or later to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims.

It is also noted that the embodiments may be described as a process which is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart may describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel or concurrently. Additionally, the order of the operations may be rearranged.

While various embodiments have been illustrated and described, it is to be understood that the embodiments are not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities described above. Various modifications, substitutions, and improvements apparent to those skilled in the art may be made in the arrangement, operation, and details of the apparatus disclosed herein without departing from the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A vehicle owner contact method performed by an in-vehicle device installed in a vehicle of a vehicle owner and having contact information of the vehicle owner, the method comprising:

receiving an authenticated contact request from a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that a caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that authentication of the caller has passed;

initiating a communication request to the vehicle owner through the contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes ID information of the vehicle-mounted device but not of the caller; and

A communication link is established between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

and responding to the vehicle owner refusing the communication request or not responding to the communication request, and continuing to initiate the communication request after a preset time period until the vehicle owner accepts the communication request or until the communication request is initiated for a threshold number of times.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the in-vehicle device comprises an in-vehicle unit (OBU) and a Telematics Control Unit (TCU), wherein the validated contact request is received by the OBU, and initiating the communication request to the vehicle owner further comprises:

after the OBU receives the validated contact request, communication is made by the OBU with the TCU to inform the TCU to initiate the communication request to the vehicle owner.

4. A method according to claim 3, characterized in that the communication between the calling party and the RSU is a V2X communication, the communication between the RSU and the OBU is a V2X communication, the communication between the OBU and the TCU is an in-car communication, and the communication between the TCU and the vehicle owner is a cellular communication.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

in response to either the caller or the owner ending communication, all communication links from the caller to the owner are severed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the verification of the calling party is accomplished by credit assessment of the calling party based on the calling party's ID information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication between the calling party and the vehicle owner comprises at least one of: real-time voice communication, non-voice communication.

8. A method of owner contact performed by a calling party, comprising:

transmitting a contact request to be verified to a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the contact request to be verified indicates that the caller desires to contact an owner of a target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller; and

after the RSU passes the verification of the caller, communicating with the vehicle owner over a communication link established between the caller and the vehicle owner, wherein the communication link is established in response to the vehicle owner accepting a communication request initiated by a vehicle-mounted device in the target vehicle, the communication request including ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and not including ID information of the caller, wherein the verification of the caller is accomplished by credit assessment of the caller based on the ID information of the caller.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the communication request is initiated by the in-vehicle device based on receiving an authenticated contact request from the RSU, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that authentication of the caller has passed.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the target vehicle is selected by the calling party from a list of nearby vehicles provided by the RSU or provided to the RSU by the calling party.

11. A method of owner contact performed by a Road Side Unit (RSU), comprising:

receiving a contact request to be verified from a caller, wherein the contact request to be verified represents that the caller desires to contact an owner of a target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller;

validating the caller based on the caller's ID information;

an authenticated contact request is sent to an in-vehicle device of the target vehicle based on the caller passing authentication, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the caller has passed authentication.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the verification of the calling party is accomplished by credit assessment of the calling party based on the ID information of the calling party.

13. The method according to claim 11, characterized in that the authentication of the calling party is done by the RSU by means of a cloud server.

14. An owner contact device for installation in a vehicle of an owner and having contact means for the owner, the device comprising:

a contact request receiving module for receiving a verified contact request from a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the verified contact request indicates that a caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that verification of the caller has passed;

a communication request initiation module for initiating a communication request to the vehicle owner via the contact means based on receiving the validated contact request, wherein the communication request includes ID information of the vehicle owner contact means but not of the caller; and

and the communication management module is used for establishing a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

15. A vehicle owner contact device comprising:

a contact request sending module for sending a contact request to be verified to a Road Side Unit (RSU), wherein the contact request to be verified represents that a caller associated with the device desires to contact an owner of a target vehicle and includes ID information of the caller; and

and the communication management module is used for enabling the caller to communicate with the vehicle owner on a communication link established between the caller and the vehicle owner after the RSU passes the verification of the caller, wherein the communication link is established in response to the vehicle owner accepting a communication request initiated by the vehicle-mounted device in the target vehicle, and the communication request comprises the ID information of the vehicle-mounted device but not the ID information of the caller.

16. A vehicle owner contact system comprising:

a Road Side Unit (RSU); and

an in-vehicle device installed in a vehicle of a vehicle owner and having a contact address of the vehicle owner, wherein the RSU and the in-vehicle device are configured to:

the RSU receives a contact request to be authenticated from a caller, wherein the contact request to be authenticated indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and includes ID information for the caller;

The RSU authenticates the caller based on the caller's ID information;

the RSU sending an authenticated contact request to the vehicle-mounted device based on the authentication of the caller passing, wherein the authenticated contact request indicates that the caller desires to contact the vehicle owner and that the authentication of the caller has passed;

the vehicle-mounted device initiates a communication request to the vehicle owner through the contact way based on the received verified contact request, wherein the communication request comprises the ID information of the vehicle-mounted device and does not comprise the ID information of the calling party;

the vehicle-mounted device establishes a communication link between the calling party and the vehicle owner for the calling party to communicate with the vehicle owner in response to the vehicle owner accepting the communication request.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the in-vehicle device comprises an in-vehicle unit (OBU) and a Telematics Control Unit (TCU), wherein the validated contact request is received by the OBU and the communication request is initiated by the TCU, wherein the OBU communicates with the TCU after receiving the validated contact request to notify the TCU to initiate the communication request to the vehicle owner.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the verification of the calling party is accomplished by credit assessment of the calling party based on the calling party's ID information.

19. The system according to claim 16, characterized in that the authentication of the calling party is done by the RSU by means of a cloud server.

20. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for vehicle owner contact, the computer program being executable by a processor to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 13.