Method and system for automatic calling unit replenishment
Granted: September 14, 2010
Patent Number:
7796972
A method for automatically replenishing vehicle calling units is disclosed herein. The method includes selecting, in response to a user input, a call unit rate plan including parameters designating automatic replenishment of calling units for loading into a telematics unit. A calling plan configuration signal is transmitted to the telematics unit, where the calling plan configuration signal is indicative of the selected call unit rate plan parameters. The telematics unit is configured…
Method of transition between wireless voice and data transmissions
Granted: August 24, 2010
Patent Number:
7782814
The invention provides a method of transitioning between voice and data communications with a mobile vehicle. A switch-to-voice command signal is sent from a call center modem pool to the mobile vehicle, and a vehicle switch-to-voice acknowledgement signal is received at the call center. A call from the call center modem pool is switched to a call center advisor in response to the vehicle switch-to-voice acknowledgement signal.
Method and system for providing menu tree assistance
Granted: August 24, 2010
Patent Number:
7783305
A method for providing menu tree assistance includes receiving a voice request from a user via a telematics unit and a wireless network and determining a voice menu tree based on the voice request. The method further includes receiving at least one response based on the voice menu tree, determining a failure or confirmation based on the at least one response and converting the response to data based on the determined confirmation. The method further includes recording the response based…
Method and system for providing vehicle emissions data to an authorized recipient
Granted: August 10, 2010
Patent Number:
7774111
A method for providing vehicle emissions data from a vehicle to a remotely located call center, so that the call center can then provide the emissions data to one or more authorized recipients. According to one embodiment, this method includes the steps of receiving a vehicle emissions data request, sending emissions data from one or more vehicle electronic modules (VEMs) to a vehicle telematics unit, and wirelessly transmitting the emissions data to a call center. Once at the call…
Method and system for program data dissemination
Granted: August 3, 2010
Patent Number:
7769340
A method and system for providing a user of a mobile vehicle with informational associated with a transmitted satellite radio program. The call center receives a data request for informational data associated with a radio program at a call center from a telematics unit via a wireless network. A determination is made of at least one informational data associated with the data request. The determined informational data is sent to a user communication device.
Method and system for network denial case generation
Granted: July 13, 2010
Patent Number:
7756252
A method for network denial case generation includes receiving a plurality of third-party carrier call records associated with a plurality of subscriber telematics units at a call center wherein each call record includes a call status, determining at least one call record having a failure condition based on the call status, determining a subscriber telematics unit associated with the call record having the failure condition, and determining a network denial case action for the subscriber…
Criteria-based alternative messaging for a vehicle email notification system
Granted: July 13, 2010
Patent Number:
7756616
A criteria-based messaging method for use with a vehicle email notification system in which triggers are used to initiate the generation and transmission of email messages that provide diverse types of dynamic vehicle information to the owner or other authorized subscriber. The email notifications are triggered by different events, some of which are independent of the vehicle (e.g., a monthly trigger), and others of which occur at the vehicle, such as a mileage or low oil life trigger.…
Modular electrochemical power system
Granted: June 22, 2010
Patent Number:
7740973
Electrochemical power systems of modular design are provided. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, an electrochemical power system is provided comprising a container, at least one container reactant port, at least one container electrical power output port, module mounting hardware within the container, and a set of fuel cell modules within the container. Each of the fuel cell modules is mounted within the container via the module mounting hardware. Each of the…
Method and system for inband emergency notification for voice calls
Granted: June 15, 2010
Patent Number:
7738509
The invention provides a method for inband emergency notification for voice calls by multiplexing at least one emergency signal within an audible data stream and transmitting the audible data stream from a telematic communication unit to a mobile vehicle communication system. The mobile vehicle communication system decodes the emergency signal from the audible data stream and provides an emergency service as a function of the emergency signal.
Hidden hands-free microphone with wind protection
Granted: June 15, 2010
Patent Number:
7738670
A wind protection device for a microphone, the wind protection device including a body portion having a raised surface, a lower surface and a front face. The raised surface has a flow separation edge. The lower surface is offset from the raised surface the front face is bordered at a first edge by the flow separation edge and bordered at a second edge by the lower surface. The lower surface includes a recessed microphone holding area. Airflow separates from one of the raised surface or…
Method and system for storing IOTA alert message requests for a vehicle communications system into a queue
Granted: June 8, 2010
Patent Number:
7734291
The invention provides a method for storing an alert message request for a vehicle communication system into a message queue by initiating an acquisition task to determine service availability, receiving an alert message request from a wireless communication system, storing the alert message request into the vehicle communication unit message queue, and servicing the alert message request until completion.
Speech recognition method and system
Granted: June 1, 2010
Patent Number:
7729911
A speech recognition method comprising the steps of: storing multiple recognition models for a vocabulary set, each model distinguished from the other models in response to a Lombard characteristic, detecting at least one speaker utterance in a motor vehicle, selecting one of the multiple recognition models in response to a Lombard characteristic of the at least one speaker utterance, utilizing the selected recognition model to recognize the at least one speaker utterance; and providing…
Applying speech recognition adaptation in an automated speech recognition system of a telematics-equipped vehicle
Granted: May 25, 2010
Patent Number:
7725316
A speech recognition adaptation method for a vehicle having a telematics unit with an embedded speech recognition system. Speech is received and pre-processed to generate acoustic feature vectors, and an adaptation parameter is applied to the acoustic feature vectors to yield transformed acoustic feature vectors. The transformed acoustic feature vectors are decoded and a hypothesis of the speech is selected, and the adaptation parameter is trained using acoustic feature vectors from the…
Method and system for providing personalized services to a mobile vehicle
Granted: May 18, 2010
Patent Number:
7720486
A method and system for providing personalized services to a mobile vehicle includes receiving broadcast data at a telematics unit of the vehicle, sending the received broadcast data from the telematics unit to a portable processing device via short range wireless connection, and providing at least one personalized service at the portable processing device based on the received broadcast data. A computer usable medium with suitable computer program code is employed for providing…
Method and system for modifying nametag files for transfer between vehicles
Granted: May 4, 2010
Patent Number:
7711358
A method for managing user nametags for a vehicle communications system includes receiving a nametag transfer request at a call center from a source, determining a target vehicle based on the request, generating a nametag data file including a text data file, a phoneme set, and an audio data file for each nametag, and transmitting the nametag data file to the target vehicle.
Method of improving a vehicle emergency call network
Granted: April 27, 2010
Patent Number:
7705775
A method of improving a vehicle emergency call network used during an enhanced 911 call, which is especially useful in environments having degraded GPS signals. The present method utilizes an independent position enhancement algorithm, such as a dead reckoning algorithm, and converts the output of that algorithm into a compatible format compatible with a position determining entity (PDE). Some independent position enhancement algorithms return output in the form of position information…
Method for realizing a preferred in-vehicle chime
Granted: April 13, 2010
Patent Number:
7698033
A method of realizing a preferred in-vehicle chime includes the steps of selecting the preferred in-vehicle chime from an Internet-enabled program or a call center, transmitting the preferred in-vehicle chime from the Internet-enabled program to a telematics unit operatively disposed within the vehicle, and transmitting the preferred in-vehicle chime from the telematics unit to a vehicle chime module disposed within the vehicle.
Nitrided bipolar plates
Granted: March 30, 2010
Patent Number:
7687177
Nitrided bipolar plates and a scheme for their fabrication are provided. The present invention also contemplates device incorporating bipolar plates according to the present invention. For example, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, an electrochemical conversion assembly is provided. The electrochemical conversion cells of the assembly are separated by respective bipolar plates comprising an alloy of Fe and Cr. A surface portion of the bipolar plates comprises a…
System and method of providing telematically user-optimized configurable audio
Granted: March 30, 2010
Patent Number:
7689423
A method of repeating a computer recognized string in a telematics unit in a vehicle, including receiving a user utterance at the telematics unit from a user, the user utterance including a plurality of words and a plurality of user pauses between the words, parsing the user utterance into a plurality of phonemes, forming a data string in which each user pause is associated with a phoneme adjacent to the user pause, and playing back the data string.
Method and system for modem protocol discrimination
Granted: March 23, 2010
Patent Number:
7684825
The invention provides a method of selecting a modem carrier type for data transmission over a wireless communication system. An incoming call is received from a mobile vehicle and then an initial carrier tone is sent to a mobile vehicle in response to the incoming call. A modem response signal is received from a vehicle modem in response to the initial carrier tone. The modem response signal is determined to be either an analog modem response signal or a digital modem response signal,…
