Patent Publication Number: US-2006018479-A1

Title: Update method for wireless system of vehicle security system

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      1. Field of the Invention  
      The invention relates in general to an update method for a vehicle security system, and more particularly to an update method with a wireless communication channel for a vehicle security system.  
      2. Description of the Related Art  
      In many countries, private car ownership is steadily increasing and thus more and more people are gradually spending greater amounts of time in the cars. Technological advances, such as radar, Global Positioning Systems, alarm systems have transformed use of cars and have provided great convenience, especially in safety and security. Therefore, integrating the modern technology products with the vehicles undoubtedly provides more convenient and user-friendly services to drivers.  
      Along with such a technological trend and rising personal security awareness, vehicle manufacturers and security firms now work together to provide state of the art monitoring of vehicles. Installations of the vehicles built with vehicle security services include at least the car burglar alarms and wireless communication modules. By the burglar alarms checking abnormal conditions of the vehicle, signals are transmitted to a remote host of the vehicle manufacturers or the security service firms via the wireless communication module, so that the vehicle manufacturers or the security service firms can monitor the vehicle.  
      However, the vehicle manufacturers encounter a problem for the above-mentioned vehicles equipped with wireless security installations. The remote host needs a close cooperation of external security installations of the vehicles to finish programs update or modification due to a need for modifying system programs or update management or monitor programs. To sum up, the system of the security installations needs to be updated to be consistent with the update monitor programs of the remote host. A conventional method is that the vehicle manufacturers recall the vehicles to update the system of the security installations of the vehicle in an appropriate manner.  
      Although the above update procedure for a vehicle security system does not impact operations of the vehicle a lot, most drivers are not ready to go back to the vehicle manufacturer for system update. Therefore, the conventional vehicle burglarproof system certainly fails to provide timely and convenient update solutions.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a wireless update method for a vehicle security system whereby the security system can be updated without need for the vehicle to be recalled.  
      According to an object of the present invention, a main technical method of an update method is to provide a security system installed with a wireless communication module. The update method comprises: 
          sending a system update command from the remote host;     the security system reading the system update command through the wireless communication module;     the security system confirming whether to prepare for a system update procedure or not, and calling the remote host so as to set up a mutual connection; and     building a two-way connection between the remote host and the security system to execute a transmission procedure of system data.        

      Accordingly, the present invention can exactly execute the wireless update for the security system installed in the vehicle without need for recall by a car manufacturer to execute system update by manual operation. Therefore, the present invention is very convenient.  
      According to another object of the present invention, an update method to ensure data transmission accuracy is provided. The remote host calculates a confirmation bit of checking data bit accuracy for every packet and includes the confirmation bit in the packet. Since the wireless communication module in the vehicle uses the common communication protocol, the confirmation bit can be used to check the accuracy of the packet data while receiving every packet. If an error occurs for the confirmation bit of the packet, an error message is sent instantly to the remote host, so as to stop sending the sequential packets. At this moment, a reconnection with the security system can be chosen to redo the system update procedure. Therefore, the present invention can ensure the processor of the security system updates the system data accurately.  
      Furthermore, the present invention also provides a wireless update method having a second checking procedure for the system data accuracy. Accordingly, after the wireless communication module receives all of the packets, all of the confirmation bits are drawn out to execute a certain operation to ensure that the received packet data is correct, and then the received packet data is inputted to the security system to execute the system update by the processor. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       FIG. 1  shows a system framework block diagram of executing an embodiment of a present invention.  
       FIG. 2  shows a technological processes sequence diagram of completing system updating of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 3  shows a technological processes sequence diagram of unfinished system updating of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.  
       FIG. 4  shows an instance diagram of the embodiment of the present invention in the  FIG. 1 . 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
      Referring to  FIG. 1  and  FIG. 4  firstly, a hardware device constructed with a wireless update method of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown. The present invention includes a vehicle security system  10 . Moreover, the present invention mainly includes a security host  11  and a two-way connection wireless communication module  12  for connecting with the security host  11 . The security host  11  integrates a Global Positioning System (GPS) module. After the wireless communication module  12  connects with base stations  20 , a mutual connection with a remote host  30  is acquired whereby the remote host  30  acquires data of the vehicle security system  10  successfully. Accordingly, the present invention of the wireless update method is constructed base on a system connection framework. Further, the wireless update method includes the steps as follows: 
          the remote host sends a system update command;     while the security system in the vehicle reads the system update command sent by the remote host with the wireless communication module, the security system starts to confirm whether to prepare for a system update procedure or not, and to call the remote host after finishing confirming, so as to set up a mutual connection; and     wherein after the remote host acquires a call signal of the security system, a two-way connection with the security system is built and starts to execute a transmission procedure of system data; wherein the transmission procedure includes:     the remote host executing a packet division for the new system data and sending packets to the security system in the vehicle in sequence, wherein the new system data is processed as a plurality of packets having a confirmation bit in every packet, wherein the confirmation bit is obtained by executing a logical operation for the partial system data of the packets;     the security system of the vehicle receiving the packets from the remote host, and checking with the confirmation bit signal of every packet, so as to ensure that bit data of the packets is exactly correct during transmission; and then sending a completion receiving signal to the remote host after finishing receiving and checking all packets, and starting to update system, while on the other hand, the remote host recording that the vehicle has finished data updating.        

      If any packet data is error during transmission, the security system sends an error message to the remote host, and then the remote host stops sending the sequential packets and ends the system update procedure.  
      Furthermore, after the security system completes receiving all accurate packets, according to the present invention, the complete system data and all confirmation bits are further taken out to double-check the accuracy of the complete system data. According to the foregoing description of the method, it is found that the remote host  30  actually plays a role of a call center communicating with each security host  11  of the vehicle to perform update procedure. The detailed interaction between the remote host  30  and the security host  11  is disclosed hereinafter.  
      Referring to  FIG. 1  and  FIG. 2  simultaneously, a successful system update procedure is shown. The remote host  30  has built-in a large quantity of vehicle data. When starting to update the system, the remote host  30  connects with the vehicle security system  10  of a specific vehicle via the base stations  20  one by one. A technological processes sequence diagram of the remote host  30  executing system updating for a vehicle security system  10  of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown in  FIG. 2 .  
      Firstly, the remote server  30  sends a system update command signal to the security system  10 . After the wireless communication module  12  of the vehicle security system  10  receives the system update command signal, the system update command signal is inputted to a processor of the security host  11 , which is not shown in the figure. Then the processor determines whether to respond to the remote server or not. When the processor determines to accept the system update, a call server signal is outputted via the wireless communication module  12 , so as to set up a two-way connection with the remote server  30 . After the remote server  30  receives the call signal, the two-way connection is established. Accordingly, the remote server  30  starts to divide the new system data into a plurality of packets having the confirmation bit in every packet, and then sends to the vehicle security system  10 .  
      When the vehicle security system  10  receives the first packet, the confirmation bit is taken out. Since the confirmation bit is acquired by the logical operation for the packet data, the vehicle security system  10  can check the accuracy of the packet data according to the confirmation bit. Due to some of the bit error may occur while transmitting the packets, the confirmation step by checking with the confirmation bit can ensure reception of correct system data. Thereby the packets are repeatedly sent and received until all packets are received by the security system  10 .  
      When the security system has received all the packets completely and checked without finding any error, a completion-receiving signal is sent to the remote server. After the remote host receives the completion-receiving signal of the security system, the remote host records that the vehicle has finished system updating. The disclosed method above of the preferred embodiment of the present invention can further be applied for more than one vehicle at the same time to process the connections and updating.  
      Moreover, referring to  FIG. 3 , a technological processes sequence diagram of an unfinished system updating which sends a system update failure message of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown. Simultaneously, firstly a remote host sends a system update command to the security system to set up a two-way connection with the security system. After the connection is established, the remote host starts to divide new system data into a plurality of packets having a confirmation bit in every packet. Then the packets are sent to the vehicle security system in sequence.  
      The confirmation bit of the packet is taken out to check the accuracy of the packet bit data when the vehicle security system receives the first packet. If the confirmation bit is correct after checking, a signal of preparing for receiving the next packet is sent, and simultaneously, the remote host sends the next packet promptly. On the contrary, if the packet data changes bit data due to poor connection quality, so as to result in an error while the security system checks the confirmation bit with the accuracy of the bit data of the packets, the security system then sends an error message to the remote server. While the remote host receives the error message, the remote host immediately stops sending the sequential packets and outputs a suspended-sending signal to the security system. At this moment, the security system clears the previous received system data and does not process system update. Then a system update failure message is further sent back to the remote host, and the remote host records the vehicle as unfinished system update, and disconnects the connection with the security host. If the system update is desired to proceed, the remote host must request reconnection with the security system, so as to repeat the above-mentioned system update procedures. In addition, the preferred embodiment of the present invention also can apply by other designs that choose to discard the error packet data during transmission, and then send the correct packets to the vehicle security system again. Thereby the disconnection of system update due to the packet errors can be prevented, so as to provide the other solution of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.  
      Therefore, the above-mentioned method illustrates the preferred embodiment of the present invention. The present invention achieves the objective of the update method for the wireless system by connecting the security system with the remote host, so as to facilitate the owner to update the system without need for manufacturer recall. To sum up, the present invention is really very convenient and is very beneficial for development of security and security services of remote vehicles.  
      While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of a preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements and procedures, and the scope of the appended claims therefore should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements and procedures.