Patent ID: 10838430

Abstract:
A vehicle includes a controller to control an operation of at least one component of the vehicle, a clock to synchronize the operation of the component of the vehicle, a memory to store a clock offset to the clock of the vehicle to synchronize the operation of the component of the vehicle, and a receiver to receive a set of heartbeat messages from a set of neighboring vehicles, each heartbeat message received from a neighboring vehicle includes a time of transmission of the heartbeat message, a location of the neighboring vehicle and a velocity of the neighboring vehicle. The receiver receives each heartbeat message at a corresponding receipt time measured using the clock of the vehicle. The vehicle also includes a processor to update the clock offset stored in the memory in response to determining concurrently an unknown clock offset and an unknown location of the vehicle at a particular time by comparing distances traveled by light between the times of the transmission of the heartbeat messages and corresponding receipt times adjusted with the unknown clock offset with distances between the vehicle at the unknown location and the locations of the neighboring vehicles retrieved from the heartbeat messages.