Patent ID: 8527147

Claim:
A method for automatically detecting a configuration of a vehicle using an auto-detection apparatus, the method comprising the steps of: identifying, by the auto-detection apparatus, a frame rate of a data bus of the vehicle, wherein the auto-detection apparatus includes: an input unit electrically connectable to at least one channel of the data bus of the vehicle; a storage unit that stores information including: (i) data bus configuration information corresponding to a plurality of vehicle data busses, and (ii) vehicle configuration information corresponding to a plurality of vehicles; and a signal processing unit coupled to the input unit; identifying, by the auto-detection apparatus, a data bus configuration of the data bus of the vehicle based at least partially on the identified frame rate and the data bus configuration information stored in the storage unit of the auto-detection apparatus; and identifying, by the auto-detection apparatus, the configuration of the vehicle based at least partially on the identified data bus configuration and the vehicle configuration information stored in the storage unit of the auto-detection apparatus.