Vehicle middleware

Abstract

The present disclosure describes a vehicle implementing one or more processing modules. These modules are configured to connect and interface with the various buses in the vehicle, where the various buses are connected with the various components of the vehicle to facilitate information transfer among the vehicle components. Each processing module is further modularized with the ability to add and replace other functional modules now or in the future. These functional modules can themselves act as distinct vehicle components. Each processing modules may hand-off processing to other modules depending on its health, processing load, or by third-party control. Thus, the plurality of processing modules helps to implement a middleware point of control to the vehicle with redundancy in processing and safety and security awareness in their applications.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A vehicle, comprising at least one of:
 (a) a plurality of processing modules, a first processing module being in an active mode whereby the first processing module is in primary control of at least most vehicle functions and a second processing module being in a standby mode whereby the second processing module is ready to assume primary control of at least most vehicle functions;   (b) an arbitration module to arbitrate hand-off conflicts between duplicated first and second processing modules;   (c) a health check module to determine a corresponding state of health of each of the duplicated first and second processing modules to perform at least one of critical and non-critical tasks, functions, and operations;   (d) a displayed object movement module to move displayed objects from a source input/output system to a target input/output system, the source and target input/output systems corresponding to different vehicle occupants;   (e) a media filter to apply a selected rule to filter third party sourced signals received by a vehicle processing module for presentation to a vehicle occupant via a corresponding input/output system;   (f) a network selector to select one of plural communication networks local to the vehicle for transmitting a selected signal;   (g) a diagnostic module to receive a warning and/or error signal from a vehicle component and select a destination for the signal, the possible destinations including a vehicle input/output system to present the warning and/or error to a vehicle occupant, an emergency service provider, an emergency responder, and a remotely located diagnostic service to diagnose a cause of the warning and/or error signal;   (h) a remote control module to receive a request from a remote source to command a vehicle function, authenticate the requestor, and, when successfully authenticated and when privileged to request the performance of the vehicle function, execute or cause execution of the request;   (i) a media controller to receive a media stream from a remote node, identify which of a plurality of vehicle input/output systems are disabled due to operator command and/or as a result of a rule, and, when enabled, provide the media stream to an input/output system associated with an associated vehicle occupant;   (j) an installation supervisor to determine, for a newly installed software and/or hardware and/or other component, whether the newly installed component satisfies defined functional and/or source or reuse requirements and/or restrictions for the component and/or license restrictions, and, when satisfied, create data structures in the component and/or a memory in the vehicle to bind the component to the current vehicle and thereby prevent the component from communicating with a processing module in a different vehicle;   (k) a computational module selector to select a computational module to perform a selected task, operation, and/or function;   (l) a network security module to isolate a component encountering a security breach and/or isolate a primary processing module from one or more other components in a local vehicle network;   (m) a media controller to detect movement of a computational device from an authorized station to an unauthorized station and restrict, relative to wireless connection to the authorized station, an operation and/or function of the computational device when wirelessly connected to the unauthorized station;   (n) a network controller to cache automatically streaming media in response to a vehicle state change, function, and/or operation;   (o) a unified communications presence reporting module to determine whether a vehicle occupant is present and/or by what communication channel to contact the occupant based on a requirement of a law applicable to a current location of the vehicle; and   (p) a social networking module to enable processing modules of different vehicles to wirelessly connect to exchange vehicle information.   
     
     
         2 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (a), wherein the first and second processing modules are in wireless communication with one another, and wherein a state of the second processing module is maintained substantially in synchronicity with a state of the first processing module to a enable a stateful failover from the first processing module to the second processing module. 
     
     
         3 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (b) and wherein the arbitration module selects one of the first and second processing modules to currently possess and/or own a token, the token indicating which processing module is an active processing module and/or which processing module is a standby processing module. 
     
     
         4 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (c) and wherein the health check module performs a check and/or test, in response to an internally generated interrupt and/or request to determine a selected processing module's ability to perform critical and/or non-critical vehicle tasks, functions, and/or operations, assign a score to the selected processing module based on the check and/or test results, and compare the score to one or more thresholds and/or to a score of a different processing module to determine a state of health to determine a state of health of the selected processing module. 
     
     
         5 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (d) and wherein the displayed object movement module selects the target input/output system from among plural input/output systems on board the vehicle based on input from a user of the source input/output system. 
     
     
         6 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (e) and wherein the selected rule is one or more of a whitelist, blacklist, user preference, sensed occupant context, and/or governing federal, state, provincial, and/or local law and/or regulation applicable to a current sensed spatial location of the vehicle. 
     
     
         7 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (f) and wherein the network selector selects one of plural communication networks local to the vehicle for transmitting a selected signal based on one or more of network/node status, signal/noise ratio, type of signal, available and/or unavailable bandwidth, network performance parameter(s), and quality of service. 
     
     
         8 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (g) and wherein the diagnostic module provides the warning and/or error signal to the vehicle occupant and interactively communicates a likely cause of the warning and/or error signal to the occupant and receives a command from the occupant to contact one or more of an emergency service provider, an emergency responder, and a remotely located diagnostic service. 
     
     
         9 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (h) and wherein the remote control module is associated with one or more of the vehicle owner, a law enforcement authority, a lender associated with a loan having the vehicle as collateral, and a vehicle manufacturer and wherein the requested vehicle function, is executed or caused to be executed notwithstanding a contrary command from the vehicle operator. 
     
     
         10 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (i) and wherein the media controller, in a dependent mode, provides common content synchronously to each of the input/output systems and, in an independent mode, provides different content to different ones of the input/output systems. 
     
     
         11 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (j) and wherein the newly installed software and/or hardware and/or other component is one or more of an on-board sensor, a processing module or component thereof, a software application, a circuit board, an expansion module or component thereof, a critical or non-critical device, and a cellular upgrade module. 
     
     
         12 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (k), wherein the computational module is selected from among plural computational modules, and wherein the plural computational modules comprise one or more vehicle processing devices and one or more occupant computational devices, the one or more occupant computational devices comprising one or more of a mobile phone, personal digital assistant, tablet computer, and laptop computer. 
     
     
         13 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (k), wherein the computational module is selected from among plural computational modules, and wherein the plural computational modules comprise multiple software applications corresponding to different versions, releases, and/or vendors of a common type of software application. 
     
     
         14 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (l) and wherein the network security module filters and/or prohibits communications between the isolated one of the component and/or processing module with other network components. 
     
     
         15 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (m) and wherein the media controller permits a first function and/or operation to be performed by the computational device when wirelessly connected to the authorized station but not when wirelessly connected to the unauthorized station. 
     
     
         16 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (n) and wherein the network controller caches automatically streaming media in response to the vehicle state changing from a parked state to an unparked state. 
     
     
         17 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (o) and wherein the unified communications presence reporting module determines that the vehicle occupant is the operator of the vehicle and that the vehicle operator is not present by a selected communication channel when the vehicle is in motion. 
     
     
         18 . The vehicle of  claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises (p) 
     
     
         19 . A non-transient, tangible computer readable medium comprising processor executable instructions to perform one or more of operations (a)-(p) referenced in  claim 1 . 
     
     
         20 . A method comprising steps to perform one or more of the operations (a)-(p) referenced in  claim 1 .