DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
This is a Non-Final Rejection office action in response to application Serial No. 18/734,749. Claim(s) 1-20 have been examined and fully considered, and are pending in Instant Application.
Claim(s) 1-20 are pending in Instant Application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 06/05/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered if signed and initialed by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao Yulin (CN117901862A; the NPL citations are based on the provided English Translation) hereinafter, referred to as “Yulin” in view of Bharwani (Pub. No.: US 2024/0132113).
Regarding [claim 1], Yulin discloses an automatic cruise control (ACC) system for vehicles (see, Abstract; “Figure 1 shows the connection relationship between the DDS bus and all components in the adaptive cruise control system. The DDS bus includes speed sensors, radars, brake switches, and ACC control switch groups as publishers, brake actuators and rear brake lights as subscribers, and instrument panels, ACC controllers, engine controllers, and brake controllers that can serve as both publishers and subscribers (publisher/subscriber).”) comprising:
a distributed data services (DDS) databus (see, “Figure 1 is a DDS bus that includes all components of an adaptive cruise control system”);
a plurality of vehicle sensors connected to the DDS databus, wherein each vehicle sensor is configured to measure a vehicle parameter and publish a sensor data topic including the measurement of the vehicle parameter (see Figures 1-9, “When the driver presses the brake pedal or releases the brake pedal, other controllers in the vehicle need to receive this signal and perform corresponding operations. In Figure 5, the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake switch, instrument panel, engine controller, and ACC controller is shown. The brake switch is the publisher and is responsible for publishing only one topic, the "BRAKE_SWITCH" topic. Each time the driver activates the brake switch, a new event instance is released.”);
a plurality of vehicle controllers connected to the DDS databus, wherein each vehicle controller is configured to subscribe to a subset of the sensor data topic and publish a vehicle control topic based on the subset of the sensor data topic (see, Figures 1-9; and “Figure 1 shows the connection relationship between the DDS bus and all components in the adaptive cruise control system. The DDS bus includes speed sensors, radars, brake switches, and ACC control switch groups as publishers, brake actuators and rear brake lights as subscribers, and instrument panels, ACC controllers, engine controllers, and brake controllers that can serve as both publishers and subscribers (publisher/subscriber). In the adaptive cruise control system based on DDS middleware, there are many different topics and data writers and data readers corresponding to the topics. The data writer is the creator of the topic and publishes the topic to the subscriber to receive, while the data reader is the receiver of the topic published and created by the data writer. Figure 2 shows the general relationship between publishers, subscribers, data writers, data readers, topics”; and
“The DDS adopted by the present invention allows the adaptive cruise control system to integrate multiple redundant sensors to measure the distance of the vehicle. For example, if the access scope in the QoS policy of the topic is set to "GROUP", then multiple sensors of the same type can modify the same topic data. The logical order between the changes made by the publisher to the same data instance depends on the timestamp of the data source, which can ensure that the final value of the data obtained by all subscribers remains consistent”;
“In the adaptive cruise control system, the speed sensor is a very important device. In Figure 9, the publisher/subscriber relationship between the speed sensor and the brake controller is shown. In this example, the speed sensor is the publisher and provides the brake controller to subscribe to the single topic "WHEEL_SPEED". In addition, for the speed sensor publisher, there can be multiple redundant sensors modifying the same topic data.”;
a plurality of vehicle actuators connected to the DDS databus, wherein each vehicle actuator is configured to subscribe to the vehicle control topic and actuate an ACC component based on the vehicle control topic (see, Figures 1-9; and “When the driver operates the ACC control switch group, the ACC controller will perform the corresponding action, and the driver can intuitively see the feedback given by the ACC controller from the dashboard. In Figure 7, the publisher/subscriber relationship between the ACC controller, engine controller, brake controller, and dashboard is shown”; and
a publish/subscribe DDS middleware connected to the DDS databus, wherein the publish/subscribe DDS middleware (see, Figures 1-9; and “Figure 2 is the structure of publishers and subscribers of the adaptive cruise control system”; “In Figure 5, the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake switch, instrument panel, engine controller, and ACC controller is shown. The brake switch is the publisher and is responsible for publishing only one topic, the "BRAKE_SWITCH" topic. Each time the driver activates the brake switch, a new event instance is released. In an adaptive cruise control system, radar is a very important device, which is directly related to the gap between a vehicle and the vehicle it follows. In Figure 6, the publisher/subscriber relationship between the radar and the ACC controller is shown. In the present invention, the radar is the publisher, which provides two topics, "DISTANCE" and "V_LEAD", for the ACC controller to subscribe. When the driver operates the ACC control switch group, the ACC controller will perform the corresponding action, and the driver can intuitively see the feedback given by the ACC controller from the dashboard. In Figure 7, the publisher/subscriber relationship between the ACC controller, engine controller, brake controller, and dashboard is shown.”) is configured to facilitate … between each of the plurality of vehicle sensors, the plurality of vehicle controllers and the plurality of vehicle actuators (see, “the various components of the adaptive cruise control system are integrated together by using distributed DDS, so that different components can access all inputs at the same time, and the real-time data exchange is realized. In addition, the DDS bus integrates the information within the ACC system, and the components of the ACC system can view the same information at the same time to make their own decisions. After introducing DDS into the automobile automatic control system, it is easier to add sensors and different instruments to the car without reconfiguring the data flow in the system. It is also easier to add different functions to the car that use the same data obtained from the sensor without modifying any hard coding, and only needs to add new functions to the DDS data bus. In this way, the instrument panel, ACC controller, engine controller, brake controller and brake actuator all have the opportunity to read the information input by the driver through the cruise switch group and brake switch, the information input by the radar, and the information input by the speed sensor at the same time”).
As Yulin discloses communicating between the sensors, controllers, and actuators, however, the reference discloses …near field communication…
However, Bharwani teaches
…near-field communication (see, Paragraph [0058]: “A Near-Field Communication (NFC) ECU may support an NFC reader embedded in the vehicle”) …
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing of the invention to implement communications to facilitate communication across the various modules and submodules that may comprise an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle taught by Bharwani. One would be motivated to make this modification in order to convey that an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle, the vehicle may include a controller area network (CAN) bus. The CAN bus may include a secure communications bus for interconnecting a number of motion control actuator electronic control units (ECUs) to share information between each other and/or with one or more other components that may be interconnected to the CAN bus. Specifically, the number of ECUs may be utilized to receive instructions from the computer-based modules and submodules and control one or more respective actions or functions of the vehicle in accordance with the automotive safety regulations and the traffic laws of the jurisdiction in which the vehicle may be operating (see, Paragraph [0002]).
As to [claim 2], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 1. Yulin discloses wherein each of the plurality of vehicle sensors is configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as a data writer configured to publish its respective sensor data topic (see, “In adaptive cruise control systems based on DDS middleware, there are many different themes and corresponding data writers and data readers. The data writer is the creator of the topic and publishes the topic to subscribers to receive, while the data reader is the receiver of the topics published and created by the data writer.”).
As to [claim 3]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 2. Yulin discloses wherein each of the plurality of vehicle controllers is configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as a data reader configured to subscribe to a subset of the sensor data topics of the plurality of vehicle sensors and as a data writer configured to publish a respective vehicle control topic based on the subset of the sensor data topics (see, “The DDS adopted in this invention allows the adaptive cruise control system to integrate multiple redundant sensors to measure the distance to the vehicle. For example, if the access range in the QoS policy of a topic is set to "GROUP", then multiple sensors of the same type can modify the same topic data. The logical order between changes made by the publisher to the same data instance depends on the timestamp of the data source, which can ensure that the final value of the data obtained by all subscribers remains consistent.”; and “In adaptive cruise control systems, the speed sensor is a very important device. Figure 9 shows the publisher/subscriber relationship between the speed sensor and the brake controller. In this example, the speed sensor is the publisher and provides the brake controller with a subscription to the single topic "WHEEL_SPEED". Furthermore, for speed sensor publishers, multiple redundant sensors can modify the same topic data.”).
As to [claim 4], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 3. Yulin discloses wherein each of the plurality of vehicle actuators is configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as a data reader configured to subscribe to the vehicle control topics generated by the plurality of vehicle controllers (*** Examiner notes under broadest reasonable interpretation, the reference Yulin teaches an adaptive cruise control method based on DDS real-time middleware, wherein all components (characterized in that: the adaptive cruise control system includes radar and speed sensor, engine controller, ACC controller, brake controller, brake actuator, brake switch, cruise switch group, instrument panel and rear brake light.) are connected through a DDS bus.***, see, “In this invention, the data to be exchanged in the adaptive cruise control system is first referred to as a Topic. In DDS, each topic contains a name (which must be unique), a type (which defines the content it carries), a QoS policy that manages topic behavior within the domain, and the data types contained in the topic are common across all domains. In addition, there are so-called data writers and data readers. A data writer is the creator of a topic, which publishes topics for subscribers to receive, while a data reader is the receiver of topics published and created by the data writer.”).
As to [claim 5], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 1. Yulin discloses wherein the plurality of vehicle sensors includes speed sensors, radar sensors, brake switches and cruise control switches (see, Figures 1-2; “the adaptive cruise control system includes radar and speed sensors, engine controller, ACC controller, brake controller, brake actuator, brake switch, cruise switch assembly, instrument panel, and rear brake light.”).
As to [claim 6], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 5. Yulin teaches
wherein the speed sensors, radar sensors, brake switches, and cruise control switches are configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as publishers of speed sensor topics, radar topics, brake switch topics and cruise control switch topics, respectively (see, Figures 1-2; “Figure 1 illustrates the connection between the DDS bus and all components in the adaptive cruise control system. The DDS bus includes the speed sensor, radar, brake switch, and ACC control switch group as publishers, the brake actuator and rear brake light as subscribers, and the instrument panel, ACC controller, engine controller, and brake controller, which can act as both publishers and subscribers”).
As to [claim 7], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 6. Yulin discloses wherein the plurality of vehicle controllers includes an instrument cluster, an ACC controller, an engine controller, and a brake controller (see, Figures 1-2; and “Figure 7 illustrates the publisher/subscriber relationship between the ACC controller, engine controller, brake controller, and instrument panel”).
As to [claim 8]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 7. Yulin discloses wherein each of the instrument cluster, the ACC controller, the engine controller, and the brake controller are configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as a subscriber to a subset of the sensor data topics of the plurality of vehicle sensors and as a publisher of a respective vehicle control topic based on the subset of the sensor data topics (see, Figures 1-2; “Figure 1 illustrates the connection between the DDS bus and all components in the adaptive cruise control system. The DDS bus includes the speed sensor, radar, brake switch, and ACC control switch group as publishers, the brake actuator and rear brake light as subscribers, and the instrument panel, ACC controller, engine controller, and brake controller, which can act as both publishers and subscribers”; and “Figure 4 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake controller, engine controller, ACC controller, brake actuator”;
“Figure 5 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake switch, instrument panel, engine controller, and ACC controller. The brake switch is the publisher, responsible for publishing only one topic, namely the "BRAKE_SWITCH" topic,”).
As to [claim 9], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 8. Yulin discloses wherein the plurality of vehicle actuators includes back brake lights and brake actuators (see, “When the driver presses the brake pedal, the vehicle's rear brake lights need
to illuminate and remain illuminated until the brake pedal is released. Figure 4 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake controller, engine controller, ACC controller, brake actuator, and rear brake light..”).
As to [claim 10], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 9. Yulin discloses
wherein the back brake lights and the brake actuators are configured in the publish/subscribe DDS middleware as subscribers of topics published by the plurality of vehicle controllers (see , “Figure 4 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake controller, engine controller, ACC controller, brake actuator, and rear brake light.
The brake controller acts as a publisher and data writer, responsible for publishing three different topics, two of which, "BRK_ACT_COM" and "V_SPEED", are required to be subscribed to by the ACC controller, engine controller, and brake actuator.
The rear brake light needs to subscribe to the "LIGHT_COM" topic because it
publishes an event instance in the "LIGHT_COM" topic every time the vehicle brakes, and the rear brake light data reader will be able to keep track of that braking event instance.”).
As to [claim 11]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 10.
Yulin discloses wherein each of the instrument cluster, the ACC controller, the engine controller, the brake controller, the brake actuators and the back brake lights are configured as data readers configured to read topics published by the cruise control switches and the brake switches, the radar sensors and the speed sensors, simultaneously (see , “In adaptive cruise control systems based on DDS middleware, there are many different themes and corresponding data writers and data readers. The data writer is the creator of the topic and publishes the topic to subscribers to receive, while the data reader is the receiver of the topics published and created by the data writer. Figure 2 illustrates the general relationships between publishers, subscribers, data writers, data readers, topics”
“Figure 4 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the brake controller, engine controller, ACC controller, brake actuator, and rear brake light.
The brake controller acts as a publisher and data writer, responsible for publishing three different topics, two of which, "BRK_ACT_COM" and "V_SPEED", are required to be subscribed to by the ACC controller, engine controller, and brake actuator.
The rear brake light needs to subscribe to the "LIGHT_COM" topic because it publishes an event instance in the "LIGHT_COM" topic every time the vehicle brakes, and the rear brake light data reader will be able to keep track of that braking event instance.”).
As to [claim 12], Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 11. Yulin discloses wherein each data topic is configured to conform to a set of quality of service (QoS) requirements, wherein the QoS requirements include durability, presentation, ownership, liveliness, reliability, transport priority and destination order, wherein: durability is configured as a condition of transience in which the data topic is stored until the ACC system is turned OFF, presentation is configured as ordered access in which the data topics are presented to a subscriber in sequential order and as a group access scope in which data topics published by a specific publisher are presented to a subscriber in sequential order, ownership is configured to define permission of a subscriber to access a data topic, liveliness is set to a condition of manual by participant in which subscribers to a data topic are configured to receive the data topic if at least one of the subscribers is active, reliability is configured as a condition of best effort in which a data topic is transmitted with an expectation of receipt by at least one subscriber, transport priority is configured to control the importance of a data topic in the sequential order of presentation, and destination order is set to source a timestamp which is configured to control the order of the presentation of a data topic depending on its timestamp
(see, “A well-suited QoS strategy used in DDS can improve the stability of data transmission in adaptive cruise control systems. In this invention, among the various available QoS strategies in DDS, the seven QoS strategies that affect ACC were ultimately adopted: "DURABILITY", "PRESENTATION", "OWNERSHIP", "LIVELINESS", "RELIABILITY", "TRANSPORT_PRIORITY", and "DESTINATION_ORDER". In DDS, setting "DURABILITY" to "TRANSIENT" allows you to store ACC data in memory without needing to permanently store it. In DDS, setting "PRESENTATION" to "ordered_access" allows subscribers to view changes in the order they occurred, and setting "access_scope" to "GROUP" ensures that changes made to instances by different data writers sharing the same publisher are provided to subscribers in the same order.”; and
“In DDS, setting "OWNERSHIP" to "SHARED" indicates that there is no concept of instance ownership. In DDS, setting "LIVELINESS" to "MAUAL_BY_PARTICIPANT" means that if one entity in the ACC is active, all other entities must also be active. In DDS, setting "RELIABILITY" to "BEST_EFFORT" means making every effort to transmit data, but external factors may cause some data to be discarded. Setting "TRANSPORT_PRIORITY" to "Transport_Priority" in DDS allows the middleware to prioritize processing more important data. Setting "DESTINATION_ORDER" to "BY_SOURCE_TIMESTAMP" in DDS indicates
that the data sorting depends on the timestamp of the data source.”).
As to [claim 13]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 11. Yulin further
wherein the instrument cluster includes an ON button, an OFF button, a time gap + button, a time gap – button, a resume button, a deceleration speed button, a set button and a cruise request button, wherein each of the ON button, the OFF button, the time gap + button, the time gap – button, the resume button, the deceleration speed button, the set button and the cruise request button are configured as data writers which publish data topics according to its status, wherein: the ON button is configured to turn ON the ACC system, the OFF button is configured to turn OFF the ACC system, the time gap+ button is configured to increase a setting of time of impact between a leading vehicle and the vehicle having the ACC system, the time gap-button is configured to decrease a setting of time of impact between a leading vehicle and the vehicle having the ACC system, the resume button is configured to reset the speed back to an initially set speed, the deceleration speed button configured to reduce the speed of the vehicle by a set amount when pressed, the set button is configured to set the speed of the vehicle when pressed when the ACC system is active, and the cruise request button is configured to activate the ACC system when pressed (see, “When the driver operates the ACC control switch group, the feedback after the operation should be displayed on the instrument panel. Figure 3 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the ACC system function buttons and the dashboard. The ACC system function buttons act as publishers, while seven buttons—"ON," "OFF," "TIMEGAP+," "TIMEGAP-," "RESUME," "-SPEED," and "SET+"—act as data writers.
These data writers are responsible for publishing "ON" themes, "OFF" themes, "TIMEGAP+" themes, "RESUME" themes, "-SPEED" themes, and "SET+" themes. The dashboard is a subscriber to these themes, and any changes that occur in these themes will be immediately displayed on the dashboard, allowing the driver to see the operational feedback intuitively”).
As to [claim 14]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 11. Yulin further comprising: a brake switch connected to the brake controller, wherein the brake controller is configured to publish a data topic configured to deactivate the ACC system when the brake switch is depressed (see, “Figure 1 illustrates the connection between the DDS bus and all components in the adaptive cruise control system. The DDS bus includes the speed sensor, radar, brake switch, and ACC control switch group as publishers, the brake actuator and rear brake light as subscribers, and the instrument panel, ACC controller, engine controller, and brake controller, which can act as both publishers and subscribers.”).
As to [claim 15]. Yulin in view of Bharwani teaches the ACC system of claim 11. Yulin discloses wherein:
the radar sensors are configured to measure a distance of the vehicle from a leading vehicle and a velocity of the leading vehicle, and publish a distance data topic and a velocity data topic, wherein the ACC controller is configured to subscribe to the distance data topic (see, “In adaptive cruise control systems, radar is a crucial component, directly affecting the distance between the vehicle and the vehicles it follows. Figure 6 illustrates the publisher/subscriber relationship between the radar and the ACC controller. In this invention, the radar is the publisher, which provides two topics, "DISTANCE" and "V_LEAD", for the ACC controller to subscribe to”) and velocity data topic and determine when a change in the speed is needed, wherein the ACC controller is configured to publish a speed topic including the change in speed (see, “In this invention, the interaction between the driver and the system includes operations such as activating ACC, setting the vehicle speed, following the
vehicle, setting the distance, deactivating ACC, and reactivating ACC.”;
“Setting vehicle speed: First, the driver increases the vehicle speed to a certain level, presses the "SET+" button, publishes the "SET+" topic, and at this time, the QoS durability policy is used to store the vehicle's preset speed in memory so that the vehicle can be restored to the preset speed at any time.”; and
“In adaptive cruise control systems, the speed sensor is a very important device. Figure 9 shows the publisher/subscriber relationship between the speed sensor and the brake controller. In this example, the speed sensor is the publisher and provides the brake controller with a subscription to the single topic "WHEEL_SPEED". Furthermore, for speed sensor publishers, multiple redundant sensors can modify the same topic data”), wherein the instrument cluster is configured to subscribe to the speed topic and actuate one of an increment or decrement of the speed by the engine (see, “Figure 7 shows the relationship between the ACC controller as the publisher and the engine and brake controllers and the instrument panel as the subscribers.”,
wherein the brake controller is configured to subscribe to the speed topic and publish a brake switch data topic, wherein the brake actuator is configured to subscribe to the brake switch data topic and one of actuate the brakes to slow the speed and actuate a release of the brakes, and wherein the back brake lights are configured to subscribe to the brake switch data topic and one of turn ON the back brake lights and turn OFF the back brake lights (see, “When the driver operates the ACC control switch group, the feedback after the operation should be displayed on the instrument panel. Figure 3 illustrates the publish/subscribe relationship between the ACC system function buttons and the dashboard. The ACC system function buttons act as publishers, while seven buttons—"ON," "OFF," "TIMEGAP+," "TIMEGAP-," "RESUME," "-SPEED," and "SET+"—act as data writers. These data writers are responsible for publishing "ON" themes, "OFF" themes, "TIMEGAP+" themes, "RESUME" themes, "-SPEED" themes, and "SET+" themes. The dashboard is a subscriber to these themes, and any changes that occur in these themes will be immediately displayed on the dashboard, allowing the driver to see the operational feedback intuitively.”).
Relevant Prior Art
Relevant prior art, Najood Hamoud Alshammari, DDS-Based ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, 2023 9th International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies CoDIT 2023 | Rome, Italy / July 03-06, 2023 teaches a middleware-based Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system to reduce driving time. The ACC system supports four driving modes and controls automobile acceleration and deceleration to maintain a set pace or avoid a collision. Real-time adaptive cruise control delays may harm people. A narrow window period should be used to minimize time delay in such applications since timeliness is critical. We propose a real-time ACC system that incorporates the Information Cluster, Radar, Brake Switches, and Cruise Switches, the ACC Controller, the Engine/Throttle Controller, a Brake Controller, brake actuators, speed sensors, and rear brake lights. We suggest an approach that eliminates the hierarchical information flow structure of ACC, which normally has an upper and lower controller. Real-time publisher/subscriber DDS middleware will exchange data.
Conclusion
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/B.U./Examiner, Art Unit 3663
/ABBY J FLYNN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3663