Recreational vehicle group management system

Inventors

Rentz, Gray I. • Koosmann, Adam C. • Good, Nathan A. • Larson, Jacob H. • Deitz, Rebecca C. • Koenig, David J.

Assignees

Polaris Inc

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided to permit groups of recreational vehicle riders and others the ability to quickly create and join groups without prior knowledge of the contact information of everyone in the group. In one embodiment, groups are joinable based on the proximity information of the prospective member and the current group members.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to a recreational vehicle group management system that allows riders to create, join, and open-close user groups while not needing to know other riders’ contact information. Joining eligibility is determined using geolocation and/or proximity within a group boundary derived from group range and member locations. A group management master controller maintains a group database including members, locations, metadata, passcodes, and privacy/range/boundary information, and coordinates adding and removing members.

The system coordinates broadcasting member location and member metadata, and updating boundaries. It includes group management controllers and user interface behaviors that present group member information, including visual distress/SOS request handling with visual alert indicators. Map user interface behaviors include selecting member icons with pop-ups and performing route-to-waypoint follow features with auto-zoom and map display zoom level behavior.

The system includes vehicle-mounted controllers and/or rider computing devices, and one or more network controllers that support communication such as Bluetooth, cellular network, satellite network, and/or Wi‑Fi. Location determiners such as GPS provide a location value for group boundary and display logic, and privacy-flag logic is used to control when a group remains open or closed based on members’ page closed/open states. Multiple communication flow arrangements are supported for exchanging group-related information.

Claims Coverage

The partial content and relevant claims include one independent claim (clm-00001). The independent claim focuses on a display user interface that presents relative location and direction information between a first and a second display, including marker, heading indicators, and distance, with additional refinement aspects specified in dependent claims.

Across the provided claim text, the inventive focus is the configurable screen layout on a recreational vehicle user interface that shows a second display’s location and direction information, including marker, heading indicators, and distance, with dependent refinements such as adding additional display attributes such as speed and constraining network type such as a cellular network.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications