1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for wireless communication, and, more particularly, to a method for wireless communication with increased performance and reliability within a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known for wireless communication to be employed between and within various systems of a vehicle, such as an automobile. Attaining reliable wireless communication with a vehicle is problematic, however, because wireless communication is deeply affected by the quality of the wireless signals as received by the vehicle. The quality of the signals received by the vehicle are highly dependent upon the distance between the vehicle and the nearest transmitting base station. The relationship between signal quality and distance is primarily due to the power of the received signal dropping exponentially with increasing distance between the vehicle and the nearest transmitting base station.
Signal quality is low within so-called “dead spots” within a geographic area. Dead spots are the regions of poor/no wireless connectivity where the running application does not meet the desired quality of service. Loss of connectivity may cause disruption of connected in-car applications and may present a potential driver distraction hazard. Often this phenomenon is caused by the loss of connectivity to the base station, or to the transmitting station, due to poor coverage, i.e., low signal strength. As the numbers of users and applications grow, the limited network capacity can also lead to the bandwidth per user being reduced to a level that is insufficient for the desired quality of service.
As the capacity of cellular technologies increase and wireless proliferation in the car continues, future cars will have a lot of triple play applications (i.e., voice, data and video) running in the car. However, there must be enough wireless connectivity and capacity for such applications. As the applications grow in number and their numbers of users increase, the capacity issues will continue to arise even with the next generation of cellular technologies. Moreover, it is not economical to cover every point of road with wireless coverage and hence connectivity will also be an issue at some points along the road. A dead spot region in a section of roadway due to poor coverage is shown in FIG. 1a. A dead spot region in a section of roadway due to low network capacity and/or poor quality of service, in contrast, is shown in FIG. 1b. As mentioned above, these locations with poor connectivity or capacity may be referred to as dead spot regions. An internet-connected in-car software application is negatively impacted if the vehicle is in the dead spot region and hence leads to a poor user experience.
What is neither disclosed nor suggested in the art is a method for mobile wireless communication that overcomes the above-mentioned problems and disadvantages. More specifically, although using cellular/wireless technologies to provide internet applications in vehicle applications is very well known, the prior art does not disclose or suggest dead spot representation, maintenance, prediction or mitigation.