Patents by Inventor Brett Francis
Brett Francis has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Publication number: 20250227025Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a virtual domain control unit/virtual electronic control unit service configured to deploy vehicle code packages to one or more of a plurality of supported virtual domain control unit/electronic control unit orchestration environments, which include both a local orchestration environment and one or more remote orchestration environments. In such orchestration environments, virtual domain control units and/or virtual electronic control units are implemented that execute code included in the vehicle code packages. In some embodiments, such virtual domain control units or virtual electronic control units allow computing capacity and/or data storage capacity of a vehicle to be augmented via remotely implemented virtual domain control units and/or remotely implemented virtual electronic control units.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 25, 2025Publication date: July 10, 2025Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: David Joseph Mifsud, Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Michael Garcia, Brett Francis, Matthew Jonathan Narksusook, Abhijit Dayakar
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Patent number: 12289200Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a virtual domain control unit/virtual electronic control unit service configured to deploy vehicle code packages to one or more of a plurality of supported virtual domain control unit/electronic control unit orchestration environments, which include both a local orchestration environment and one or more remote orchestration environments. In such orchestration environments, virtual domain control units and/or virtual electronic control units are implemented that execute code included in the vehicle code packages. In some embodiments, such virtual domain control units or virtual electronic control units allow computing capacity and/or data storage capacity of a vehicle to be augmented via remotely implemented virtual domain control units and/or remotely implemented virtual electronic control units.Type: GrantFiled: September 8, 2020Date of Patent: April 29, 2025Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: David Joseph Mifsud, Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Michael Garcia, Brett Francis, Matthew Jonathan Narksusook, Abhijit Dayakar
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Patent number: 12210860Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: GrantFiled: March 8, 2024Date of Patent: January 28, 2025Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Patent number: 12175865Abstract: A vehicle information system and an in-vehicle agent implement a system for detecting discrepancies, for example due to drift, between actual real-world conditions in an environment surrounding a vehicle and corresponding conditions as represented in a model used by the vehicle. Additionally, the in-vehicle agent provides the detected discrepancies to a road-side resource and/or cloud-based computing device in order to distribute the detected discrepancies to other vehicles in the area. Also, a model maintained at the cloud-based computing devices may be updated to account for the discrepancies. The roadside resource and/or vehicle may infer estimated lifetimes of the detected discrepancies and intelligently distribute information describing the discrepancies based on their respective estimated lifetimes.Type: GrantFiled: June 30, 2022Date of Patent: December 24, 2024Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Indraneel Mitra, Alex Bessonov, Stefano Marzani, Brett Francis, Roland Mesde
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Publication number: 20240276579Abstract: A connectivity monitor of a vehicle determines current and/or future states of antennas. A workload monitor of the vehicle receives execution criteria for different workloads to be executed. An intelligent connectivity engine at the vehicle receives the current and/or future states of the antennas and the execution criteria for the respective workloads. Based on the current and/or future states of the antennas and the execution criteria for the respective workloads, the intelligent connectivity engine assigns at least one of the respective workloads for current execution and at least another of the respective workloads for future execution. A client may use an intelligent connectivity service to configure various aspects of the vehicle connectivity. For example, the client can provide workload recommendation code for the intelligent connectivity engine to assign workloads for current or future execution.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 22, 2024Publication date: August 15, 2024Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler, David Joseph Mifsud, Michael Garcia
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Publication number: 20240211230Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 8, 2024Publication date: June 27, 2024Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Patent number: 11997741Abstract: A connectivity monitor of a vehicle determines current and/or future states of antennas. A workload monitor of the vehicle receives execution criteria for different workloads to be executed. An intelligent connectivity engine at the vehicle receives the current and/or future states of the antennas and the execution criteria for the respective workloads. Based on the current and/or future states of the antennas and the execution criteria for the respective workloads, the intelligent connectivity engine assigns at least one of the respective workloads for current execution and at least another of the respective workloads for future execution. A client may use an intelligent connectivity service to configure various aspects of the vehicle connectivity. For example, the client can provide workload recommendation code for the intelligent connectivity engine to assign workloads for current or future execution.Type: GrantFiled: December 10, 2021Date of Patent: May 28, 2024Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler, David Joseph Mifsud, Michael Garcia
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Patent number: 11954471Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: GrantFiled: April 22, 2022Date of Patent: April 9, 2024Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Patent number: 11917040Abstract: An agent is installed on a computing device of a vehicle (e.g., an ECU); the agent receives messages from an application installed on the same computing device. The computing device is connected to a gateway computing device via a physical communication channel (e.g., CAN bus or Ethernet cable). When the gateway agent receives a message from the application, it converts the message into a different protocol based on a mapping of the protocols to physical communication channels. The message is sent to a gateway agent at the gateway device, where it is converted back to the original protocol so the message can be processed/transmitted to the internet. By using an agent, the in-vehicle application does not need to know about the vehicle's network architecture or changes to it in order to access the internet.Type: GrantFiled: March 30, 2022Date of Patent: February 27, 2024Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Dave Wayne Lasley, David Joseph Mifsud, Brett Francis
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Patent number: 11743334Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to in-vehicle computing devices implementing an in-vehicle distributed computing environment. A synthetic sensor may be placed monolithically at a single computing device (e.g. ECU) in the vehicle, or may be modularly placed on multiple computing devices (e.g. multiple ECUs) of the vehicle that each have resources or inputs that the synthetic sensor requires. The modular components of the synthetic sensor may execute in a runtime environment of the in-vehicle distributed computing environment, such that the modular components function as a unified synthetic sensor even though they are placed on different computing devices of the vehicle (e.g. different ECUs).Type: GrantFiled: March 31, 2021Date of Patent: August 29, 2023Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Brett Francis, David Joseph Mifsud, Michael Garcia
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Publication number: 20220317986Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 22, 2022Publication date: October 6, 2022Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Publication number: 20220321655Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to in-vehicle computing devices implementing an in-vehicle distributed computing environment. A synthetic sensor may be placed monolithically at a single computing device (e.g. ECU) in the vehicle, or may be modularly placed on multiple computing devices (e.g. multiple ECUs) of the vehicle that each have resources or inputs that the synthetic sensor requires. The modular components of the synthetic sensor may execute in a runtime environment of the in-vehicle distributed computing environment, such that the modular components function as a unified synthetic sensor even though they are placed on different computing devices of the vehicle (e.g. different ECUs).Type: ApplicationFiled: March 31, 2021Publication date: October 6, 2022Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Brett Francis, David Joseph Mifsud, Michael Garcia
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Patent number: 11314495Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: GrantFiled: March 30, 2020Date of Patent: April 26, 2022Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Publication number: 20220078077Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a virtual domain control unit/virtual electronic control unit service configured to deploy vehicle code packages to one or more of a plurality of supported virtual domain control unit/electronic control unit orchestration environments, which include both a local orchestration environment and one or more remote orchestration environments. In such orchestration environments, virtual domain control units and/or virtual electronic control units are implemented that execute code included in the vehicle code packages. In some embodiments, such virtual domain control units or virtual electronic control units allow computing capacity and/or data storage capacity of a vehicle to be augmented via remotely implemented virtual domain control units and/or remotely implemented virtual electronic control units.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 8, 2020Publication date: March 10, 2022Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: David Joseph Mifsud, Edwin Ricardo Mendez Rodriguez, Michael Garcia, Brett Francis, Matthew Jonathan Narksusook, Abhijit Dayakar
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Publication number: 20210302941Abstract: A system comprising one or more computers implements a synthetic sensor service configured to deploy synthetic sensors to an in-vehicle computing device implementing a synthetic sensor orchestration environment for a vehicle. The synthetic sensor orchestration environment determines a placement decision for a new synthetic sensor to be added to the vehicle based on one or more annotations included in a synthetic sensor package for the new synthetic sensor. The synthetic sensor service and respective synthetic sensor orchestration environments implemented in various types of vehicles provide a consistent way to remotely add additional synthetic sensors and/or other functionality to different types of vehicles after the vehicles have already been put in use by respective owners or operators of the vehicles.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 30, 2020Publication date: September 30, 2021Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Brett Francis, Nicholas Jay Lefler
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Patent number: 10803392Abstract: A method of deploying machine learning-based models may include identifying a profile of a target execution environment to implement a machine learning-based model in communication with a cloud infrastructure. The method may further include identifying, using the profile, a software module implementing the model. The method may further include causing the software module to be uploaded from a code repository associated with the cloud infrastructure to the target execution environment.Type: GrantFiled: March 10, 2017Date of Patent: October 13, 2020Assignee: Amazon Technologies, IncInventors: Mohammad Asif Ali Khan, Brett Francis, Guy Ernest
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Patent number: 10441493Abstract: A mobility device for assisting an individual with limited or altered mobility due to a leg injury or condition. The mobility device includes a rod that defines a longitudinal axis of the mobility device, a foot rest slidably mounted for longitudinal translation along the rod, a seat located at an upper end of the mobility device, and an impact-absorbing mechanism for absorbing impacts transferred from the seat to the rod. The device is configured for securing the thigh of the user's leg to the seat, and securing the foot of the user's leg to the foot rest.Type: GrantFiled: October 20, 2017Date of Patent: October 15, 2019Assignee: Purdue Research FoundationInventors: Brett Francis Adams, Andrew Fan, Nikko George Sadural, Junyan Lim, Jeffrey John Cargill, Sameer Chetan Saiya
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Publication number: 20180110671Abstract: A mobility device for assisting an individual with limited or altered mobility due to a leg injury or condition. The mobility device includes a rod that defines a longitudinal axis of the mobility device, a foot rest slidably mounted for longitudinal translation along the rod, a seat located at an upper end of the mobility device, and an impact-absorbing mechanism for absorbing impacts transferred from the seat to the rod. The device is configured for securing the thigh of the user's leg to the seat, and securing the foot of the user's leg to the foot rest.Type: ApplicationFiled: October 20, 2017Publication date: April 26, 2018Inventors: Brett Francis Adams, Andrew Fan, Nikko George Sadural, Junyan Lim, Jeffrey John Cargill, Sameer Chetan Saiya
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Publication number: 20020078077Abstract: The invention uses expiration notification events and object references to indicate when a software object has expired. Expiration notification events are occurrences that indicate when corresponding object references and dependent references should be removed. Object references and dependent references are references to objects within the computer memory. Using the object management methods of the Expiration Informer, the object references are stored in a table according to the objects' expiration time. Upon expiration, the managed object is removed from the table and stored in an expiration event. The expiration event is sent to the requester at which time the Expiration Informer has removed any reference to the object. The invention is capable of managing objects is a distributed computing environment. The invention executes these capabilities in an extremely efficient manner adding minimal CPU overhead when managing thousands of time-based objects.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 19, 2000Publication date: June 20, 2002Inventors: Cliff Baumann, Brett Francis