US 11,916,649 B2
Satellite-communication module for a motor vehicle
Emmanuel Pasquet, Toulouse (FR); Mohamed Cheikh, Toulouse (FR); and Sébastien Kessler, Toulouse (FR)
Assigned to CONTINENTAL AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES GMBH, Hannover (DE)
Appl. No. 18/034,795
Filed by Continental Automotive Technologies GmbH, Hannover (DE)
PCT Filed Sep. 30, 2021, PCT No. PCT/EP2021/076931
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date May 1, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/096201, PCT Pub. Date May 12, 2022.
Claims priority of application No. 2011252 (FR), filed on Nov. 3, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2023/0396321 A1, Dec. 7, 2023
Int. Cl. H04B 1/04 (2006.01); H04B 7/06 (2006.01); H04B 7/185 (2006.01); H04B 7/195 (2006.01)
CPC H04B 7/18508 (2013.01) [H04B 7/18519 (2013.01); H04B 7/195 (2013.01)] 10 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A satellite communication module for a vehicle, said communication module comprising an electronic control unit and at least one antenna capable of communicating with a plurality of satellites that are characterized by a predefined orbital trajectory and the same predefined speed:
a) the at least one antenna being configurable according to a plurality of configurations, each configuration allowing the at least one antenna to radiate in an angular window among a plurality of predefined angular windows, each angular window corresponding to an area of the sky that is characterized by a longitudinal coordinate and a transverse coordinate,
b) the control unit comprising a memory area, said memory area comprising a calibration table of the at least one antenna, representing a map of the sky seen from the vehicle and comprising a plurality of columns and a plurality of rows, each row being identifiable by a longitudinal coordinate, each column being identifiable by a transverse coordinate, the intersection of each row and each column being a cell in the calibration table, denoting an angular window, the control circuit being configured to:
i) obtain a set of parameters comprising the position, the orbital trajectory and the speed of a satellite and the position, the inclination and/or the orientation, and the speed of the vehicle,
ii) determine the portion of the trajectory of the satellite that is seen from the vehicle from the set of parameters that is obtained,
iii) determine, from the calibration table, at least one angular window corresponding to the position of the satellite on the determined portion of the trajectory in a given time interval,
iv) adapt the radiation of the at least one antenna so that said antenna radiates in the direction of the at least one determined angular window during the corresponding given time interval.