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System and method for communicating with and controlling toy accessories
| Details |
Inventors: DeAngelis, Peter C.; Lundquist, Frederick M.;
Assignee: Rokenbok Toy Company (Cardiff, CA)
Primary Examiner: Martin-Wallace; Valencia
Assistant Examiner: Nguyen; Kim T.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Fulwider Patton Lee & Utecht, LLP, Roston; Ellsworth R.
A system and method for controlling toy vehicles has a plurality of pads coupled to a central station. Switches in the pads may be closed to select toy vehicles and the operation of motors for moving the vehicles forwardly, rearwardly, to the left and to the right and moving upwardly and downwardly a receptacle or bin for holding transportable elements (e.g. marbles). The pads may be set in a mode to allow sharing of a vehicle by more than one pad. The pads are connected by wires to the central station, and may be interrogated selectively, sequentially or simultaneously by the central station. The central station forms packets of signals representative of the switch closures of the interrogated pads, and transmits the packets over a modulated carrier frequency to receivers in the vehicles. Each of the packets includes a binary signal addressing the vehicle selected by the pad whose switch closures are represented by the packet of data. The central station prioritizes the transmission of the packets to improve vehicle control. An accessory, or a second central station, may be coupled to a smart port of the first central station. When the pads are interrogated by the central station, the signals from the pads are routed to the accessory or second central station. If the accessory is a smart accessory, the signals are processed by the smart accessory and then sent back to the first central station for transmission to the vehicles. The accessory may draw its operating power from a line connected to the smart port. The pads include a flashback feature that automatically selects a previously selected vehicle. The motors of the vehicles may be energized using pulse width modulation to control the speed of the motor. Signals received by the vehicle are asserted to the motors in the first part of a duty cycle. The vehicles monitor all packets, and decode packets addressed to the vehicle to execute the commands represented by signals contained within the packet. When a packet is determined to be invalid, the vehicle ignores the packet. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION Briefly and in general terms, the present invention provides a new and improved play system for use by people of all ages with youthful minds.
It provides for simultaneous control by each player of an individual one of a plurality of remotely controlled vehicles.
This control is provided by the operation by each such player of switches in a hand-held unit or pad, the operation of each switch in such hand-held unit providing a control of a different function in the individual one of the remotely controlled vehicles.
Each of the remotely controlled vehicles in the system of this invention can be operated in a competitive relationship with others of the remotely controlled vehicles or in a co-operative relationship with others of the remotely controlled vehicles.
The vehicles can be constructed to pick up and transport elements such as blocks or marbles and to deposit such elements at displaced positions.
More specifically, when manually closed in one embodiment of the invention, switches in pads control the selection of toy vehicles and the operation of motors for moving the vehicles forwardly, rearwardly, to the left and to the right, and moving upwardly and downwardly a receptacle or bin for holding transportable elements (e.
g.
marbles).
The pads may be interrogated by a central station in either a sequential or parallel manner, the pads sending signals representative of switch closures in the pad to the central station over wires.
The central station receives the signals from the pad, and forms packets of data to be transmitted over radio frequencies to receivers in the toy vehicles.
The central station forms the packet to have a first binary signal addressing the vehicle selected by such pad and a second binary signal identifying the control operation in such vehicle.
The packets of data formed by the central station are transmitted by wireless to all of the vehicles at a common carrier frequency modulated by the first and second binary signals.
The vehicle identified by the transmitted address demodulates the modulating signals and operates its motors in accordance with such demodulation
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Navigation and GPS 
