Vehicle monitoring system for section divider activation

• US 10,226,029 B2
• Filed: 07/06/2017
• Issued: 03/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Khanna, Rahul
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Yuen H
• Application Number:
  US15/642,557
• Publication Number:
  US 20190008121A1
• Time in Patent Office: 614 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A01K 15/04 Devices for impeding movement; Devices for impeding passage through fencing , e.g. hobbles or the like; Anti-kicking devices impeding passage under fences A01K15/006
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/176 Camera images
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/10 Input arrangements, i.e. from user to vehicle, associated with vehicle functions or specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/28 characterised by the type of the output information, e.g. video entertainment or vehicle dynamics information; characterised by the purpose of the output information, e.g. for attracting the attention of the driver
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/50 Instruments characterised by their means of attachment to or integration in the vehicle B60K35/231 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/60 Instruments characterised by their location or relative disposition in or on vehicles arrangements of lighting devices on dashboards B60Q3/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/214 Generating training patterns; Bootstrap methods, e.g. bagging or boosting
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/41 Higher-level, semantic clustering, classification or understanding of video scenes, e.g. detection, labelling or Markovian modelling of sport events or news items segmenting video sequences G06V20/49
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/593 Recognising seat occupancy
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/103 Static body considered as a whole, e.g. static pedestrian or occupant recognition

Abstract

Interior vehicle sensors and a recognition routine identify the presence of a companion animal within a vehicle, a controller operates at least one actuator to interpose a barrier between vehicle areas automatically adjust the barrier according to the animal'"'"'s detected attributes to restrict the movement of the companion animal within the vehicle'"'"'s interior.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an activation signal comprising sensor input from a plurality of sensors within a vehicle;

processing the sensor input with a recognition routine on a processor to extract at least one animal occupant identification and initiating a selector control signal;

operating a parameter selector with the selector control signal to select a set of operation parameters from a control memory structure; and

applying the operation parameters to a controller to operate an actuator to interpose a barrier between a first area and a second area in the vehicle to confine an animal occupant within the second area.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the activation signal is initiated from the animal occupant identification.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the activation signal is initiated by detection of a preset condition.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the preset condition further comprises at least one of:

the vehicle'"'"'s state;

an action performed via a user interface;

a location of the vehicle;

detection of human or animal occupants; and

a configuration of the human and animal occupants.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the configuration of human and animal occupants further comprises a human in the first area and an animal in the second area.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the recognition routine further comprises applying the sensor input to a trained neural network.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the recognition routine further comprises one or more of (a) blob detection and (b) feature extraction and correlation.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the barrier comprises a see-through portion further comprising at least one of:

a transparent material; and

an opaque material non-occlusively configured with at least one aperture.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the first area and the second area comprise one of (a) different occupant areas within the vehicle, and (b) a cargo area within the vehicle.

10. A control system comprising:

a plurality of sensors including at least a camera;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to;

receive an activation signal comprising sensor input from the plurality of sensors;

process the sensor input with a recognition routine on the at least one processor to extract at least one animal occupant identification for a defined space;

initiate a selector control signal in response to the at least one animal occupant identification;

operate a parameter selector with the selector control signal to select a set of operation parameters from a control memory structure; and

apply the operation parameters to a controller to operate an actuator to interpose a barrier between a first area and a second area of the defined space to confine an animal occupant within the second area.

11. The control system of claim 10 wherein the barrier is interposed between the first area and the second area from at least one barrier storage compartment.

12. The control system of claim 10, wherein a configuration of human and animal occupants of the defined space comprises a human in the first area and an animal in the second area.

13. The control system of claim 10 wherein the recognition routine further comprises applying the sensor input to a trained neural network.

14. The control system of claim 10 wherein the recognition routine further comprises one or more of (a) blob detection, and (b) feature extraction and correlation.

15. The control system of claim 10 wherein the barrier comprises a see-through portion further comprising at least one of:

a transparent material; and

an opaque material non-occlusively configured with at least one aperture.

16. The control system of claim 10 wherein the first area and the second area comprise one of (a) different occupant areas within a vehicle, and (b) a cargo area within the vehicle.

17. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, the machine-readable storage medium including instructions that when executed by a machine processor, cause the machine comprising the machine processor to:

receive an activation signal comprising video from at least one camera within a vehicle;

process the video with a recognition routine on a processor to extract at least one animal occupant identification and initiating a selector control signal;

operate a parameter selector with the selector control signal to select a set of operation parameters from a control memory structure; and

apply the operation parameters to a controller to operate an actuator to interpose a barrier between a first area and a second area in the vehicle to prevent an animal occupant from passing between the first area and the second area.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein the activation signal is initiated by detection of a preset condition.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein the preset condition further comprises at least one of:

the vehicle'"'"'s state;

an action performed via a user interface;

a location of the vehicle;

detection of human or animal occupants; and

a configuration of the human and animal occupants.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein the first area and the second area comprise one of (a) different occupant areas within the vehicle, and (b) a cargo area within the vehicle.