Systems and methods for the mitigation of drowsy or sleepy driving

• US 10,235,859 B1
• Filed: 08/17/2017
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Original Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Inventors: Hiles, Brian Todd
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Toan N
• Application Number:
  US15/679,922
• Time in Patent Office: 579 Days
• Field of Search: 340575, 340576
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/18 for vehicle drivers or machine operators
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 28/066 actuating a signalling device B60K28/063 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2040/0827 due to sleepiness
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/45 External transmission of data to or from the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/09 Driving style or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms

Abstract

Systems and methods for mitigating drowsy and/or sleepy driving may include utilizing vehicle-related and wellness-related telematics to detect and/or predict drowsy and/or sleepy driving states of a driver of a vehicle and take mitigating actions to thereby increase the safety of the driver and other people and/or vehicles in the vicinity of the driver'"'"'s vehicle. Vehicle-related telematics data and wellness-related telematics data (which may include sleep data) may be collected via sensors that disposed on-board the vehicle, in the vehicle'"'"'s environment, and at a personal health/fitness tracker of the driver. The collected data may be collectively interpreted to detect, predict, and/or otherwise discover information relating to a drowsy and/or sleepy state of the driver, and one or more mitigating actions may be automatically performed based on the discovered information to thereby mitigate undesirable effects of drowsy/sleepy driving and increase driving safety.

Claims

1. A system for mitigating drowsy driving, the system comprising:

a set of sensors disposed on-board a vehicle operated by a driver;

a personal tracking device that senses one or more physiological conditions of the driver; and

one or more computing devices communicatively connected to the set of on-board sensors of the vehicle and to the personal tracking device, the one or more computing devices including one or more processors, one or more memories, and a set of computer-executable instructions stored on the one or more memories and executable by the one or more processors to;

collect, via one or more communication channels, vehicle-related telematics data generated by the set of on-board sensors of the vehicle;

collect, via the one or more communication channels, wellness-related telematics data generated by the personal tracking device based on the sensed physiological conditions of the driver, the wellness-related telematics data including sleep data indicative of at least one of a quality or a duration of sleep achieved by the driver;

collect, via the one or more communication channels, context-related telematics data indicative of an environment in which the vehicle is operating, wherein the context-related telematics data is collected from an infrastructure sensing system external to the vehicle;

interpret the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data, thereby generating information indicative of a drowsy state of the driver; and

cause a mitigating action to be performed based on the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of on-board sensors includes at least one of:

a camera, another type of optical sensor, a weight sensor, a speed sensor, a noise sensor, a heat sensor, an accelerometer, another type of force sensor, a location tracking sensor, a proximity sensor, a seat belt sensor, a geo-positioning sensor, a sensor to detect an operation of an instrument included in the vehicle, a sensor to detect an operation of a system that controls one or more operational behaviors of the vehicle, or another sensor.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver is indicative of a detected drowsy state of the driver.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver is indicative of a predicted drowsy state of the driver.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver includes at least one of an indication of a degree of drowsiness or a predicted time of occurrence of the drowsy state of the driver.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein interpretation of the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data includes a discovery of at least one interrelationship between at least some of the vehicle-related telematics data and at least some of the wellness-related telematics data.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the at least one interrelationship between the at least some of the vehicle-related telematics data and the at least some of the wellness-related telematics data includes a temporal interrelationship.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the wellness-related telematics data further includes other data indicative of other physiological conditions of the driver, and wherein the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver is based on the vehicle-related telematics data, the sleep data, and the data indicative of other physiological conditions of the driver.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein causing the mitigating action to be performed comprises automatically sending, by the one or more computing devices to a component of the vehicle, a command to automatically change an operating behavior of the vehicle.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein causing the mitigating action to be performed comprises automatically sending, to a user interface on-board the vehicle, a notification of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the mitigating action comprises a utilization of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver in determining a risk profile of the driver.

12. The system of claim 1, where the mitigating action comprises a utilization of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver in determining and providing an incentive for the driver to decrease occurrences of driving while drowsy, the incentive including a discount on an insurance policy corresponding to the driver.

13. A method for mitigating drowsy driving, the method comprising:

collecting, via one or more communication channels by one or more computing devices, vehicle-related telematics data generated by a set of sensors monitoring at least one of a condition or a behavior of a vehicle operated by a driver;

collecting, via the one or more communication channels by the one or more computing devices, wellness-related telematics data generated by a personal tracking device that senses physiological conditions of the driver, the wellness-related telematics data based on the sensed physiological conditions of the driver, and the wellness-related telematics data including sleep data that is indicative of at least one of a quality or a duration of sleep achieved by the driver;

collecting, via the one or more communication channels by the one or more computing devices, context-related telematics data indicative of an environment in which the vehicle is operating, wherein the context-related telematics data is collected from an infrastructure sensing system external to the vehicle;

interpreting, at the one or more computing devices, the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data, thereby generating information indicative of a drowsy state of the driver; and

transmitting, by the one or computing devices, a command for a mitigating action to be performed, the command for the mitigation action based on the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein at least one of:

(i) collecting the vehicle-related telematics data generated by the set of sensors comprises collecting the vehicle-related telematics data generated by at least one of;

a camera, another type of optical sensor, a speed sensor, a weight sensor, a noise sensor, a heat sensor, an accelerometer, another type of force sensor, a location tracking sensor, a proximity sensor, a seat belt sensor, a geo-positioning sensor, a sensor to detect an operation of an instrument included in the vehicle, a sensor to detect an operation of a system that controls one or more operational behaviors of the vehicle, or another sensor;

or

(ii) collecting, via the one or more communication channels, the wellness-related telematics data generated by the personal tracking device comprises at least one of collecting at least a first portion of the wellness-related telematics data directly from the personal tracking device via a wireless communication channel or collecting at least a second portion of the wellness-related telematics data from a fitness tracking system to which the personal tracking device is synchronized.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein interpreting the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data, thereby generating the information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver comprises detecting a presence of the drowsy state of the driver and a degree of drowsiness.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein interpreting the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data, thereby generating the information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver comprises predicting an occurrence of a presence of the drowsy state of the driver at a particular time.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein interpreting the vehicle-related telematics data in conjunction with the wellness-related telematics data and the context-related telematics data comprises discovering an interrelationship between at least some of the vehicle-related telematics data and at least some of the wellness-related telematics data by using at least one of a statistical analysis technique or a machine learning technique.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein transmitting the command for the mitigating action to be performed comprises at least one of:

transmitting a command to one or more components of the vehicle to change an operating behavior of the vehicle;

or

transmitting a command to display, on a user interface on-board the vehicle, a notification of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein transmitting the command for the mitigating action to be performed comprises transmitting an indication of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver for inclusion in determining a risk profile of the driver.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein transmitting the command for the mitigating action to be performed comprises transmitting an indication of the generated information indicative of the drowsy state of the driver for use in generating an incentive for the driver to reduce occurrences of driving while drowsy.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein generating the incentive for the driver to reduce occurrences of driving while drowsy comprises generating an indication of an insurance discount corresponding to the driver.