LOCATION BASED AUTOMOBILE INSPECTION

• US 20120158238A1
• Filed: 01/10/2012
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Mobile Productivity, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Mobile Productivity, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Daley, Marcus Isaac, Basso, Elias Leonel More
• Application Number:
  US13/347,575
• Publication Number:
  US 20120158238A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/29.1
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/00 Registering or indicating the working of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0891 Video recorder in combination with video camera

Abstract

A dynamic inspection system determines a location of a technician with respect to an inspection vehicle and determines active voice commands to which it responds to based on that location. The technician can perform a vehicle inspection by providing voice commands to the dynamic inspection system, which can increase the technician'"'"'s efficiency. Further, as the dynamic inspection system'"'"'s active commands are customized for the location of the technician, the dynamic inspection system can filter out sound that does not include active voice commands, potentially increasing the accuracy of its voice recognition capability.

Claims

1. A computerized method for performing a vehicle inspection, the method comprising:

obtaining, with a camera, one or more images of at least a portion of a vehicle and a technician proximate the vehicle;

determining, based at least on the one or more images, a real-time location of the technician relative to the vehicle;

determining a section of the vehicle proximate to the technician based at least on the real-time location;

determining one or more vehicle inspection tasks associated with the determined section of the vehicle;

receiving a voice command from the technician, the voice command having an inspection task from the one or more vehicle inspection tasks and an inspection task status; and

associating the inspection status with the inspection task associated with the section of the vehicle proximate to the technician;

wherein the method is performed by a computing system having one or more processors.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a voice command unrelated to the one or more vehicle inspection tasks associated with the determined section of the vehicle is ignored.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a report showing the status of the one or more inspection tasks.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reciting, using an electronic device, the one or more vehicle inspection tasks associated with the determined section of the vehicle to the technician.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining one or more inspection tasks is based on one or more of a make, model, and year of the vehicle.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more vehicle inspection tasks comprises tasks performable by the technician at the proximate vehicle section.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more vehicle sections comprise at least one of a trunk, engine, driver side, and passenger side of the vehicle.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more vehicle sections comprises at least one of a front cabin and rear cabin of the vehicle.

9. A system for performing a vehicle inspection, the system comprising:

a camera configured to take at least one image of a vehicle and a user;

a speaker;

a voice-command reception module configured to receive a voice command from the user;

a location module configured to determine a location of the user relative to the vehicle using the at least one image from the camera; and

an inspection module configured to;

determine a vehicle section proximate to the user based on the determined location of the user;

determine vehicle data associated with the determined vehicle section; and

in response to receiving a voice command from the user, recite the vehicle data using the speaker.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the camera includes a motion sensor.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the camera includes an infrared sensor.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the camera includes a range camera.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the inspection module is configured to determine the vehicle section proximate to the user by performing an image analysis on the image from the camera.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the voice-command reception module comprises a microphone.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the voice-command reception module receives the voice command from a headset worn by the user.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the vehicle data comprises one or more inspection tasks.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the vehicle data comprises educational information related to the one or more inspection tasks.

18. Physical computer storage having stored thereon instructions that, in response to execution by a computing system having one or more hardware processors, cause the computing system to:

obtain one or more images of at least a portion of a vehicle and a technician proximate the vehicle;

determine, based at least on the one or more images, a location of the technician relative to the vehicle;

determine a section of the vehicle proximate to the technician based at least on the real-time location;

determine one or more active voice commands based on the determined section of the vehicle;

identify an active voice command from the technician; and

respond to the voice command by performing a task associated with the voice command.

19. The computer storage of claim 18, wherein the computing system is configured to identity an active voice command by filtering received sound based on the active voice commands.

20. The computer storage of claim 18, wherein the computing system is configured to disregard non-active voice commands.