DETECTING A USER-TO-WIRELESS DEVICE ASSOCIATION IN A VEHICLE

• US 20140187219A1
• Filed: 12/27/2012
• Published: 07/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Yang, Lei, Kesavan, Vijay Sarathi, Yang, Xue
• Granted Patent: US 9,008,641 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/418
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72463 to restrict the functionality of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/06 including a wireless LAN interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds

Abstract

A location of a wireless device relative to a vehicle is determined using received data. Data may be received from the vehicle sensors. Data may also be received from the wireless device sensors of a wireless device. The presence of one or more persons may be determined using received data. A user-to-wireless device association may be detected based, at least in part, upon the presence of one or more persons in the vehicle and the location of the wireless device relative to the vehicle.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by one or more processors, data from one or more vehicle sensors of a vehicle;

receiving, by the one or more processors, data from one or more wireless device sensors of a wireless device;

determining, by the one or more processors, a location of the wireless device relative to the vehicle using at least one of the data received from the one or more vehicle sensors and the data received from the one or more wireless device sensors;

determining, by the one or more processors, a presence of one or more persons in the vehicle using at least one of the data received from the one or more vehicle sensors and the data received from the one or more wireless device sensors; and

detecting, by the one or more processors, a user-to-wireless device association between a driver of the vehicle and the wireless device using at least one of the location of the wireless device and the presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more vehicle sensors comprise at least one of a seat weight sensor, a microphone, and a vehicular-mounted camera.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein determining the presence of the one or more persons further comprises determining an identity of the driver using facial recognition.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the location of the wireless device further comprises using at least one of Wi-Fi data, Bluetooth data, acoustic signals with signal strength, time-of-flight calculations, or time-difference-of-arrival calculations.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein detecting the user-to-wireless device association further comprises:

correlating images taken from at least one of a vehicular-mounted camera and a camera of the wireless device.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising

generating a user identity profile of the driver based, at least in part, upon the correlated images;

and

associating the wireless device and the driver.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, responsive to detecting the user-to-wireless device association, either disabling one or more features of the wireless device or enabling a driver-friendly interface on the wireless device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the location of the wireless device further comprises applying scene analysis to one or more images received from the one or more wireless device sensors.

9. A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

identifying a location of a wireless device relative to a vehicle;

identifying a presence of one or more persons in the vehicle; and

determining, by the one or more processors, a user-to-wireless device association between the wireless device and a driver of the vehicle using at least one of the identified location of the wireless device and the identified presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising receiving data from one or more vehicle sensors of the vehicle.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the one or more vehicle sensors of the vehicle comprise one or more of a seat weight sensor and a vehicular-mounted camera.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein identifying the location of the wireless device further comprises using one or more of Wi-Fi signal strength, Bluetooth signal strength, acoustic signals with signal strength, acoustic time-of-flight calculations, acoustic time-difference-of-arrival calculations, Wi-Fi time-of-flight calculations, or Wi-Fi time-difference-of-arrival calcuations.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein identifying the location of the wireless device further comprises utilizing scene analysis on one or more images received from the wireless device.

14. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein identifying the presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle further comprises identifying the presence of the driver of the vehicle using one or more vision algorithms.

15. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising disabling one or more features of the wireless device responsive to determining the user-to-wireless device association between the driver of the vehicle and the wireless device.

16. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising

computing a first confidence level associated with a first metric identifying the location of the wireless device;

computing a second confidence level associated with a second metric identifying the location of the wireless device; and

determining the location of the wireless device based at least in part on the first confidence level and the second confidence level.

17. A computing system including a processor and a memory configured to perform operations comprising:

identifying a presence of one or more persons in a vehicle;

detecting a location of a wireless device in the vehicle; and

determining the usage of the wireless device by a driver of the vehicle using at least one of the identified presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle and the identified location of the wireless device in the vehicle.

18. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising establishing a secured association between the vehicle and the wireless device.

19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein identifying the presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle comprises receiving data from one or more vehicle sensors over the secured association between the vehicle and the wireless device.

20. The computer system of claim 19, wherein the one or more vehicle sensors comprise at least one of a weight sensor and a vehicular-mounted camera.

21. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising

computing a first confidence level associated with a first metric identifying the location of the wireless device;

computing a second confidence level associated with a second metric identifying the location of the wireless device; and

determining the location of the wireless device based at least in part on the first confidence level and the second confidence level.

22. The computer system of claim 17, wherein detecting the location of the wireless device in the vehicle further comprises using at least one of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, acoustic signals with signal strength, time of flight, or time difference of arrival.

23. The computer system of claim 17, wherein identifying the presence of the one or more persons in the vehicle further comprises applying facial recognition to one or more images received from one of a camera of the wireless device and a vehicular-mounted camera of the vehicle.

24. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising enabling a driver-friendly interface on the wireless device.