System and method for real-time recognition of driving patterns

• US 7,444,311 B2
• Filed: 03/23/2005
• Issued: 10/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Volvo Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Volvo Technology Corporation
• Inventors: Victor, Trent, Engstrom, Johan
• Primary Examiner(s): Holmes; Michael B
• Application Number:
  US10/907,167
• Publication Number:
  US 20050159851A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,315 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 706/20
• CPC Class Codes: B60T 2220/02 Driver type; Driving style; Driver adaptive features
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2510/0638 Engine speed
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2520/10 Longitudinal speed
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2530/00 Input parameters relating to vehicle conditions or values, not covered by groups B60W2510/00 or B60W2520/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/12 Brake pedal position
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/18 Steering angle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/20 Direction indicator values
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/30 Driving style
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/05 Type of road, e.g. motorways, local streets, paved or unpaved roads
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/18181 Propulsion control with common controlling member for different functions
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/09 Driving style or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/027 using neural networks only
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0104 Measuring and analyzing of parameters relative to traffic conditions

Abstract

System and method for real-time, automatic, recognition of large time-scale driving patterns employs a statistical pattern recognition framework, implemented by means of feed-forward neural network utilizing models developed for recognizing, for example, four classes of driving environments, namely highway, main road, suburban traffic and city traffic, from vehicle performance data. A vehicle control application effects changes in vehicle performance aspects based on the recognized driving environment.

Claims

1. A method for optimizing driver-vehicle performance in a driver operated vehicle, said method comprising:

collecting, on a substantially real-time basis, multiple measurements of at least one driver characteristic by direct body scan of an active driver of a vehicle;

predicting a current driving environment within which the vehicle is presently being driven from a computer-based evaluation of said measurements; and

adapting at least one performance characteristic of the vehicle based on said evaluation and thereby potentiating the vehicle'"'"'s performance for the predicted driving environment.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

collecting, on a substantially real-time basis, multiple measurements of at least one vehicle characteristic that is at least one of (i) non-GPS based and (ii) geographically unspecific; and

evaluating said multiple measurements of the at least one vehicle characteristic to predict the current driving environment within which the vehicle is presently being driven.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein a resulting data set from said collecting of multiple measurements of the at least one vehicle characteristic has a capacity to be statistically segregated into a plurality of groups, and each of said groups is representative of a driving environment category.

4. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the measurement of at least one vehicle characteristic comprises quantification of at least one of acceleration pedal position, gear selection, turn indicator activity, vehicle speed, steering angle, engine speed and brake activity.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein a resulting data set from said collecting of multiple measurements of the at least one driver characteristic has a capacity to be statistically segregated into a plurality of groups, and each of said groups is representative of a driving environment category.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one driver characteristic is driver eye movement.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one driver characteristic is driver head movement.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

utilizing predetermined criteria for said predicting of current driving environments, the predetermined criteria differentiating between at least two of a plurality of driving environments, said plurality of driving environments including highway driving, main road driving, suburban driving and city driving.

9. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising:

utilizing predetermined criteria for said predicting of current driving environments, the predetermined criteria differentiating between at least two of a plurality of driving environments, said plurality of driving environments including highway driving, main road driving, suburban driving and city driving.

10. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising:

collecting and recording multiple measurements of a plurality of driver characteristics and multiple vehicle characteristics from multiple subj ects thereby creating a collection of reference values for the driver and vehicle characteristics.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing, in a preprocessing step over a predetermined time window, a series of iteratively collected measurements of said at least one driver characteristic for purposes of feature extraction.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, wherein said analysis comprises computing an average of the collected measurements of said multiple measurements of at least one driver characteristic.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

determining the probable driving environment occurring during the predetermined time window based on the computed average of the collected measurements of said multiple measurements of at least one driver characteristic.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein said predetermined time window is sufficiently long to determine the driving environment occurring during the predetermined time window while avoiding identification of a smalltime scale driving pattern.

15. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein said predetermined time window is sufficiently short to determine a small-time scale driving pattern occurring during the predetermined time window.

16. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

determining the probable driving environment occurring during the predetermined time window based on the averaged value.

17. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

ascertaining a probability of a particular driving environment occurring during a predetermined time window utilizing a neural network to analyze the plurality of collected measurements.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

performing statistical pattern recognition utilizing the neural network.

19. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said adaptation of said at least one performance characteristic of the vehicle further comprises adapting the performance of at least one of (i) an engine and (ii) a chassis of the vehicle based on recognition of a particular driving environment.

20. The method as recited in claim 19, wherein effecting the changes in performance characteristics of the vehicle aspects further comprises effecting real-time optimization of at least one of an engine parameter and a chassis parameter to a predicted current driving environment.