Assessment and management of emotional state of a vehicle operator

• US 9,149,236 B2
• Filed: 02/04/2013
• Issued: 10/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Chun, Anthony L., Anderson, Glen J., Yosher, Albert
• Primary Examiner(s): La, Anh V
• Application Number:
  US13/758,638
• Publication Number:
  US 20140218187A1
• Time in Patent Office: 974 Days
• Field of Search: 340/439, 340/576, 340/436, 340/425.5, 701/1, 701/2, 701/35, 701/29, 701/29.1, 180/272
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/18 for vehicle drivers or machine operators
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 28/06 responsive to incapacity of driver
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/21 Voice
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/221 Physiology, e.g. weight, heartbeat, health or special needs
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/223 Posture, e.g. hand, foot, or seat position, turned or inclined
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/45 External transmission of data to or from the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 60/0021 specially adapted for travel time
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/02 Alarms for ensuring the safety of persons
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation

Abstract

Devices, systems, and techniques are provided for assessment and management of an emotional state of a vehicle operator. Assessment of the emotional state of the vehicle can include accessing operational information indicative of performance of a vehicle, behavioral information indicative of behavior of an operator of the vehicle, and or wellness information indicative of a physical condition of the operator of the vehicle. In one aspect, these three types of information can be combined to generate a rich group set of data, metadata, and/or signaling that can be utilized or otherwise leveraged to generate a condition metric representative of the emotional state of the vehicle operator. Management of the emotional state can be customized to the specific context of the vehicle and/or the emotional state, and can be implemented proactively or reactively.

Claims

1. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium encoded with computer-accessible instructions that, in response to execution, cause at least one processor to perform operations for vehicular safety comprising:

accessing, at a computing system having at least one processor, operational information indicative of performance of a vehicle;

accessing, at the computing system, behavioral information indicative of behavior of an operator of the vehicle;

generating, at the computing system, a condition metric representative of an emotional state of the operator based at least in part on at least a portion of the operational information and at least a portion of the behavioral information;

rendering, by the computing system, the condition metric at a predetermined exterior area of the vehicle;

determining, by the computing system, a travel time for a route between an origin and a destination;

providing a recommendation for the route based at least in part on the behavior of the operator, wherein the route is configured to render within substantially the travel time; and

adjusting the condition metric based on the recommendation.

2. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise rendering the condition metric at the computing system.

3. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 2, wherein the rendering comprises providing at least one of a visual representation of the condition metric, an aural representation of the condition metric, or a haptic representation of the condition metric.

4. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 2, wherein the rendering comprises rendering the condition metric at a predetermined interior area of the vehicle.

5. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 1, wherein accessing the operational information comprises receiving at least a portion of the operational information from one or more sensors of a plurality of sensors, each sensor of the plurality of sensors is configured to detect motion of the vehicle.

6. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 1, wherein accessing the behavioral information comprises accessing imaging information indicative of an appearance of the operator of the vehicle.

7. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 6, wherein accessing the behavioral information further comprises determining a facial feature of the operator of the vehicle based at least in part on the imaging information, and wherein the determining comprises implementing a facial recognition technique.

8. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 6, wherein accessing the behavioral information further comprises accessing audio information indicative of a speech segment uttered by the operator of the vehicle.

9. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 8, wherein accessing the behavioral information further comprises determining a verbal feature of the segment speech based at least in part on the audio information, and wherein the verbal feature is representative of the emotional state of the operator.

10. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 8, wherein accessing the behavioral information further comprises accessing gesture information indicative of movement of the operator of the vehicle.

11. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise supplying, by the computing system, the condition metric to other vehicle, wherein the supplying comprises at least one of transmitting the condition metric wirelessly to the other vehicle or transmitting the condition metric via a link tethered to the other vehicle.

12. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise receiving, at the computing system, at least one condition metric from at least one other vehicle, each condition metric of the at least one condition metric is representative of an emotional state of an operator of a respective vehicle of the at least one other vehicle.

13. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise rendering the at least one condition metric at the computing system.

14. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium encoded with computer-accessible instructions that, in response to execution, cause at least one processor to perform operations for vehicular performance management comprising:

acquiring, at a computing system having at least one processor, a condition metric representative of an emotional state of an operator of a vehicle;

determining, at the computing system, if the condition metric satisfies a vehicular safety hazard criterion;

configuring, at the computing system, a vehicle component for a predetermined operation in response to ascertaining that the condition metric satisfies the vehicular safety hazard criterion, wherein the vehicle component includes one or more of a content rendering unit, an in-cabin ambient control unit, or an operation control unit;

rendering, by the computing system, the condition metric at a predetermined exterior area of the vehicle;

determining, by the computing system, a travel time for a route between an origin and a destination;

providing a recommendation for the route based at least in part on the behavior of the operator, wherein the route is configured to render within substantially the travel time; and

adjusting the condition metric based on the recommendation.

15. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise generating information indicative of a route between an origin and a destination, wherein the route is designed to improve the condition metric.

16. A system for vehicular safety, comprising:

at least one memory device having encoded thereon computer-accessible instructions; and

at least one processor functionally coupled to the at least one memory device and configured, by the computer-accessible instructions,

to access operational information indicative of performance of a vehicle;

to access behavioral information indicative of behavior of an operator of the vehicle;

to generate a condition metric representative of an emotional state of the operator based at least in part on at least a portion of the operational information and at least a portion of the behavioral information;

to render the condition metric at a predetermined exterior area of the vehicle;

to determine a travel time for a route between an origin and a destination;

to provide a recommendation for the route based at least in part on the behavior of the operator, wherein the route is configured to render within substantially the travel time; and

to adjust the condition metric based on the recommendation.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to render the condition metric at the computing system.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to provide at least one of a visual representation of the condition metric, an aural representation of the condition metric, or a haptic representation of the condition metric.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to render the condition metric at a predetermined interior area of the vehicle.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein to access the operational information, the at least one processor is further configured to receive at least a portion of the operational information from one or more sensors of a plurality of sensors, each sensor of the plurality of sensors is configured to detect motion of the vehicle.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein to access the behavioral information, the at least one processor is further configured to access imaging information indicative of an appearance of the operator of the vehicle.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine a facial feature of the operator of the vehicle based at least in part on the imaging information, and wherein the determining comprises implementing a facial recognition technique.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to access audio information indicative of a speech segment uttered by the operator of the vehicle.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine a verbal feature of the segment speech based at least in part on the audio information, and wherein the verbal feature is representative of the emotional state of the operator.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to access gesture information indicative of movement of the operator of the vehicle.

26. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to supply the condition metric to another vehicle wirelessly or via a link tethered to the another vehicle.

27. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to supply the information to infrastructure within an environment of the vehicle.

28. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to receive at least one condition metric from at least one other vehicle, each condition metric of the at least one condition metric is representative of an emotional state of an operator of a respective vehicle of the at least one other vehicle.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to render the at least one condition metric at the computing system.