Memory management in event recording systems
First Claim
1. A vehicle event recorder configured to be mounted in a vehicle, the vehicle event recorder comprising:
- a video camera having a field-of-view that includes an environment about the vehicle, the video camera configured to acquire consecutive frames of visual information representing the environment about the vehicle;
a buffer memory configured to electronically store the consecutively acquired frames of visual information;
a long term storage memory configured to selectively store a subset of frames of the consecutively acquired frames of visual informationone or more sensors configured to generate output signals conveying information related to vehicle events; and
a controller configured to;
effectuate storage of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information in the buffer memory;
facilitate interleaved overwriting of less valuable individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory with additional frames acquired by the video camera, wherein value of individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames decreases;
i. with increasing time away from a time of a given vehicle event, andii. with presence of one or more adjacent frames in the consecutively acquired frames that convey substantially similar visual information;
detect the given vehicle events based on the output signals; and
responsive to detecting the a given vehicle event, transfer the frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory to the long term storage memory, the transferred frames of visual information including frames of visual information for a period of time that begins before the given vehicle event and lasts until after the given vehicle event.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A vehicle event recorder is provided that includes a camera for capturing a video as discrete image frames, and that further includes a managed loop memory and a management system for generating a virtual ‘timeline dilation’ effect. To overcome size limits in the buffer memory of the video event recorder, the maximum time extension of a video series is increased by enabling a reduction in temporal resolution in exchange for an increase in the temporal extension. Memory cells are overwritten in an ‘interleaved’ fashion to produce a reduced frame rate for the recording of certain time periods connected to an event moment. In time periods furthest from the event moment, the resulting frame rate is minimized while in time periods closest to the event moment, the resulting frame rate is maximized.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A vehicle event recorder configured to be mounted in a vehicle, the vehicle event recorder comprising:
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a video camera having a field-of-view that includes an environment about the vehicle, the video camera configured to acquire consecutive frames of visual information representing the environment about the vehicle; a buffer memory configured to electronically store the consecutively acquired frames of visual information; a long term storage memory configured to selectively store a subset of frames of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information one or more sensors configured to generate output signals conveying information related to vehicle events; and a controller configured to; effectuate storage of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information in the buffer memory; facilitate interleaved overwriting of less valuable individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory with additional frames acquired by the video camera, wherein value of individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames decreases; i. with increasing time away from a time of a given vehicle event, and ii. with presence of one or more adjacent frames in the consecutively acquired frames that convey substantially similar visual information; detect the given vehicle events based on the output signals; and responsive to detecting the a given vehicle event, transfer the frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory to the long term storage memory, the transferred frames of visual information including frames of visual information for a period of time that begins before the given vehicle event and lasts until after the given vehicle event. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for storing frames of visual information with a vehicle event recording system, the method comprising:
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acquiring consecutive frames of visual information representing an environment about a vehicle with a video camera of the vehicle event recording system; generating output signals conveying information related to vehicle events with one or more sensors of the vehicle event recording system; effectuating storage of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information in a buffer memory of the vehicle event recording system; facilitating interleaved overwriting of less valuable individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory with additional frames acquired by the video camera, wherein value of individual frames of the consecutively acquired frames decreases; i. with increasing time away from a time of a given vehicle event, and ii. with presence of one or more adjacent frames in the consecutively acquired frames that convey substantially similar visual information; detecting the given vehicle events based on the output signals; and responsive to detecting the a given vehicle event, transferring the frames of visual information stored in the buffer memory to a long term storage memory of the vehicle event recording system, the transferred frames of visual information including frames of visual information for a period of time that begins before the given vehicle event and lasts until after the given vehicle event. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification