Vehicle security with accident notification and embedded driver analytics

• US 9,491,420 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2014
• Issued: 11/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tibet Mimar
• Original Assignee: Tibet Mimar
• Inventors: Mimar, Tibet
• Primary Examiner(s): Senfi, Behrooz
• Application Number:
  US14/201,904
• Publication Number:
  US 20140300739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 975 Days
• Field of Search: 348/148
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/597 Recognising the driver's state or behaviour, e.g. attention or drowsiness
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0476 Cameras to detect unsafe condition, e.g. video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/188 Capturing isolated or intermittent images triggered by the occurrence of a predetermined event, e.g. an object reaching a predetermined position signal generation from motion picture films H04N5/253

Abstract

The present invention relates to a vehicle telematics device with one or more cameras embedded in the same package for evidentiary surround audio-video recording, automatic accident detection and emergency help request notification, facial processing for drowsiness and distraction accident avoidance, and embedded multiple profiles of driver analytics, and mobile internet connectivity for contacting emergency services directly and without the delay of a call center and for mobile hot spot for in-vehicle infotainment. Each profile of driver analytics has many selectable advanced driver analysis parameters and multiple profiles can be active for a given driver. In case of emergency help request accident panoramic accident video is uploaded to a cloud drop box and link to video of accident is available along with severity index, location, nearest address, number of passengers, etc.

Claims

1. A method for detecting a vehicle accident and notifying emergency services in case an accident is detected, said method comprising:

determining unloaded weight of a vehicle in accordance with make and model of vehicle selected;

selecting threshold values of accident detection parameters in accordance with the determined unloaded weight of the vehicle;

calculating a series of acceleration vector values in accordance with inputs from an X-Y-Z accelerometer;

filtering said acceleration vector values;

calculating a severity index (SI) value, width of peak of said acceleration vector, and an average acceleration value and duration of time around a peak acceleration event;

determining occurrence of a severe accident;

connecting to wireless broadband network when the accident is detected;

determining a location information in terms of latitude and longitude based on GPS inputs;

determining a nearest address based on said location information;

calculating a scaled severity index (SI) of accident;

capturing an accident video using multiple cameras from several seconds before the accident to some seconds after the accident in a standard compressed video file format;

uploading said captured accident video to a drop box in a cloud storage, and providing a URL link to access it in an emergency help request message;

composing an emergency help request message which includes accident information including said scaled severity index value, location and time of accident, vehicle information, said nearest address, and link to accident video; and

sending said emergency help request message to IP based emergency services of Public Safety Answering (PSAP) that has jurisdiction over a caller'"'"'s location, using a messaging system that includes but not limited to one of SMS 911, NG-9-1-1, and eCall.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining rotational gyro vector in accordance with inputs from a X-Y-Z gyro sensor, wherein said rotational gyro vector exceeds a threshold value T_Gyro;

detecting a free fall more than certain distance D_F;

detecting a roll-over condition;

detecting an airbag has deployment; and

wherein an accident event is further triggered when any of the above steps is detected.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a direction of travel at the time of the accident in accordance with direction of vehicle just before the accident; and

reporting said direction of travel as part of emergency help request for a quicker response from emergency services.

4. A method for automatically detecting vehicular accidents and providing accident notification, the method comprising:

calculating an acceleration vector value;

detecting a trigger event when said acceleration vector value exceeds a threshold value;

capturing a sequence of accelerator vector values around said trigger event as a function of time;

capturing video of accident from multiple cameras;

determining if a severe accident has occurred in accordance with said sequence of accelerator vector values around said trigger event, and upon detection of said severe accident, the method further comprising the steps of;

determining latitude, longitude and nearest address upon detection of said severe accident;

calculating scaled severity index (SI) of accident;

connecting to internet via wireless broadband modem that includes but not limited to 3G, 4G LTE and 5G wireless broadband modem standards;

uploading said captured video of accident to a cloud drop box;

composing a message that includes but not limited to severity level of accident, the latitude, longitude and nearest address of said accident, vehicle make, model and license plate, link to uploaded said captured video of accident, and time of accident; and

sending said message to IP based emergency services.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein accident is also detected when one of following conditions occur:

gyro vector exceeds a certain threshold value, free fall over certain distance is detected, vehicle roll-over condition is detected, or airbag deployment is detected.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein an accident is detected when severity index value is larger than a threshold value and width of peak of acceleration is larger than a threshold peak-width value.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein accelerator vector values are filtered by an FIR filter before use for detection of accident.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein threshold values for various parameters is determined as a function of vehicle make and model, further comprising the step of determining vehicle weight.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein an accident is detected when average acceleration value exceeds a certain threshold and filtered accelerator peak exceeds said certain threshold value.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein an accident is detected when severity index (SI) exceeds T_L, width of peak acceleration value exceeds T_P, and duration of accident exceeds T_DWidth threshold value.