Vehicle driver identification

• US 9,725,098 B2
• Filed: 07/15/2015
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Talamonti, Walter Joseph, Abou-Nasr, Mahmoud A., Kochhar, Devinder Singh
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang, Jon
• Application Number:
  US14/800,527
• Publication Number:
  US 20160039429A1
• Time in Patent Office: 755 Days
• Field of Search: 382103, 382115, 340 552, 340 581, 340 582, 715863
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2420/905 the sensor being an xyz axis sensor
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/10 Interpretation of driver requests or demands
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/82 using neural networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/28 Recognition of hand or arm movements, e.g. recognition of deaf sign language static hand signs G06V40/113

Abstract

A user gesture is detected based on received data from one or more motion sensors. User gesture attributes are identified including at least one of hand vectoring, wrist articulation, and finger articulation from the gesture including respective movements of each of a plurality of a user'"'"'s fingers. Based on the gesture attributes, a user and an action to be performed in a vehicle are identified. The action is performed in the vehicle to control at least one vehicle component based on the gesture.

Claims

1. A system, comprising a computer including a processor and a memory, the memory storing instructions executable by the computer to:

detect a user gesture and a second user gesture based on received data from one or more motion sensors;

identify user gesture attributes for the user gesture and the second user gesture including at least one of hand vectoring, wrist articulation, and finger articulation from the gesture including respective movements of each of a plurality of a user'"'"'s fingers;

wherein the gesture attributes further include at least one of motion at gesture initiation and motion at gesture termination;

based on the identified gesture attributes, identify a user and a second user and actions to be performed in a vehicle;

determine whether one of the user and the second user is a driver and the other of the user and the second user is a passenger; and

upon determining that the driver and the passenger performed their respective gestures at the same time, perform the action in the vehicle to control at least one vehicle component according to the gesture of the driver and ignore the gesture of the passenger.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further include instructions to adjust one or more vehicle components according to one or more predetermined user settings based on the gesture attributes.

3. The system of claim 2, herein the vehicle components include at least one of a steering wheel, a climate control system, a window control, and an entertainment system.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the instructions further include instructions to retrieve the predetermined user settings from a vehicle database.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further include instructions to assign a user confidence number to the gesture attributes, the user confidence number being a measure of how closely the gesture attributes align with stored gestures for users.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the instructions further include instructions to identify the user based at least in part on the user confidence number.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the gesture attributes further include at least one of location within a vehicle and positon of gesture relative to a vehicle component.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the user gesture is a knob rotation.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the user gesture is a hand swipe.

10. A method, comprising:

detecting a user gesture and a second user gesture based on received data from one or more motion sensors;

identifying user gesture attributes for the user gesture and the second user gesture including at least one of band vectoring, wrist articulation, and finger articulation from the gesture including respective movements of each of a plurality of a user'"'"'s fingers;

wherein the gesture attributes further include at least one of motion at gesture initiation and motion at gesture termination;

based on the identified gesture attributes, identifying a user and a second user and actions to be performed in a vehicle;

determining whether one of the user and the second user is a driver and the other of the user and the second user is a passenger; and

upon determining that the driver and the passenger performed their respective gestures at the same time, performing the action in the vehicle to control at least one vehicle component according to the gesture of the driver and ignoring the gesture of the passenger.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising adjusting one or more vehicle components according to one or more predetermined user settings based on the gesture attributes.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the vehicle components include at least one of a steering wheel, a climate control system, a window control, a navigation system, and an entertainment system.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising assigning a user confidence number to the gesture attributes.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising identifying the user based at least in part on the user confidence number.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the gesture attributes include at least one of location within a vehicle and positon of gesture relative to a vehicle component.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the user gesture is at least one of a knob rotation and a hand swipe.