System and method for identifying heading of a moving vehicle using accelerometer data

• US 9,726,497 B1
• Filed: 09/02/2016
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Original Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Inventors: Dosher, David J., Christensen, Scott Thomas, Menon, Sunish Shreenarayan
• Primary Examiner(s): Butler, Rodney
• Application Number:
  US15/255,719
• Time in Patent Office: 340 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/024 Other means for determination of steering angle without directly measuring it, e.g. deriving from wheel speeds on different sides of the car
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 1/00 Measuring angles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/12 executed aboard the object being navigated; Dead reckoning
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/185 for gravity
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 25/005 initial alignment, calibration or starting-up of inertial devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A method for determining a yaw angle estimate or vehicle heading direction is presented. A potential range of yaw angles is generated based on a plurality of primary telematics data. One or more yaw angle estimates are generated from the potential range of yaw angles. A driving pattern is determined based on at least one of the yaw angle estimates. The primary telematics data is a plurality of telematics data originated from a client computing device. The effects of gravity have been removed from the plurality of telematics data in a first primary movement window.

Claims

1. A method for determining a range of yaw angle estimates comprising:

generating a potential range of yaw angles based on a plurality of primary telematics data, wherein the primary telematics data comprises a plurality of telematics data corresponding to a moving vehicle and originated from a client computing device, the effects of gravity having been removed from the plurality of telematics data in a first primary movement window, wherein the primary movement window is indicative of the client computing device being static with respect to the moving vehicle;

generating one or more yaw angle estimates of the moving vehicle from the potential range of yaw angles;

plotting the one or more yaw angle estimates from the first primary movement window;

applying an arc length of a static region on a unit circle to the one or more yaw angle estimates from the first primary movement window; and

determining a driving pattern based on at least one of the yaw angle estimates.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining;

a first region corresponding to the static region;

a first number of data points in the first region;

a second region corresponding to the static region; and

a second number of data points in the second region;

comparing the number of data points in the first region with the number of data points in the second region;

determining a static region with the greatest number of data points;

generating a final yaw angle from the static region with the greatest number of data points; and

determining a driving pattern using at least the final yaw angle.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

rotating the static region from the first region to the second region on a unit circle.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

correlating the plurality of telematics data with a second plurality of telematics data.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the potential range of yaw angles further comprises:

creating a function that outputs four possible heading directions of the telematics data from the first primary movement window.