Onboard vehicle notification system

• US 9,905,131 B2
• Filed: 12/29/2015
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thunder Power New Energy Vehicle Development Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Thunder Power New Energy Vehicle Development Company Limited
• Inventors: Lai, Sheng-Fu
• Primary Examiner(s): Amin, Bhavesh V
• Application Number:
  US14/983,461
• Publication Number:
  US 20170186320A1
• Time in Patent Office: 791 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/14 Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/552 involving long-term monitoring or reporting
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/58 Recognition of moving objects or obstacles, e.g. vehicles or pedestrians; Recognition of traffic objects, e.g. traffic signs, traffic lights or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/012 from other sources than vehicle or roadside beacons, e.g. mobile networks
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0129 for creating historical data or processing based on historical data
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0141 for traffic information dissemination
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0175 by photographing vehicles, e.g. when violating traffic rules
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096716 where the received information does not generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096741 where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 where the origin of the information is a central station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/164 Centralised systems, e.g. external to vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/042 Public Land Mobile systems, e.g. cellular systems

Abstract

Described herein is an onboard vehicle system configured to capture vehicle information and notify an operator of the onboard vehicle system of potentially dangerous vehicles. In some embodiments, the onboard vehicle system may capture image information related to its surroundings. The image information may be processed to identify one or more vehicle identifiers associated with vehicles in the vicinity of the onboard system. The onboard system may provide vehicle identifiers to a service provider computer, which may subsequently query one or more driver behavior databases for anomalous behavior related to the vehicle identifiers. Upon detecting anomalous behavior for a target vehicle, the service provider computer may generate one or more notifications to be presented to the operator of the onboard system with regard to the target vehicle. In some embodiments, the onboard system may present the notification to the operator in an audio and/or visual format.

Claims

1. An onboard vehicle apparatus installed on a vehicle, comprising:

one or more camera devices;

an antenna device;

an output device; and

a processor device configured to;

receive input from the one or more camera devices, the input related to a target vehicle other than a vehicle in which the onboard vehicle apparatus is installed;

determine, by the onboard vehicle apparatus based at least in part on the input related to the target vehicle, a vehicle identifier associated with the target vehicle;

provide, via the antenna device, the vehicle identifier to a service provider computer;

receive, in response to providing the vehicle identifier to the service provider computer, a recommendation associated with the target vehicle, wherein the service provider identifies at least one anomalous behavior exhibited in the past by the target vehicle and generates the recommendation associated with the target vehicle to mitigate a risk to the vehicle in which the onboard apparatus is installed based on a reoccurrence of the identified at least one anomalous behavior exhibited in the past by the target vehicle, wherein the recommendation includes an action to be performed by a driver of the vehicle in which the onboard apparatus is installed determined based on a type of the risk to the vehicle in which the onboard apparatus is installed; and

provide, via the output device of the onboard vehicle apparatus, the recommendation associated with the target vehicle provided by the service provider computer.

2. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the vehicle identifier is a license plate number identified from the input received from the one or more camera devices.

3. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the risk information includes information indicating one or more behaviors determined by the service provider to be typical of the target vehicle.

4. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the output device includes an audio speaker.

5. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the output device includes a display device.

6. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the antenna is configured to enable communication between the onboard vehicle apparatus and the service provider computer via a cellular network.

18. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the recommendation associated with the target vehicle is generated based at least in part on a date upon which the at least one anomalous behavior was exhibited by the target vehicle.

19. The onboard vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein receiving input from the one or more camera devices comprises capturing images of vehicles around the onboard vehicle apparatus, the target vehicle being one of the vehicles around the onboard vehicle apparatus.

7. A method of notifying an operator of a vehicle of potential risks comprising:

receiving, at a service provider computer from one or more camera devices installed on the vehicle, input related to a target vehicle, the target vehicle being a separate entity from the vehicle;

determining, by the service provider computer based at least in part on the input related to the target vehicle, an identifier for the target vehicle;

determining, by the service provider computer based at least in part on the determined identifier for the target vehicle, at least one past anomalous behavior associated with the target vehicle;

determining, by the service provider computer, a risk information associated with the target vehicle based at least in part on the at least one past anomalous behavior;

generate, by the service provider computer, a notification regarding the risk information associated with the target vehicle that includes a recommendation specific to the target vehicle, wherein the recommendation includes an action to be performed by an operator of the vehicle based on a type of the risk associated with the at least one past anomalous behavior; and

provide, by the service provider computer, instructions to an onboard vehicle system installed in the vehicle to cause the onboard vehicle system to relay to the operator the notification regarding the risk information associated with the target vehicle.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the input related to the target vehicle includes image information obtained from the one or more camera devices.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the identifier for the target vehicle is determined using one or more image processing techniques.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the at least one at least one past anomalous behavior associated with the target vehicle includes at least one of swerving, driving erratically, driving too fast, driving too slow, and driving outside of the bounds of a road.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the notification includes an action to be taken to mitigate a risk associated with the at least one at least one past anomalous behavior associated with the target vehicle.

12. A remote server, comprising:

a processor device; and

a memory including instructions that, when executed with the processor device, cause the system to, at least;

receive an indication of a location associated with an onboard system with which the remote server is in wireless communication;

identify, based at least in part on the received indication, at least one target vehicle within a vicinity of the onboard system, the at least one target vehicle being one in which the onboard system is not installed;

determine one or more past anomalous behaviors associated with the at least one target vehicle;

determine, based at least in part on the one or more behaviors associated with the target vehicle, a risk type associated with the target vehicle;

generate, based at least in part on the risk type associated with the target vehicle, a recommendation including instructions to an operator of the onboard system to mitigate to perform one or more actions based on the risk type associated with the target vehicle, the one or more actions determined to prevent danger to the operator based on a reoccurrence of the one or more past anomalous behaviors by the target vehicle; and

provide a notification that includes the generated recommendation to the onboard system.

13. The vehicle system of claim 12, wherein the at least one target vehicle is determined to be within the vicinity of the onboard system based on the at least one target vehicle being within a predetermined distance.

14. The vehicle system of claim 12, wherein the one or more past anomalous behaviors associated with the target vehicle is detected by a second instance of the onboard system installed within a second vehicle within a vicinity of the target vehicle.

15. The vehicle system of claim 12, wherein the onboard system is installed in a law enforcement vehicle.

16. The vehicle system of claim 12, wherein the onboard system is configured to present the generated notification to an operator of the onboard system.

17. The vehicle system of claim 12, wherein the risk associated with the target vehicle is a probability that a driver of the target vehicle will engage in the one or more past anomalous behaviors associated with the target vehicle.