Adaptive horn honking which can learn the effectiveness of a honking action

• US 9,919,560 B1
• Filed: 01/31/2017
• Issued: 03/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Brew, Kevin Wayne, Gordon, Michael S., Kozloski, James Robert, Kundu, Ashish, Pickover, Clifford A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hofsass, Jeffery
• Application Number:
  US15/420,638
• Time in Patent Office: 413 Days
• Field of Search: 3404255, 340463, 3403841, 3403844, 3403847
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 5/005 automatically actuated
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 15/02 Synthesis of acoustic waves synthesis of speech G10L13/00

Abstract

A horn honking control method, system, and computer program product, include an advanced vehicle horn honking control according to a context of the vehicle where a differential horn honking action is performed based on the context.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented horn honking control method, the method comprising:

detecting a context of a subject vehicle via a sensor collecting data related to the subject vehicle;

controlling a horn of the vehicle to take a differential homing action via a horn honking device of the vehicle based on the context of the vehicle to ameliorate a risk related to the context; and

learning an effectiveness of the differential honking action to modify the differential honking action if the effectiveness is below a predetermined threshold.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the context is based on an environment surrounding the vehicle.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the context is selected from a group consisting of:

a subject vehicle-related factor;

subject-vehicle-to-related-vehicle related factor; and

a passenger-related factor.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the context is selected from a group consisting of:

a type of animal in a vicinity of the vehicle and a history of the type of animal in a location of the vehicle; and

a characteristic of a pedestrian in the vicinity of the vehicle.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the differential honking action includes modifying a sound characteristic of the horn selected from a group consisting of:

a timbre;

an amplitude;

a tristimulus;

a speed of onset; and

a frequency of the horn to ultrasonic.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said detecting a context of the subject vehicle includes detecting an emergency and said controlling controls the differential honking action to emit a siren sound, in response to said detecting.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said detecting a context of the subject vehicle further comprises detecting a temporal change and said controlling further comprises modifying the differential honking action, in response to said detecting.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the differential honking action includes a non-audible action.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the controlling modifies the differential honking action based on a self-driving vehicle being a second vehicle in the detected context.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said detecting a context of the subject vehicle further comprises detecting if at least one of the subject vehicle is a self-driving vehicle or a human-driven vehicle;

wherein said controlling further comprises modifying the differential honking action, in response to said detecting.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the detecting further comprises detecting a relationship between the subject vehicle and a detected vehicle and said modifying is in response to said detecting.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, embodied in a cloud-computing environment.

13. A computer program product for horn honking control, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a computer to cause the computer to perform:

detecting a context of a subject vehicle via a sensor collecting data related to the subject vehicle;

controlling a horn of the vehicle to take a differential honking action via a horn honking device of the vehicle based on the context of the vehicle to ameliorate a risk related to the context; and

learning an effectiveness of the differential honking action to modify the differential honking action if the effectiveness is below a predetermined threshold.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the context is based on an environment surrounding the vehicle.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the context is selected from a group consisting of:

a subject vehicle-related factor;

a subject-vehicle-to-related-vehicle related factor; and

a passenger-related factor.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the context is selected from a group consisting of:

a type of animal in a vicinity of the vehicle and a history of the type of animal in a location of the vehicle; and

a characteristic of a pedestrian in the vicinity of the vehicle.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the differential honking action includes modifying a sound characteristic of the horn selected from a group consisting of:

a timbre;

an amplitude;

a tristimulus;

a speed of onset; and

a frequency of the horn to ultrasonic.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said detecting a context of the subject vehicle includes detecting an emergency and said controlling controls the differential honking action to emit a siren sound, in response to said detecting.

19. A horn honking control system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory operably coupled to the processor, the memory storing program instructions that when executed cause the system to;

detect a context of a subject vehicle via a sensor collecting data related to subject vehicle;

control a horn of the vehicle to take a differential honking action via a horn honking device of the vehicle based on the context of the vehicle to ameliorate a risk related to the context; and

learn an effectiveness of the differential honking action to modify the differential honking action if the effectiveness is below a predetermined threshold.

20. The system of claim 19, embodied in a cloud-computing environment.