Method and system for impaired driving detection, monitoring and accident prevention with driving habits

• US 10,493,996 B2
• Filed: 12/26/2018
• Issued: 12/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Future Technologies Partners, LLC, Future Technology Partners, LLC
• Original Assignee: Future Technology Partners, LLC
• Inventors: Phillips, Brian K., Wilson, Geoffrey A., Phillips, II, Brian K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong H
• Application Number:
  US16/232,329
• Publication Number:
  US 20190126935A1
• Time in Patent Office: 342 Days
• Field of Search: 701 324, 701 344, 701 24, 701301, 434305, 345156
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/0075 Automatic parameter input, automatic initialising or calibrating means
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/0083 Setting, resetting, calibration
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2400/00 Indexing codes relating to detected, measured or calculated conditions or factors
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2420/403 Image sensing, e.g. optical camera
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/043 Identity of occupants
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/30 Driving style
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/10 Historical data
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/0098 Details of control systems ensuring comfort, safety or stability not otherwise provided for
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 2205/02 using a vehicle scan tool
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/02 Registering or indicating driving, working, idle, or waiting time only apparatus forming part of taximeters G07B13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers

Abstract

A method and system for impaired driving detection, monitoring and accident prevention with driving habits. An impairment test method is provided with an impairment test determining in real-time whether a driver of vehicle is impaired (e.g., has used drugs, alcohol, is distracted, talking, texting, eating, etc. or is drowsy, etc.). The impairment test determines plural assigned probability impairment values over a pre-determined time interval to compare a frequency of received plural event signals from a passenger compartment of the vehicle for one or more of the plural driver performance actions completed by a driver of a vehicle to those previously stored in a unique driver profile for the driver to determine with a statistical probability whether the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired based on the unique behavior patterns for the driver of the vehicle stored in the unique driver profile. The unique driver profile includes unique behavior patterns of the driver comprising “habit evidence” to determine if a driver may be impaired.

Claims

1. A method for automatically determining an impaired driver based on driving habits, comprising:

assigning a plurality of numeric probability impairment values for a pre-determined driver impairment test method to a plurality of driver performance actions completed by a driver while driving a vehicle in a non-transitory computer readable medium on an electronic circuit with one or more processors on the vehicle;

creating automatically a unique driver profile in the non-transitory computer readable medium on the electronic circuit in the vehicle for the driver of the vehicle collected from a plurality of electronic signals from a plurality of individual components in a passenger compartment of the vehicle configured and used by the driver of the vehicle;

receiving continuously in real-time a plurality of event signals on the electronic circuit in the vehicle resulting from the driver operating the vehicle and completing one or more of the plurality driver performance actions; and

conducting continuously in real-time an impairment test for the impairment test method with the assigned plurality of numeric probability impairment values over a pre-determined time interval to compare a frequency of the received plurality of event signals for the one or more of the plurality of driver performance actions completed by the driver to those previously stored in the unique driver profile for the driver to determine with a statistical probability whether the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired based on the unique behavior patterns for the driver of the vehicle stored in the unique driver profile,

and if the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired,

sending a first message from the electronic circuit via a wireless interface on the vehicle via a wireless communications network to the driver of the vehicle or to an external network device with one or more processors indicating the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the pre-determined impairment test method comprises:

selecting the pre-determined time interval for the impairment test;

measuring automatically probability histograms P (N_k|S) and P (N_k|I) for k, wherein k is a member of the set [1, n], wherein N includes a vector of desired driver impairment measurements for the impairment test, P (N_k|S) includes a probability of measuring N for the driver'"'"'s sobriety S, P (N_k|I) includes a probability of measuring N for the driver'"'"'s impairment I, and n is a number of the plurality of driver performance actions that provide an indication of possible impairment of the driver of the vehicle and used for determining the plurality of numeric probability impairment values;

estimating automatically a priori probability P(S) for desired venues of interest including times, places and contexts the driver is driving the vehicle, wherein P(S) is the a priori probability of the sobriety S for the driver of the vehicle;

analyzing automatically a penalty factor P_thr for results falsely identifying a sober driver as impaired or an impaired driver as sober by calculating;

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of measuring automatically probability histograms is replaced with:

measuring directly a mean number occurrences for u_k,S and u_k,I, wherein u_k,S is a set of driver performance actions indicating a sober, non-impaired driver S, u_k,I is a set of driver performance actions indicating an impaired driver I, wherein k is a member of the set [1, n] and n is a number of the plurality of driver performance actions that provide an indication of possible impairment; and

calculating with Poissonian statistics a plurality of probabilities

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the statistical test includes only using the driver performance actions including only abrupt steering corrections, jerky abrupt turns and continuously depressing and releasing the brake pedal to accurately determine in real-time if the driver of the vehicle is impaired.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the impaired driver includes the driver under the influence of drugs or alcohol, a drowsy driver or a distracted driver.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of driver performance actions include:

weaving side to side in a regular or irregular pattern, abrupt steering corrections, abrupt braking, continuously depressing a brake pedal, braking repeatedly, lane drifting with abrupt corrections, varying driving speeds, abrupt accelerations or decelerations, irregular accelerations or decelerations, jerky steering, jerky braking jerky, abrupt turns, turn signal inconsistent with driver actions, driving without headlights, not using turn signals, not releasing turn signals after turning, air conditioning or heating not consistent with ambient temperatures, acceleration and deceleration curves that deviate substantially from the known driver profile and overall driving actions not consistent with driver actions stored in the unique driver profile.

7. The method of claim 1 where the plurality of driver performance actions including a plurality of impairment performance actions that are mutually independent from each other.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the external network device includes a smartphone, an electronic tablet, a wearable network device or a service network device, each with one or more processors.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the external network device includes a law enforcement network device.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of individual components of the vehicle include a plurality of sensors, motors, light bulbs, switches, electronic control units, bus interfaces and network interfaces of the vehicle.

11. The method of claim 4 wherein the plurality of sensors include electrical, altimeter, GPS, temperature, smoke, chemical and biometric sensors.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the physical positions of selected ones of the plurality of individual components of the vehicle in the passenger compartment of the vehicle comprise:

physical positions of seats, mirrors, steering wheel, heating, cooling, radio, and physical position information from sensors, motors, light bulbs, switches, electronic control units, bus interfaces or network interfaces from the passenger compartment of the vehicle.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the vehicle further includes a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus connected to a vehicle network in the vehicle.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the wireless interface on the vehicle comprises:

a Packet Cellular Network (PCN), Global System for Mobile Communications, (GSM), Generic Packet Radio Services (GPRS), Personal Communications Services (PCS), Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.15.4 (ZigBee), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), ETSI High Performance Radio Metropolitan Area Network (HIPERMAN), RF Home, Bluetooth, Infrared (IR), Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM), Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID), near field communications (NFC), machine-to-machine (M2M), electronic mail, or short message service (SMS), wireless interface.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the received plurality of event signals on the electronic circuit include event signals for current lack of awareness behavior patterns, unintentional behavior patterns, uncontrollable behavior patterns and involuntary behavior currently exhibited by the driver while operating the vehicle and different from previous unique behavior patterns of the driver stored in the unique driver profile, thereby indicating the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

sending a second message from the electronic circuit via the wireless interface on the vehicle via the wireless communications network to the external network device including the event signals comprising the current lack of awareness behavior patterns, unintentional behavior patterns, uncontrollable behavior patterns and involuntary behavior patterns currently exhibited by the driver while operating the vehicle that are different from the unique behavior patterns stored in the unique driver profile that indicate the driver is impaired while operating the vehicle.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the unique behavior patterns stored in the unique driver profile including driving characteristics comprising:

acceleration curves, de-acceleration curves, braking, driving speeds, fuel consumption, rpm data, driving routes including Global Positioning System (GPS) Lime and location data, days of the week of driving activities and time of day of driving activities behavior patterns.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the electronic circuit is included within an On Board Diagnostic version two (OBD-2) device plugged into an OBD port on the vehicle.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

an application in the non-transitory computer readable medium on the vehicle accessible by the electronic circuit, the vehicle including one or more processors and a vehicle network in the vehicle for creating, storing and updating the unique driver profile with current unique behavior patterns for the driver of the vehicle via the application.

20. A system for automatically determining an impaired driver based on driving habits, comprising in combination:

an external network device with one or more processors;

a wireless communications network;

a vehicle with an electronic circuit, a non-transitory computer readable medium and one or more processors with a plurality of instructions causing the one or more processors to execute steps;

for assigning a plurality of numeric probability impairment values for a pre-determined driver impairment test method to a plurality of driver performance actions completed by a driver while driving the vehicle in the non-transitory computer readable medium on the electronic circuit with the one or more processors on the vehicle;

for creating automatically a unique driver profile in the non-transitory computer readable medium on the electronic circuit in the vehicle for the driver of the vehicle collected from a plurality of electronic signals from a plurality of individual components in a passenger compartment of the vehicle configured and used by the driver of the vehicle;

for receiving continuously in real-time a plurality of event signals on the electronic circuit in the vehicle resulting from the driver operating the vehicle and completing one or more of the plurality driver performance actions;

for conducting continuously in real-time an impairment test for the impairment test method with the assigned plurality of numeric probability impairment values over a pre-determined time interval to compare a frequency of the received plurality of event signals for the one or more of the plurality of driver performance actions completed by the driver to those previously stored in the unique driver profile for the driver to determine with a statistical probability whether the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired based on the unique behavior patterns for the driver of the vehicle stored in the unique driver profile,

and if the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired,

for sending a first message from the electronic circuit via a wireless interface on the vehicle via the wireless communications network to the driver of the vehicle or to the external network device with one or more processors indicating the driver operating the vehicle may be impaired; and

for sending a second message from the electronic circuit via the wireless interface on the vehicle via the wireless communications network to the external network device including the event signals comprising the current lack of awareness behavior patterns, unintentional behavior patterns, uncontrollable behavior patterns and involuntary behavior patterns currently exhibited by the driver while operating the vehicle that are different from the unique behavior patterns stored in the unique driver profile that indicate the driver is impaired while operating the vehicle.