Patent Issued for Assessing Driver Ability To Operate An Autonomous Vehicle (USPTO 10,618,523)

2020 APR 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Fields, Brian Mark (Normal, IL); Chan, Leo Nelson (Normal, IL); Gaudin, Kristopher Keith (Bloomington, IL); Williams, Aaron (Congerville, IL), filed on April 19, 2018, was published online on April 27, 2020.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 10,618,523, is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Vehicles may be equipped with sensors for processing and communication capabilities that allow the vehicle to navigate autonomously without human intervention. Autonomous vehicle navigation is not possible, however, under all circumstances. In some situations, a vehicle may lack the capability to navigate autonomously such as adverse or extreme weather conditions, in the event of the loss of vehicle sensors or a communications link, under disaster conditions, due to vehicle collisions in the area, etc. When a vehicle can no longer navigate autonomously, control of the vehicle may be returned to a human operator. Transfer of control of the vehicle to a human represents a potential danger due to the vehicle’s autonomous nature--a human operator who has been traveling in the vehicle may be inattentive to road conditions and unprepared to make the decisions and exercise the motor control needed to safely operate the vehicle. Human operators will differ in their ability to operator an autonomous vehicle, especially when accepting increased driving responsibilities, and therefore present varying levels of risk in operating autonomous vehicles.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described in the Detailed Descriptions. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

“Systems and methods are disclosed for assessing driver capability for operating an autonomous vehicle. Human operators of autonomous vehicles may exhibit varying levels of operating proficiencies and may respond differently to changing road conditions or requests from the vehicle to assume more or less control over navigation. A system for assessing driver capability of an autonomous vehicle assesses human operator capabilities in a variety of circumstances to assemble a driving capability profile of the human operator. The autonomous vehicle may rely on the driving capability profile as well as an environmental profile and human operator parameters describing the environment surrounding the vehicle and an alertness level of the human operator, respectively. The vehicle may condition requests to increase or decrease driving responsibilities of the human operator depending on the driving capability profile in combination with the environmental profile and/or the human operator parameters. An insurer may condition an insurance premium cost for a time period based on the driving capability profile in combination with the environmental profile and/or the human operator parameters.

“In one aspect, a method is disclosed for assessing driver capability for operating an autonomous vehicle. The method may include identifying a human operator of the vehicle, the human operator being associated with a driving capability profile; determining human operator parameters associated with the human operator of the vehicle; and determining an environmental profile of the vehicle, the environmental profile reflecting conditions surrounding the vehicle. The method may also include determining an alertness level of the human operator based on the human operator parameters and the environmental profile; signaling to the human operator with a signal requesting a response from the human operator; and updating the driving capability profile based on the response from the human operator.

“In another aspect, a system is provided for assessing capability of a driver of an autonomous vehicle. The system may include an evaluator configured to evaluate readiness of a human operator of a vehicle and to evaluate an environment of the vehicle; a notification server configured to display a signal to the human operator, the signal requesting a response from the human operator; the evaluator further configured to receive the response from the human operator; and an assessor configured to update a driving capability profile of the human operator based at least in part on the response from the human operator.

“In yet another aspect, a method of insuring a vehicle against loss is disclosed. The method may include receiving a driving capability profile of a human operator of a vehicle; receiving an environmental profile of the vehicle, the environmental profile of the vehicle reflecting conditions surrounding the vehicle; and determining a risk of insuring the vehicle, the risk being based at least in part on the driving capability profile and the environmental profile. The method may also include transmitting an insurance offer to the human operator, the insurance offer being based at least in part on the determining operation.

“The methods may be implemented via computer systems, and may include additional, less, or alternate actions or functionality. Systems or computer-readable media storing instructions for implementing all or part of the method described above may also be provided in some aspects. Systems for implementing such methods may include one or more of the following: a special-purpose computing device, a personal electronic device, a mobile device, a wearable device, a processing unit of a vehicle, a remote server, one or more sensors, one or more communication modules configured to communicate wirelessly via radio links, radio frequency links, and/or wireless communication channels, and/or one or more program memories coupled to one or more processors of the personal electronic device, processing unit of the vehicle, or remote server. Such program memories may store instructions to cause the one or more processors to implement part or all of the method described above. Additional or alternative features described herein below may be included in some aspects.

“This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described in the Detailed Descriptions. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

“Advantages will become more apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the following description of the preferred aspects, which have been shown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, the present aspects may be capable of other and different aspects, and their details are capable of modification in various respects. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed:

“1. A method of assessing driver capability for operating an autonomous vehicle, the method comprising: identifying, by one or more processors, a human operator of the vehicle, the human operator being associated with a driving capability profile; determining, by the one or more processors, human operator parameters associated with the human operator of the vehicle; determining, by the one or more processors, an environmental profile of the vehicle, the environmental profile reflecting conditions surrounding the vehicle; determining, by the one or more processors, an alertness level of the human operator based on the human operator parameters and the environmental profile; signaling, by a notification server of the vehicle configured to display a signal to the human operator, to the human operator with the signal, the signal requesting a response from the human operator; updating, by the one or more processors, based on the response from the human operator to the signal, the driving capability profile to indicate a level of skill of the human operator at responding to the signal at the determined alertness level.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the environmental profile of the vehicle includes one or more of weather conditions of the vehicle or daylight conditions.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the driving capability profile is further based on at least one of the human operator parameters, the environmental profile, a type of response from the human operator, an amount of time between the signaling operation and the response from the human operator, or a type of signal used by the signaling operation.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the response from the human operator includes at least one of control inputs to the vehicle, a touch response, or an audio response.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the human operator parameters includes at least one of facial analysis of the human operator, a sensed heart rate of the human operator, or body posture and body location of the human operator.

“6. A system for assessing capability of a driver of an autonomous vehicle, the system comprising: a processor configured to determine one or more human operator parameters associated with the human operator of the vehicle; an evaluator configured to evaluate, based on the one or more human operator parameters, an alertness level of the human operator of the vehicle and to evaluate an environment of the vehicle; a notification server of the vehicle configured to display a signal to the human operator, the signal requesting a response from the human operator; the evaluator further configured to receive the response from the human operator; an assessor configured to update a driving capability profile of the human operator to indicate a level of skill of the human operator at responding to the signal at the evaluated alertness level, the level of skill based at least in part on the response from the human operator to the signal.

“7. The system of claim 6, wherein the update to the driving capability profile depends on the evaluated environment of the vehicle.

“8. The system of claim 6, wherein the environment of the vehicle is a controlled driver capability assessment area.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the update to the driving capability profile depends at least in part on one or more of the environment of the vehicle being a controlled driver capability assessment area or a vehicle capability assessment.

“10. The system of claim 6, wherein the environment of the vehicle includes real-world road conditions.

“11. The system of claim 6, wherein the assessor is further configured to transmit the update to the driving capability profile to an observer.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the assessor is further configured to receive an offer from the observer to insure the vehicle based on the driving capability profile.

“13. A method of insuring a vehicle against loss, the method comprising: receiving, by one or more processors, a driving capability profile of a human operator of a vehicle; receiving, by the one or more processors, human operator parameters associated with the human operator of the vehicle; receiving, by the one or more processors, an environmental profile of the vehicle, the environmental profile of the vehicle reflecting conditions surrounding the vehicle; determining, by the one or more processors, an alertness level of the human operator based on the human operator parameters and the environmental profile; receiving, by the one or more processors, a response from the human operator to a signal, the signal displayed by a notification server of the vehicle to the human operator and requesting a response from the human operator; updating, by the one or more processors, based on the response from the human operator to the signal, the driving capability profile to indicate a level of skill of the human operator at responding to the signal at the determined alertness level; determining, by the one or more processors, a risk of insuring the vehicle, the risk being based at least in part on the updated driving capability profile and the environmental profile; and transmitting, by the one or more processors, an insurance offer to at least one of a notification server of the vehicle or an electronic device associated with the human operator, the insurance offer being based at least in part on the determined risk of insuring the vehicle.

“14. The method of claim 13, wherein the driving capability profile includes a score of the human operator indicating a capability of the human operator to re-engage manual control of the vehicle.

“15. The method of claim 13, wherein the driving capability profile is based at least in part on historical actions taken by the human operator in operating the vehicle.

“16. The method of claim 13, wherein the human operator parameters include current human operator parameters.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein the insurance offer is valid while the current human operator parameters satisfy a safety condition.

“18. The method of claim 17, wherein the safety condition depends on the alertness level of the human operator.

“19. The method of claim 17, further comprising: transmitting a retraction of the insurance offer if the human operator parameters do not satisfy the safety condition.”

For more information, see this patent: Fields, Brian Mark; Chan, Leo Nelson; Gaudin, Kristopher Keith; Williams, Aaron. Assessing Driver Ability To Operate An Autonomous Vehicle. U.S. Patent Number 10,618,523, filed April 19, 2018, and published online on April 27, 2020. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,618,523.PN.&OS=PN/10,618,523RS=PN/10,618,523

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