Patent Issued for Collision risk-based engagement and disengagement of autonomous control of a vehicle (USPTO 11727495): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 AUG 31 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11727495, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Chan, Leo Nelson (Normal, IL, US), Cielocha, Steven (Bloomington, IL, US), Crawford, Jennifer L. (Normal, IL, US), Criswell Kellett, Jennifer (Bloomington, IL, US), Gaudin, Kristopher Keith (Bloomington, IL, US), Leise, William J. (Normal, IL, US), Lyons, Roxane (Chenoa, IL, US), Matesevac, III, Edward P. (Normal, IL, US), Megyese, Matthew S. (Bloomington, IL, US), Myers, Jeremy (Normal, IL, US), Nepomuceno, John A. (Bloomington, IL, US), Shah, Rajiv C. (Bloomington, IL, US).

This patent was filed on October 7, 2020 and was published online on August 15, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Drivers and passengers assume a certain degree of risk of injury or property damage when travelling by vehicle. This risk may be mitigated by reducing or eliminating certain contributing factors. For example, a driver may avoid risky behavior, such as driving while intoxicated, driving while tired, or driving while texting. As another example, a driver may mitigate the risk of serious injury by driving a car with safety features such as airbags, seatbelts, and antilock brakes.

“However, certain risk factors may not be mitigated. For example, the very nature of a vehicle may present certain inherent risks. A typical car may weigh thousands of pounds and may not always maneuver or stop quickly. When travelling at even a moderate speed, a collision may result in serious damage to the vehicle and serious injury to the occupants. Further, a driver or passenger of a vehicle may have no control over perhaps the greatest risk factor involved with driving: other drivers or passengers in other vehicles.

“In some situations, environmental factors may contribute to the relative riskiness or safety of an area. For example, a driver approaching a one-lane bridge in a valley between two hills may not see the bridge until the vehicle has crested the hill. If the distance between the hill crest and the bridge is short, the driver may have little time to react if a second driver is approaching the bridge from the other direction. A driver may have little to no control over these environmental factors.

“Moreover, environmental factors contributing to the riskiness of an area may not always be readily apparent, observable, or quantifiable. For example, even if a civil engineer identifies a number of one-lane bridges as potentially dangerous, she may have no way of quantifying how risky these one-lane bridges are relative to one another. Additionally, the engineer may overlook a two-lane bridge that is seemingly safe, but which is in actuality riskier than many of the identified one-lane bridges. Because the environmental factors contributing to risk may not always be apparent, observable, or quantifiable, these environmental risk factors may go unnoticed. Thus, engineers and government officials may never identify certain high-risk areas, much less identify solutions to mitigate the risk and improve the safety of the areas for vehicle drivers and passengers.

“Further, in some situations, a driver or passenger may be exposed to high risk traffic situations, particularly when relying on recommended routes from a navigation application or navigator when travelling through unfamiliar places. The routes may pass through hazardous areas, such as high risk intersections, road segments or portions of certain roads, abnormal traffic patterns, exit ramps, circular traffic flows, road construction areas, and parking lots susceptible to theft, exposing the driver or passenger to the risk of property damage, injury, time delay stemming from accidents, and the likes.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments disclose systems and methods that may generally relate to reducing vehicle collisions, and particularly, inter alia, automatically engaging or disengaging autonomous vehicle control features of a vehicle in areas, such as hazardous areas, that are prone to vehicle collisions.

“Hazardous areas (e.g., high risk intersections, road segments or portions of certain roads, bridges, abnormal traffic patterns, seasonal increases in animal crossings, the presence of inclement weather and its resultant effects on road surface and/or visibility conditions, exit ramps, circular traffic flows, road construction areas, parking lots, and other transportation infrastructure) are prone to induce, or be associated with, vehicle collisions. One way to measure how hazardous an area is by calculating a collision risk index for the area, which quantifies how prone the area is to vehicle collisions. When collision risk indices are calculated for more than one area, the collision risk indices may be compared to one another to enable a comparison of the relative riskiness of several areas.

“Calculating the collision risk index may include any one or more of: (i) calculating a number of expected collisions in an area over a time period; (ii) determining a number of observed collisions in the area over the time period; and (iii) calculating the collision risk index based upon a comparison between the number of expected collisions and the number of observed collisions. The number of expected and observed collisions may be calculated based upon (a) historical traffic data for the area, and/or (b) historical traffic data for multiple areas, such that the number of expected and observed collisions may correspond to the collision risk index for the area and/or collision risk indices for multiple areas (e.g., mean, median, or mode of the collision risk indices). Examples of historical traffic data include historical auto insurance claim data and/or other data, such as vehicle collision data, mobile device data, telematics data, vehicle mounted-sensor data, autonomous vehicle sensor data, smart infrastructure sensor data, and image data. The number of expected collisions may be a function of traffic volume or flow, and may be further adjusted for market penetration. The number of observed collisions may be limited to observations involving vehicles within the market corresponding to the market penetration.

“Subsequent to calculating the collision risk index, the systems and methods may facilitate automatically engaging or disengaging an autonomous vehicle control feature in a vehicle as the vehicle approaches an area, such as a hazardous area. Examples of an autonomous vehicle control feature include autonomous steering control, autonomous braking control, autonomous throttle control, and the likes.

“In some embodiments, the systems and methods may generate a notification to automatically engage or disengage the autonomous vehicle control feature based upon the collision risk index or based upon an aggregate collision risk index over a travel route. In some embodiments, the systems and methods may further include determining that the collision risk index for an area, or the aggregated collision risk index over a specified route, exceeds a predetermined threshold. The predetermined threshold may be defined as a set of parameters that describe traffic, environment, and vehicle operating conditions that exceed the acceptable tolerances and limits of the autonomous driving system’s capabilities. If the collision risk index for the area, or the aggregated collision risk index over a specified route, exceeds a predetermined threshold, the area or route may be classified as hazardous. Such a determination may be used as a criteria for generating the notification to automatically engage or disengage the autonomous vehicle control feature for a vehicle that approaches the hazardous area or specified route having a collision risk index exceeding the predetermined threshold. If the collision risk index for the area does not exceed the predetermined threshold, the area may not be classified as hazardous, and generation of such a notification may be unnecessary. In some embodiments, the generation of the notification may further be based upon whether the autonomous vehicle control feature was engaged or disengaged in the vehicle or other vehicles in the area based upon historical traffic data.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method, carried out by a server, of reducing vehicle collisions, the method comprising: calculating, by one or more processors of the server, a collision risk index for an area, wherein the collision risk index is a comparison result between a number of calculated collision expectations in the area over a time period and a number of determined collision observations in the area over the time period; generating, by the one or more processors of the server, a notification to automatically engage or disengage an autonomous vehicle control feature in a vehicle based upon the collision risk index for the area; and transmitting, via a transceiver of the server, the notification to a device of the vehicle to facilitate automatically engaging or disengaging the autonomous vehicle control feature in the vehicle as the vehicle approaches the area, wherein: the device comprises at least one of a mobile device, an on-board computer, or a navigator, the one or more autonomous vehicle control features includes any of autonomous steering control, autonomous throttle control, or autonomous braking control, and the notification further comprises at least one of: (i) a virtual navigation map configured to be displayed depicting the collision risk index visually, (ii) an audible alert, (iii) a visual alert, or (iv) a haptic alert.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors, that the collision risk index for the area exceeds a predetermined threshold; wherein the generating of the notification is based on the collision risk index exceeding the predetermined threshold.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of observed collisions in the area over the time period is associated with at least one of: vehicle damages above a first predetermined threshold; personal injuries above a second predetermined threshold; or vehicle repairs above a third predetermined threshold.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating of the notification to automatically engage or disengage the autonomous vehicle control feature is further based upon: determining, by the one or more processors, whether the autonomous vehicle control feature was engaged or disengaged in the vehicle or other vehicles in the area based upon historical traffic data.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, via the transceiver, an indication that the vehicle engaged or disengaged the autonomous vehicle control feature as the vehicle approached the area and; adjusting, by the one or more processors, an insurance premium in response to the indication.

“6. A server configured to reduce vehicle collisions, the server comprising: a memory configured to store non-transitory computer executable instructions; a processor configured to interface with the memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute the non-transitory computer executable instructions to cause the processor to: calculate a collision risk index for an area, wherein the collision risk index is a comparison result between a number of calculated collision expectations in the area over a time period and a number of determined collision observations in the area over the time period, and generate a notification to automatically engage or disengage an autonomous vehicle control feature in a vehicle based upon the collision risk index for the area; and a transceiver configured to interface with the processor and communicate via a wireless network connection, wherein: the transceiver is configured to transmit the notification to a device of the vehicle to facilitate automatically engaging or disengaging the autonomous vehicle control feature in the vehicle as the vehicle approaches the area, the device comprises at least one of a mobile device, an on-board computer or a navigator, the one or more autonomous vehicle control features includes any of autonomous steering control, autonomous throttle control, or autonomous braking control, and the notification further comprises at least one of: (i) a virtual navigation map configured to be displayed depicting the collision risk index visually, (ii) an audible alert, (iii) a visual alert, or (iv) a haptic alert.

“7. The server of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine that the collision risk index for the area exceeds a predetermined threshold; and wherein the processor is configured to generate the notification based upon the collision risk index exceeding the predetermined threshold.

“8. The server of claim 6, wherein the number of observed collisions in the area over the time period is associated with at least one of: vehicle damages above a first predetermined threshold; personal injuries above a second predetermined threshold; or vehicle repairs above a third predetermined threshold.

“9. The server of claim 6, wherein the processor is configured to generate the notification based upon determining whether the autonomous vehicle control feature was engaged or disengaged in the vehicle or other vehicles in the area based upon historical traffic data.

“10. The server of claim 6, wherein the transceiver is configured to receive an indication that the vehicle engaged or disengaged the autonomous vehicle control feature as the vehicle approached the area; and wherein the processor is configured to adjust an insurance premium in response to the indication.

“11. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing a set of computer readable instructions for reducing vehicle collisions that when executed by a server configure the server to: calculate, by the processor of the server, a collision risk index for an area, wherein the collision risk index is a comparison result between a number of calculated collision expectations in the area over a time period and a number of determined collision observations in the area over the time period; generate, by the processor of the server, a notification to automatically engage or disengage an autonomous vehicle control feature in a vehicle based upon the collision risk index for the area; and transmit, by a transceiver of the server, the notification to a device of the vehicle to facilitate automatically engaging or disengaging the autonomous vehicle control feature in the vehicle as the vehicle approaches the area, wherein: the device comprises at least one of a mobile device, an on-board computer, or a navigator, the one or more autonomous vehicle control features includes any of autonomous steering control, autonomous throttle control, or autonomous braking control, and the notification further comprises at least one of: (i) a virtual navigation map configured to be displayed depicting the collision risk index visually, (ii) an audible alert, (iii) a visual alert, or (iv) a haptic alert.

“12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine that the collision risk index for the area exceeds a predetermined threshold; and wherein the processor is configured to generate the notification based upon the collision risk index exceeding the predetermined threshold.

“13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the number of observed collisions in the area over the time period is associated with at least one of: vehicle damages above a first predetermined threshold; personal injuries above a second predetermined threshold; or vehicle repairs above a third predetermined threshold.

“14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to generate the notification based upon determining whether the autonomous vehicle control feature was engaged or disengaged in the vehicle or other vehicles in the area based upon historical traffic data.

“15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the transceiver is configured to receive an indication that the vehicle engaged or disengaged the autonomous vehicle control feature as the vehicle approached the area; and wherein the processor is configured to adjust an insurance premium in response to the indication.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Chan, Leo Nelson. Collision risk-based engagement and disengagement of autonomous control of a vehicle. U.S. Patent Number 11727495, filed October 7, 2020, and published online on August 15, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11727495)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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