Patent Issued for Crowd-sourced driver grading (USPTO 11688209): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 JUL 18 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Ferguson, Dana (Chicago, IL, US), filed on January 4, 2021, was published online on June 27, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11688209 is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The collection and analysis of driving data, such as the identification of driving behaviors and/or traffic accidents, has many applications. For example, insurance companies and financial institutions may offer rate discounts or other financial incentives to customers based on safe driving behaviors and accident-free driving records. Law enforcement or government personnel may collect and analyze driving data and traffic accident statistics to identify dangerous driving roads or times, and to detect moving violations and other unsafe driving behaviors. In other cases, driving data may be used for navigation applications, vehicle tracking and monitoring applications, and on-board vehicle maintenance applications, among others.

“Vehicle-based computer systems, such as on-board diagnostics (OBD) systems and telematics devices, may be used in automobiles and other vehicles, and may be capable of collecting various driving data and vehicle sensor data. For example, OBD systems may receive information from the vehicle’s on-board computers and sensors in order to monitor a wide variety of information relating to the vehicle systems, such as engine RPM, emissions control, vehicle speed, throttle position, acceleration and braking rates, use of driver controls, etc. Vehicles may also include Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and devices installed within or operating at the vehicle configured to collect vehicle location and time data. Such vehicle-based systems may be capable of collecting driving data which may be used to perform various driving data analyses such as statistical driving evaluations, driver score calculations, etc. Vehicle-based systems also may be configured to detect the occurrence of traffic accidents, for instance, using vehicle body impact sensors and airbag deployment sensors. However, not all vehicles are equipped with systems capable of collecting, analyzing, and communicating driving data. Moreover, a single vehicle may be used by multiple different drivers, and conversely, a single driver may drive multiple different vehicles. Thus, vehicle driving data and/or accident records collected by vehicle-based systems might not include the vehicle occupants that correspond to the collected driving and accident data.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to methods, computer-readable media, and apparatuses for receiving telematics data (e.g., vehicle operation data, driver data, environmental data, etc.) associated with one or more vehicles from one or more mobile devices respectively disposed within the one or more vehicles. Telematics data may include, for example, a geographic location of the first vehicle, a route being traversed by the first vehicle, driving events or maneuvers (e.g., braking, turning, accelerating) performed by the first vehicle, corresponding timestamps or timeframes, etc. In some instances, the telematics data may include sensor data from various sensors operationally coupled to the first vehicle and configured to sense the immediate surroundings of the vehicle. A camera may be associated with the first vehicle for capturing a driving event performed by a second vehicle in proximity to the first vehicle. An evaluation module may evaluate the captured video, with or without analyzing the telemetry data, to determine whether a driving event performed by a second vehicle has occurred and assign, in response to an identified driving event performed by the second vehicle, a first driving event rating to a video showing the identified driving event. The video may then be posted to a social network to obtain a crowd-sourced driving event rating, which may then be compared to the first driving event rating to determine an incentive to be awarded to the person who captured the video based on the comparison.

“In some cases, a vehicle may include a camera associated with the vehicle and having a viewing angle capable of capturing a video of one or more other vehicles in proximity to the vehicle and a telemetry device in communication with at least sensor capturing data associated with the operation of the vehicle. A first memory device may be communicatively coupled to the camera, wherein the first memory location stores raw video data captured by the camera. A second memory device may be communicatively coupled to the first memory device, the second memory device storing a driving event video comprising a video recording of a second vehicle performing a driving event. The vehicle may include a personal computing device that may be detachably coupled to the vehicle, such as the mobile device 218 that may be installed in a hands-free cradle. The evaluation module may include a processor executing instructions that cause the processor to evaluate the raw video stored in the first memory location to determine whether a driving event performed by a second vehicle has occurred, store at least a portion of the raw video in the second memory location as the driving event video, and assign a driving event rating to the driving event video showing the identified driving event.

“In some examples, a method may include capturing, by a camera associated with a first vehicle, a video showing a driving event performed by a second vehicle, wherein the driving event causes a situation dangerous to other vehicles in proximity to the second vehicle, assigning a driving event rating to the video by a person who captured the video, wherein the rating quantifies a perceived danger to the other vehicles in proximity to the second vehicle, posting, via a communication network, the video to a social network to obtain a crowd-sourced driving event rating for the video, and generating, by an event analyzer, a composite driving event rating to the video based on the rating assigned by the person who captured the video and the crowd-sourced driving event rating.

“In accordance with further aspects of the present disclosure, a computing device may determine a vehicle rating based a plurality of driving event ratings associated with the vehicle, where the vehicle rating may be published to provide information to drivers when a potentially dangerous vehicle is near”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: a data collection device associated with a first vehicle and capable of collecting driving data of one or more other vehicles, the one or more other vehicles including a second vehicle; memory communicatively coupled to the data collection device, wherein the memory stores the collected driving data; and a processor executing instructions that cause the processor to: process at least a portion of the collected driving data stored in the memory to determine a driving event performed by the second vehicle; determine, by an event analyzer, a first event rating indicating a level of danger of the driving event, wherein determining the first event rating includes: receiving other event ratings of the same driving event from a plurality of sources; and combining at least a portion of the received other ratings to determine the first event rating; receive a second event rating of the driving event from a driver of the second vehicle; determine an adjustment to the second event rating based on the determined first event rating; and adjust the second event rating based on the determined adjustment.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the driving data includes video of the driving event, and wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: analyze the driving event captured in the video to determine a first trajectory of the second vehicle during the driving event; and generate a computer visualization of at least one second trajectory for the second vehicle.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein generating the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory for the second vehicle includes digitally modelling one or more actions of a driver of the second vehicle, wherein the at least one second trajectory comprises a path for the second vehicle to travel to avoid causing the driving event.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: generate a video, including visually overlaying the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory to avoid the driving event on the captured video, by modifying underlying digital video data of the captured video.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the other event ratings includes: transmitting at least a portion of the driving data to a remote server; and receiving the other event ratings from a plurality of users of a service operated at least in part by the remote server.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to determine an incentive to provide the driver of the second vehicle based on a difference between the first event rating and the second event rating.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the data collection device collects the driving data for a predetermined time period before a trigger, the trigger causing the driving data to be stored into storage.

“8. A method comprising: obtaining driving data corresponding to movement of a first vehicle; processing, by an event analyzer comprising at least a processor and memory, at least a portion of the obtained driving data stored to determine a driving event performed by the first vehicle; determining, by the event analyzer, a first event rating of the driving event, wherein determining the first event rating includes: receiving other event ratings of the same driving event from a plurality of sources; and combining at least a portion of the received other ratings to determine the first event rating; receiving a second event rating of the driving event from a driver of the first vehicle; determining an adjustment to the second event rating based on the determined first event rating; and adjusting the second event rating based on the determined adjustment.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the driving data is received from a second vehicle different from the first vehicle.

“10. The method of claim 8, wherein the driving data includes video of the driving event, and wherein the method further comprises: analyzing the driving event captured in the video to determine a first trajectory of the first vehicle during the driving event; and generating a computer visualization of at least one second trajectory for the first vehicle.

“11. The method of claim 10, wherein generating the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory for the first vehicle includes digitally modelling one or more actions of a driver of the first vehicle, wherein the at least one second trajectory comprises a path for the first vehicle to travel to avoid causing the driving event.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: generating a video, including visually overlaying the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory to avoid the driving event on the captured video, by modifying underlying digital video data of the captured video.

“13. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving the other event ratings includes: transmitting at least a portion of the driving data to a remote server; and receiving the other event ratings from a plurality of users of a service operated at least in part by the remote server.

“14. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining an incentive to provide the driver of the first vehicle based on a difference between the first event rating and the second event rating.

“15. An apparatus comprising: memory communicatively coupled to a data collection device, wherein the memory stores driving data obtained by a first vehicle; and a processor executing instructions that cause the processor to: process at least a portion of the driving data stored in the memory to determine a driving event performed by a second vehicle different from the first vehicle; determine, by an event analyzer, a first event rating of the driving event, wherein determining the first event rating includes: receiving other event ratings of the same driving event from a plurality of sources; and combining at least a portion of the received other ratings to determine the first event rating; receive a second event rating of the driving event from a driver of the second vehicle; determine an adjustment to the second event rating based on the determined first event rating; and adjust the second event rating based on the determined adjustment.

“16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the driving data includes video of the driving event, and wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: analyze the driving event captured in the video to determine a first trajectory of the second vehicle during the driving event; and generate a computer visualization of at least one second trajectory for the second vehicle.

“17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein generating the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory for the second vehicle includes digitally modelling one or more actions of a driver of the second vehicle, wherein the at least one second trajectory comprises a path for the second vehicle to travel to avoid causing the driving event.

“18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: generate a video, including visually overlaying the computer visualization of the at least one second trajectory to avoid the driving event on the captured video, by modifying underlying digital video data of the captured video.

“19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein receiving the other event ratings includes: transmitting at least a portion of the driving data to a remote server; and receiving the other event ratings from a plurality of users of a service operated at least in part by the remote server.

“20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to determine an incentive to provide the driver of the second vehicle based on a difference between the first event rating and the second event rating.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Ferguson, Dana. Crowd-sourced driver grading. U.S. Patent Number 11688209, filed January 4, 2021, and published online on June 27, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11688209)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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