Patent Issued for Generating and transmitting parking instructions for autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles (USPTO 11776391): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 OCT 23 (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 Hayes, Howard (Glencoe, IL, US), Kumar, Surender (Palatine, IL, US), Madigan, Regina (Mountain View, CA, US), Slusar, Mark V. (Chicago, IL, US), filed on March 22, 2022, was published online on October 3, 2023.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11776391, is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Many vehicles include sophisticated sensors and advanced internal computer systems designed to monitor and control vehicle operations and driving functions, as well as other data including environmental conditions, parking histories, and the like. In addition, the use of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications have enabled systems to evaluate data from not only one vehicle in communication with an evaluation system, but a plurality of vehicles. This technology may be used to improve driver safety and an overall driving experience for autonomous, semi-autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles.

“In particular, identifying parking locations near to a user’s destination may be difficult, especially in large cities where parking availability may be limited. Accordingly, the processing of data from various sensors in vehicle and non-vehicle structures, may aid in efficiently identifying available parking, generating a parking recommendation and/or communicating the recommendation to a vehicle.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors 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, systems, and apparatuses for receiving data from a plurality of sensors and using the data, as well as other data, to generate a parking recommendation for an autonomous vehicle and instruct the autonomous vehicle to travel to the recommended parking location. For example, data may be received from a plurality of sensors within a first autonomous vehicle for which a parking recommendation may be generated, as well as from other vehicles and/or structures. Historical parking data associated with the first autonomous vehicle may also be extracted.

“In some examples, an expected future trip of the first autonomous vehicle may be determined. The system may then evaluate the received/extracted data, as well as data associated with the expected future trip, to generate a parking recommendation for the first autonomous vehicle. The system may generate and transmit instructions for traveling from a current location to the recommended parking location and may cause the first autonomous vehicle to travel to the recommended parking location.

“In some examples, additional aspects such as maintenance needs of the first autonomous vehicle or an imminent weather event may be considered when generating the parking recommendation.

“These and other features and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the additional description provided herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method, comprising: receiving, by a first computing device and from a second computing device associated with a first vehicle, a parking recommendation request comprising trip data associated with the first vehicle; receiving data associated with one or more parking locations, wherein the data includes a corresponding availability of each of the one or more parking locations indicating whether that parking location is currently available or occupied; generating, based on the trip data and the data associated with the one or more parking locations, a current parking inventory; transmitting, to the second computing device, the current parking inventory; receiving, from the second computing device, an indication of a selection of a parking location from the current parking inventory; and based on determining that a corresponding availability of the selected parking location indicates that the selected parking location is currently occupied, transmitting, to a third computing device associated with the selected parking location, an offer to make the selected parking location available within a predetermined time period.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the third computing device, a response to the offer indicating an acceptance of the offer; and transmitting, to the second computing device, instructions to travel from a current location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“3. The method of claim 2, further comprising: transmitting, to the second computing device, a cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: receiving, from the second computing device, an acceptance of the cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“5. The method of claim 4, further comprising: facilitating, in response to the acceptance of the cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location, a payment for the selected parking location utilizing stored payment information associated with the second computing device.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the third computing device, a response to the offer indicating a decline of the offer; and transmitting, to the second computing device, an indication of the decline of the offer.

“7. The method of claim 6, further comprising: receiving, from the second computing device, an indication of a selection of a second parking location from the current parking inventory; and based on determining that a corresponding availability of the selected second parking location indicates that the second selected parking location is currently occupied, transmitting, to a fourth computing device associated with the selected second parking location, a second offer to make the second selected parking location available within a predetermined time period.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the current parking inventory is further based on an indication maintenance schedule of the first vehicle.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the current parking inventory is further based on a determined weather event associated with the first vehicle.

“10. A system, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to: receive, from a first computing device associated with a first vehicle, a parking recommendation request comprising trip data associated with the first vehicle; receive data associated with one or more parking locations, wherein the data includes a corresponding availability of each of the one or more parking locations indicating whether that parking location is currently available or occupied; generate, based on the trip data and the data associated with the one or more parking locations, a current parking inventory; transmit, to the first computing device, the current parking inventory; receive, from the first computing device, an indication of a selection of a parking location from the current parking inventory; and based on determining that a corresponding availability of the selected parking location indicates that the selected parking location is currently occupied, transmit, to a second computing device associated with the selected parking location, an offer to make the selected parking location available within a predetermined time period.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: receive, from the second computing device, a response to the offer indicating an acceptance of the offer; and transmit, to the first computing device, instructions to travel from a current location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: transmit, to the first computing device, a cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“13. The system of claim 12, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: receive, from the first computing device, an acceptance of the cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: facilitate, in response to the acceptance of the cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location, a payment for the selected parking location utilizing stored payment information associated with the first computing device.

“15. The system of claim 10, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: receive, from the second computing device, a response to the offer indicating a decline of the offer; and transmit, to the first computing device, an indication of the decline of the offer.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the at least one processor to: receive, from the first computing device, an indication of a selection of a second parking location from the current parking inventory; and based on determining that a corresponding availability of the selected second parking location indicates that the second selected parking location is currently occupied, transmit, to a third computing device associated with the selected second parking location, a second offer to make the second selected parking location available within a predetermined time period.

“17. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform steps comprising: receiving, from a second computing device associated with a first vehicle, a parking recommendation request comprising trip data associated with the first vehicle; receiving data associated with one or more parking locations, wherein the data includes a corresponding availability of each of the one or more parking locations indicating whether that parking location is currently available or occupied; generating, based on the trip data and the data associated with the one or more parking locations, a current parking inventory; transmitting, to the second computing device, the current parking inventory; receiving, from the second computing device, an indication of a selection of a parking location from the current parking inventory; and based on determining that a corresponding availability of the selected parking location indicates that the selected parking location is currently occupied, transmitting, to a third computing device associated with the selected parking location, an offer to make the selected parking location available within a predetermined time period.

“18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform steps comprising: receiving, from the third computing device, a response to the offer indicating an acceptance of the offer; and transmitting, to the second computing device, instructions to travel from a current location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location.

“19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform steps comprising: facilitating, in response to an acceptance of a cost associated with acceptance of the offer and an estimated distance from the location of the first vehicle to the selected parking location, a payment for the selected parking location utilizing stored payment information associated with the second computing device.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For more information, see this patent: Hayes, Howard. Generating and transmitting parking instructions for autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles. U.S. Patent Number 11776391, filed March 22, 2022, and published online on October 3, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11776391)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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