Patent Issued for Real-Time Driver Observation And Scoring For driver’S Education (USPTO 10,446,047)

2019 OCT 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Education Daily Report -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Fields, Brian Mark (Normal, IL); He, Jibo (Champaign, IL); Nepomuceno, John Adrian (Bloomington, IL); Roberson, Steve (Normal, IL); Plummer, Bryan Allen (Urbana, IL); Houdek, Kurtis C. (Gurnee, IL); Jain, Neeraj (Bloomington, IL), filed on September 2, 2016, was published online on October 28, 2019.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 10,446,047, is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “One of the most important goals of driving instruction is teaching student drivers how to drive confidently and safely. Driving instructors must teach students how to accelerate, brake, and steer. Driving instructors must also teach students how to watch the road ahead while also checking the rear and side mirrors. However, during live driving sessions, it is difficult for a driving instructor to quantify how well a student driver is demonstrating these skills.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Accordingly, it may be advantageous use a computer device to observe a student driving during a driving session to gather data about the student driver’s performance and generate reports based on the gathered data.

“In one embodiment, a method includes, for each of two or more driving sessions in which a student driver operates a vehicle, gathering, from one or more sensors in a mobile device, driving skill data indicative of at least one of behavior of the student driver, acceleration of the vehicle, braking of the vehicle, or steering of the vehicle, and generating, by a module specially configuring a computing device, a driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions including calculating, for the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, at least one score based on the driving skill data. The method further includes causing, by the module specially configuring the computing device, the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed to a driving instructor on a display device, and, in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receiving comments from the driving instructor about the two or more driving sessions of the student driver. Still further, the method includes storing, by the module on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received comments from the driving instructor.

“In another embodiment, a system including a user interface, one or more sensors configured to generate driving skill data indicative of at least one of behavior of a student driver, acceleration of a vehicle, braking of the vehicle, or steering of the vehicle, a non-transitory memory storing computer-readable instructions, and one or more processors. The computer-readable instructions specially configure the one or more processors such that, when executed by the one or more processors, the computer-readable instructions cause the one or more processors to, for each of two or more driving sessions in which the student driver operates the vehicle, gather, from the one or more sensors, the driving skill data indicative of the at least one of behavior of the student driver, acceleration of the vehicle, braking of the vehicle, or steering of the vehicle, and generate a driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions including calculating, for the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, at least one score based on the driving skill data. Further, the instructions cause the one or more processors to cause the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed on the user interface, and, in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receive, via the user interface, comments about the two or more driving sessions of the student driver. Still further, the instructions cause the one or more processors to store the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received comments.

“In yet another embodiment, a non-transitory computer-readable medium stores instructions that specially configure one or more processors of a computer system. When executed by the one or more processors, the instructions cause the computer system to, for each of two or more driving sessions in which a student driver operates a vehicle, gather, from one or more sensors, driving skill data indicative of at least one of behavior of the student driver, acceleration of the vehicle, braking of the vehicle, or steering of the vehicle, and generate a driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions including calculating, for the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, at least one score based on the driving skill data. The instructions further cause the computer system to cause the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed to a driving instructor on a display device, and, in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receive comments from the driving instructor about the two or more driving sessions of the student driver. Still further, the instruction cause the computer system to store the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received comments from the driving instructor.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed:

“1. A method comprising: for each of two or more driving sessions in which a student driver operates a vehicle: gathering, at an on-board computer from one or more sensors installed within the vehicle, driving skill data indicative of vehicle operation by the student driver, wherein the one or more sensors include at least one of the following: an accelerometer array, a geopositioning device, or an image capture device; communicating, from the on-board computer to a computing device communicatively connected thereto, the driving skill data; calculating, by the computing device, at least one score based on one or more values of the driving skill data indicative of acceleration, braking, steering, gaze location, scanning frequency, lane deviation, lane centering, or time to collision; and generating, by the computing device, a driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the at least one score based on the one or more values of the driving skill data; causing, by the computing device, the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed to a driving instructor on a display device; in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receiving one or more comments from the driving instructor about at least one of the two or more driving sessions of the student driver; and storing, in a non-transitory computer-readable medium communicatively connected to the computing device, the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received one or more comments from the driving instructor.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing device is a mobile computing device.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the display device is a display of the mobile computing device.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing device is communicatively connected to the on-board computer via another computing device.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more comments gathered from the driving instructor are associated with one or more locations of vehicle operation during at least one of the two or more driving sessions.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein gathering the driving skill data includes gathering a plurality of gaze location logs, each of the plurality of gaze location logs indicating a duration of a gaze of the student driver in a particular direction.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the at least one score corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions includes: calculating a plurality of scores, each of the plurality of scores corresponding to a respective one of gaze location, scanning frequency, lane deviation, lane centering, time to collision, braking, acceleration, or steering of the student driver during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, and combining the plurality of scores to generate a composite score representative of a performance of the student driver during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the composite score.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, for each of two or more driving sessions, detecting, by the computing device, one or more events occurring during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions based on the driving skill data.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein generating the driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions includes generating indications of the one or more events occurring during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the indications of the one or more events as visual markers on a map.

“10. A system comprising: an on-board computer having one or more processors; a computing device having one or more processors and a user interface; one or more sensors installed within the vehicle and communicatively connected to the on-board computer, the one or more sensors configured to generate driving skill data indicative of vehicle operation by a student driver, including at least one of the following: an accelerometer array, a geopositioning device, or an image capture device; a first non-transitory memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors of the on-board computer, cause the on-board computer to: for each of two or more driving sessions in which a student driver operates a vehicle: gather the driving skill data from the one or more sensors; and communicate the driving skill data from the on-board computer to the computing device; a second non-transitory memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing device, cause the computing device to: receive the driving skill data for each of the two or more driving sessions; calculate at least one score based on one or more values of the driving skill data indicative of acceleration, braking, steering, gaze location, scanning frequency, lane deviation, lane centering, or time to collision; generate a driving session report corresponding to each of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the at least one score based on the one or more values of the driving skill data; cause the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed to a driving instructor via the user interface; in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receive one or more comments from the driving instructor about at least one of the two or more driving sessions of the student driver via the user interface; and store the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received one or more comments from the driving instructor in the second non-transitory memory.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the computing device is a mobile computing device.

“12. The system of claim 10, wherein the computing device is communicatively connected to the on-board computer via another computing device.

“13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to: for each of two or more driving sessions in which a student driver operates a vehicle: gather, at an on-board computer from one or more sensors installed within the vehicle, driving skill data indicative of vehicle operation by the student driver, wherein the one or more sensors include at least one of the following: an accelerometer array, a geopositioning device, or an image capture device; communicate, from the on-board computer to a computing device communicatively connected thereto, the driving skill data; calculate, by the computing device, at least one score based on one or more values of the driving skill data indicative of acceleration, braking, steering, gaze location, scanning frequency, lane deviation, lane centering, or time to collision; and generate, by the computing device, a driving session report corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the at least one score based on the one or more values of the driving skill data; cause the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions to be displayed to a driving instructor on a display device; in response to displaying the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions, receiving one or more comments from the driving instructor about at least one of the two or more driving sessions of the student driver; and store the driving session reports corresponding to the two or more driving sessions along with the received one or more comments from the driving instructor.

“14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the computing device is a mobile computing device.

“15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the computing device is communicatively connected to the on-board computer via another computing device.

“16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the one or more comments gathered from the driving instructor are associated with one or more locations of vehicle operation during at least one of the two or more driving sessions.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein calculating the at least one score corresponding to the respective one of the two or more driving sessions includes: calculating a plurality of scores, each of the plurality of scores corresponding to a respective one of gaze location, scanning frequency, lane deviation, lane centering, time to collision, braking, acceleration, or steering of the student driver during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, and combining the plurality of scores to generate a composite score representative of a performance of the student driver during the respective one of the two or more driving sessions, wherein the driving session report includes the composite score.”

For more information, see this patent: Fields, Brian Mark; He, Jibo; Nepomuceno, John Adrian; Roberson, Steve; Plummer, Bryan Allen; Houdek, Kurtis C.; Jain, Neeraj. Real-Time Driver Observation And Scoring For driver’S Education. U.S. Patent Number 10,446,047, filed September 2, 2016, and published online on October 28, 2019. 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=10,446,047.PN.&OS=PN/10,446,047RS=PN/10,446,047

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