Patent Issued for Systems and methods for determining the driver of a vehicle (USPTO 11356550): United Services Automobile Association

2022 JUN 27 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Russell, Christopher M. (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on October 14, 2020, was published online on June 7, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11356550 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “It is now well understood that a significant number of vehicle accidents occur while drivers are distracted by their personal devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. Despite many warnings and public service announcements alerting drivers of the risks they are taking by responding to or making telephone calls, reading or sending text messages, or reading communications received via any of the several social media platforms, accidents due to such distracted driving continue to happen at an alarming rate. One possible solution to this issue-disabling all personal devices in a vehicle once the vehicle is in motion-is unsatisfactory because disabling the personal devices of passengers serves no useful purpose. Even less drastic measures, such as precluding making phone calls based upon GPS position may be unsatisfactory because they do not preclude a personal device from being used for texting or accessing social media, for example.

“Instead, in many cases, allowing passengers (but not drivers) to entertain themselves during a long drive makes the trip more pleasurable (or at least more tolerable) for both the driver and the passengers. Also, drivers often may need to use certain apps while they are driving that are sufficiently useful such that their usefulness outweighs any slight increase in the risk posed by any distraction caused by the apps. Examples of such apps include a hands-free app for receiving telephone calls and a navigation app.

“For these reasons, there is a need for systems and methods that limit drivers’ uses of their personal devices, but allow passengers full use of their personal devices.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, embodiments include a method for reducing distractions for the driver of a motor vehicle by having a first personal device broadcast pings that include a time stamp identifying when the pings were sent. A second personal device receives the pings, calculates that it is probably collocated with the first personal device, and responds by reporting its position and velocity relative to the first personal device, and the time it received the ping from the first device. The first personal device then determines that the second personal device is proximal to the first personal device and establishes a mesh network with the second personal device. The first personal device and the second personal device then exchange identification of any additional personal devices that might have previously been identified by either of the two devices, eliminate any duplicates, and add the de-duplicated devices to the mesh network. The method then identifies which of the personal devices are associated with the driver of the motor vehicle, and which are associated with passengers, and disables all distracting apps from the driver’s personal devices.

“In another aspect, embodiments include a method for reducing distractions for a driver of a motor vehicle using a first personal device broadcasting pings that include a time stamp identifying the time when the pings were sent, and a second personal device that receives the pings broadcast by the first personal device. The second personal device then calculates the distance from the first personal device to the second personal device based at least in part on the time the pings were received compared to the time identified in the time stamp. The first personal device and the second personal device establish a mesh network between them, and further determine whether any additional personal devices are collocated with the first personal device and the second personal device. The first personal device and the second personal device then add any additional personal devices that have been determined to be collocated with the first personal device and the second personal device within the motor vehicle to the mesh network, identify any personal devices that are associated with the driver of the vehicle, and disable any distracting apps present in the personal devices associated with the driver of the motor vehicle.

“In yet another aspect, embodiments include a method for reducing distractions for a driver of a motor vehicle in which a first personal device broadcasts pings that include time stamps identifying when the pings were sent. A second personal device receives the pings broadcast by the first personal device at specific receiving times, and calculates its position relative to the first personal device based upon differences between the times identified by the time stamps and the specific receiving times. The first personal device then determines that the second personal device is collocated with the first personal device within the motor vehicle, and establishes a mesh network between the first personal device and the second personal device. The first personal device and the second personal device then identify any additional personal devices that may be collocated within the vehicle, identify which of the personal devices are associated with the driver of the vehicle, and disable any distracting apps on the personal devices associated with the driver of the vehicle.

“Other systems, methods, features and advantages of the invention will be, or will become, apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features and advantages be included within this description and this summary, be within the scope of the invention, and be protected by the following claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for reducing distractions for a driver of a motor vehicle comprising: a first personal device broadcasting pings that include a time stamp identifying the time when the pings were sent; a second personal device that receives the pings broadcast by the first personal device; the second personal device calculating the distance from the first personal device to the second personal device based at least in part on the time the pings were received compared to the time identified in the time stamp; establishing a mesh network between the first personal device and the second personal device; determining whether any additional personal devices are collocated with the first personal device and the second personal device; adding any additional personal devices, that have been determined to be collocated with the first personal device and the second personal device within the motor vehicle, to the mesh network; identifying any personal devices that are associated with the driver of the vehicle; and disabling any distracting apps present in the personal devices associated with the driver of the motor vehicle.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of disabling any distracting apps associated with the driver of the motor vehicle does not disable any apps in personal devices that are associated only with passengers in the motor vehicle.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of adding any additional personal devices that have been determined to be collocated with the first personal device and the second personal device comprises determining whether a particular additional personal device is travelling in the same direction and at the same velocity as the first personal device.

“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising comparing the signal strengths of the pings received from various personal devices to determine whether they should be included in the mesh network.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying personal devices that are collocated within the vehicle comprises receiving information from the motor vehicle’s monitoring units.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the motor vehicle has stopped and that the driver’s door has been opened, and then identifying personal devices associated with a new driver of the vehicle and disabling any distracting apps from the personal devices associated with the new driver of the vehicle.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying any personal devices that are associated with the driver of the vehicle comprises generating a map of the relative positions of the personal devices on the mesh network.

“8. A method for reducing distractions for a driver of a motor vehicle comprising: a first personal device broadcasting pings that include time stamps identifying when the pings were sent; a second personal device that receives the pings broadcast by the first personal device at specific receiving times, and that calculates its position relative to the first personal device based upon differences between the times identified by the time stamps and the specific receiving times; the first personal device determining that the second personal device is collocated with the first personal device within the motor vehicle; the first personal device and the second personal device establishing a mesh network between the first personal device and the second personal device; the first personal device and the second personal device identifying any additional personal devices that may be collocated within the vehicle; identifying which of the personal devices are associated with the driver of the vehicle and disabling any distracting apps on the personal devices associated with the driver of the vehicle.

“9. The method of claim 8, further comprising excluding any of the additional personal devices that are determined not to be collocated within the vehicle from the mesh network.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of excluding from the mesh network any of the additional personal devices that are determined not to be collocated within the vehicle based upon at least one of (a) the motions of the additional personal devices relative to the motion of at least one of the first personal device and the second personal device, and (b) the relative signal strengths of the pings received by at least one of the first personal device and the second personal device.

“11. The method of claim 8, further comprising detecting that the motor vehicle has stopped moving and that a driver’s side door of the motor vehicle has been opened, and determining whether a new driver is now sitting in the driver’s seat, and disabling any distracting apps on the new driver’s personal device(s).

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising enabling any apps on any personal devices that were previously disabled and are not associated with the new driver.

“13. The method of claim 8, further comprising conducting periodic audits of the mesh network to determine whether any previously unidentified personal devices are now operating within the motor vehicle, adding those previously unidentified devices to the mesh network, determining whether any one of the previously unidentified devices is associated with the driver of the vehicle and disabling any distracting apps operating on that device.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Russell, Christopher M. Systems and methods for determining the driver of a vehicle. U.S. Patent Number 11356550, filed October 14, 2020, and published online on June 7, 2022. 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=11356550.PN.&OS=PN/11356550RS=PN/11356550

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