Patent Issued for Systems and methods for dynamically creating and adjusting scene models (USPTO 11954315): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2024 APR 30 (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 Cardona, Alexander (Gilbert, AZ, US), Megyese, Matthew (Phoenix, AZ, US), Zarkoob, Anna (Phoenix, AZ, US), filed on February 23, 2021, was published online on April 9, 2024.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11954315, is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Auto insurance provides financial protection against physical damage and/or bodily injury caused by a vehicular accident. Auto insurance policies may typically provide coverage for loss or damage to personal possessions of a policyholder during a policy claim (e.g., a formal request by the policyholder to an insurance provider for reimbursement for one or more personal possessions covered under an insurance policy). Loss events may include vehicle damage and/or other events that cause partial or complete loss of the personal possessions of the policyholder.

“The policy claim process mentioned above may be currently highly manual and costly to all parties involved. In order to analyze a policy claim regarding a vehicular accident, an insurance representative (e.g., an employee of an insurance company) gathers information from drivers involved in the accident. In order to visually re-create the scene of the accident, the insurance representative may use objects such as toy cars placed on a hand-drawn map (e.g., hand-drawn by the claims associated and based off of a map found on the Internet). Further, scene models acquired from a third party (e.g., a police department) may often be sketched based off of driver accounts, and may be costly and untimely to acquire.

“Thus, the majority of the current policy claim process may be open to human error by insurance representatives, parties involved in the accident, and/or third party accounts of the accident. Current solutions may also be inefficient, cumbersome, untimely, burdensome, and/or have other drawbacks.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In general, the present embodiments may relate to, inter alia, a solution that may take into consideration both (i) data collected from other reliable sources (e.g., vehicular, smart vehicle, autonomous vehicle, aerial vehicle (e.g., drone), smart infrastructure, mobile devices, smart home, and/or geolocation data (including sensor, audio, and camera/video data) along with scene photos and vehicle damage photos), and (ii) driver accounts (e.g., acquired when an insurance representative interviews a driver-such as acquired after (or alternatively, before) the data collected from the other reliable sources is analyzed and synthesized). More specifically, the present embodiments may relate to systems and methods for analyzing collected data to dynamically create and adjust scene models.

“The models may be built using driver accounts (e.g., data obtained from drivers involved in an accident) along with other collected data including telematics, positioning, smart vehicle, smart infrastructure, smart home, mobile device, drone, aerial, and/or environmental data, including sensor, audio, and camera/video data. In some embodiments, the system may analyze historical data when generating a model (e.g., data collected regarding previous accidents at a particular intersection). Accordingly, the collected data may be input into and/or generated by the system to generate a scene model of a particular accident.

“In other embodiments, the system may generate more than one model for a particular accident. For example, the system may generate a first model based upon data collected from non-human sources (e.g., telematics, positioning, smart vehicle, autonomous vehicle, smart infrastructure, smart home, drone, mobile device, aerial, and/or environmental data, including sensor, audio, and camera/video data), a second model based upon a first driver account, a third model based upon a second driver account, and a fourth model based upon analysis of each of the first three models (e.g., analyzing all collected data to generate a fourth model depicting a most-likely accident scene). Accordingly, the modeling system generates models to assist not only a claims associate, but also other parties (e.g., police departments, attorneys, insured parties, drivers, passengers, etc.) in potential subrogation after a claim is filed. In some embodiments, the claims associate may have access to the virtual collision reconstruction during the initial conversation with a driver or passenger of a vehicle involved with the collision, such as to facilitate the conversion with the driver or passenger, and to verify the accuracy of the virtual collision reconstruction created from other data sources, and/or to facilitate adjusting the virtual collision reconstruction created from other data sources with driver or passenger statements or other input.

“In one aspect, a graphical user interface (GUI) for a dynamic model creation (DMC) system may be provided. The DMC system may include a DMC computing device in communication with a database, the database storing at least one model generated by the DMC computing device for representing a vehicle involved in a collision based upon collected data. The GUI may include: (i) a first display area programmed to display the at least one model including a visual representation of a determined location where the collision occurred, the visual representation of the determined location based in part on map data retrieved from the database and a visual representation of the vehicle involved in the collision; and/or (ii) a second display area programmed to display at least one data table corresponding to the at least one model, the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the vehicle involved in the collision, wherein movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI during a simulation of the at least one model is controlled at least by the telematics data, and wherein the GUI is configured to receive user inputs such that the visual representations in the first display area and the at least one data table in the second display area are dynamically modifiable by a user. The GUI may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

“In another aspect, a computer-implemented method for controlling a graphical user interface (GUI) for a dynamic model creation (DMC) system may be provided. The DMC system may include a DMC computing device in communication with a database, the database storing at least one model generated by the DMC computing device for representing a vehicle involved in a collision based upon collected data. The computer-implemented method may include, via the DMC system and/or DMC computing device, and/or via one or more local or remote processors, memory units, sensors, servers, and/or transceivers: (i) displaying a first display area wherein the first display area is programmed to display the at least one model including a visual representation of a determined location where the collision occurred, the visual representation of the determined location based in part on map data retrieved from the database and a visual representation of the vehicle involved in the collision; and/or (ii) displaying a second display area wherein the second display area is programmed to display at least one data table corresponding to the at least one model, the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the vehicle involved in the collision, wherein movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI during a simulation of the at least one model is controlled at least by the telematics data and wherein the GUI is configured to receive user inputs such that the visual representations in the first display area and the at least one data table in the second display area are dynamically modifiable by a user. The computer-implemented method may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A dynamic model creation (DMC) computing device controlling a graphical user interface (GUI), the DMC computing device in communication with a database, the database storing at least one model generated by the DMC computing device for representing a vehicle involved in a collision based upon collected data, the GUI comprising: a first display area programmed to display the at least one model including: a visual representation of a determined location where the collision occurred, the visual representation of the determined location based in part on map data retrieved from the database; and a visual representation of the vehicle involved in the collision; and a second display area programmed to display: at least one data table corresponding to the at least one model, the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the vehicle involved in the collision, wherein movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI during a simulation of the at least one model is controlled at least by the telematics data, wherein receipt of at least one user input at the second display area causes updated telematics data to be displayed in the second display area and updated movement of the visual representation of the vehicle to be displayed in the first display area, and wherein the DMC computing device is configured to: identify at least one discrepancy between the telematics data and the updated telematics data; based on the at least one discrepancy, determine a first weight to apply to at least part of the telematics data and a second weight to apply to at least part of the updated telematics data, wherein the first weight is greater than the second weight; and cause the updated movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI to be weighted more heavily toward the telematics data than the updated telematics data based on the first weight being greater than the second weight.

“2. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display a visual representation of a second vehicle involved in the collision and the second display area is further programmed to display the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the second vehicle involved in the collision.

“3. The GUI of claim 2, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display: the visual representation of the vehicle at a first plurality of moments in time during the collision; and the visual representation of the second vehicle at a second plurality of moments in time during the collision.

“4. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display the visual representation of the determined location, wherein the visual representation of the determined location includes a visual representation of at least one of i) a regulatory signal, ii) a regulatory sign, iii) a road feature, and iv) a road topography.

“5. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the first display area is further programmed to: generate an input signal based upon a user input at the first display area of the GUI, the input signal corresponding to at least one modification of at least one visual representation in the first display area; transmit the input signal to the DMC computing device; receive an updated model from the DMC computing device, the updated model incorporating the at least one modification of the at least one visual representation; and display the updated model.

“6. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the second display area is further programmed to: generate an input signal based upon a user input at the second display area of the GUI, the input signal corresponding to at least one modification of the at least one data table; transmit the input signal to the DMC computing device; receive an updated model from the DMC computing device, the updated model incorporating the at least one modification of the at least one data table; and display the updated model.

“7. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the first display area is further configured to display a simulation of the at least one model, the simulation comprising a representation of the collision at the determined location.

“8. A method for controlling a graphical user interface (GUI) for a dynamic model creation (DMC) system, the DMC system including a DMC computing device in communication with a database, the database storing at least one model generated by the DMC computing device for representing a vehicle involved in a collision based upon collected data, the method comprising: displaying a first display area, wherein the first display area is programmed to display the at least one model including: a visual representation of a determined location where the collision occurred, the visual representation of the determined location based in part on map data retrieved from the database; and a visual representation of the vehicle involved in the collision; and displaying a second display area, wherein the second display area is programmed to display: at least one data table corresponding to the at least one model, the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the vehicle involved in the collision, wherein movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI during a simulation of the at least one model is controlled at least by the telematics data, wherein receipt of at least one user input at the second display area causes updated telematics data to be displayed in the second display area and updated movement of the visual representation of the vehicle to be displayed in the first display area, and wherein the DMC computing device is configured to: identify at least one discrepancy between the telematics data and the updated telematics data; based on the at least one discrepancy, determine a first weight to apply to at least part of the telematics data and a second weight to apply to at least part of the updated telematics data, wherein the first weight is greater than the second weight; and cause the updated movement of the visual representation of the vehicle on the GUI to be weighted more heavily toward the telematics data than the updated telematics data based on the first weight being greater than the second weight.

“9. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the DMC computing device is further configured to flag the at least one discrepancy in the database as an alert for an insurance representative associated with a user computing device to notify the insurance representative of the at least one discrepancy.

“10. The GUI of claim 1, wherein the DMC computing device is further configured to determine at least one of the first weight or the second weight based at least in part upon an output from a machine learning program.

“11. The method of claim 8, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display a visual representation of a second vehicle involved in the collision, and wherein the second display area is further programmed to display the at least one data table including telematics data regarding the second vehicle involved in the collision.

“12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display: the visual representation of the vehicle at a first plurality of moments in time during the collision; and the visual representation of the second vehicle at a second plurality of moments in time during the collision.

“13. The method of claim 8, wherein the first display area is further programmed to display the visual representation of the determined location, wherein the visual representation of the determined location includes a visual representation of at least one of i) a regulatory signal, ii) a regulatory sign, iii) a road feature, and iv) a road topography.

“14. The method of claim 8, further comprising: generating an input signal based upon a user input at the first display area of the GUI, the input signal corresponding to at least one modification of at least one visual representation in the first display area; transmitting the input signal to the DMC computing device; receiving an updated model from the DMC computing device, the updated model incorporating the at least one modification of the at least one visual representation; and displaying the updated model.

“15. The method of claim 8, further comprising: generating an input signal based upon a user input at the second display area of the GUI, the input signal corresponding to at least one modification of the at least one data table; transmitting the input signal to the DMC computing device; receiving an updated model from the DMC computing device, the updated model incorporating the at least one modification of the at least one data table; and displaying the updated model.”

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

For more information, see this patent: Cardona, Alexander. Systems and methods for dynamically creating and adjusting scene models. U.S. Patent Number 11954315, filed February 23, 2021, and published online on April 9, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11954315)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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