Patent Issued for Technologies for using image analysis to facilitate adjustments of vehicle components (USPTO 11794675): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 NOV 14 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11794675, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Li, Yuntao (Champaign, IL, US), Myers, Jeffrey S. (Normal, IL, US), Zhang, Dingchao (Normal, IL, US).

This patent was filed on January 20, 2022 and was published online on October 24, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Individuals frequently operate or otherwise travel in vehicles, where the environments and conditions of the vehicle operation may be varied. Generally, vehicles may be equipped or configured with a plurality of different components that may enable and/or assist with the operation or ability to travel in the vehicles. For example, a vehicle typically includes a steering wheel, a driver’s seat, a rearview mirror, a head-up display (HUD), and/or other components. Additionally, each component may have a particular configuration. For example, a steering wheel has a height adjustment, a driver’s seat has multiple position adjustments, and a rearview mirror has a swivel-based adjustment.

“However, vehicles are often operated by and traveled in by multiple individuals, where the individuals vary in physical dimensions (e.g., height, weight, length, etc.). Thus, an individual’s positioning within a vehicle varies among individuals, and accordingly the individual’s interaction or positioning relative to the components varies among the individuals. Additionally, some individuals may neglect to adjust the components to an improved or optimized configuration, or may manually make adjustments which is tedious and can be a safety risk.

“Therefore, there is an opportunity for techniques and technologies to using image analysis to automatically facilitate the adjustment of vehicle components.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In an embodiment, a system for configuring components of a vehicle is provided. The system may include: at least one image sensor configured to capture image data, a vehicle component having a configuration, a non-transitory memory storing a set of computer-executable instructions, and a processor communicatively coupled to at least one image sensor, the vehicle component, and the memory. The processor may be configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to cause the processor to: access the image data from the at least one image sensor, the image data comprising a plurality of image frames depicting an interior of the vehicle, determine, from the plurality of image frames, at least a portion of image frames that depict an individual located within the vehicle, analyze at least the portion of image frames to determine a positioning of the individual within the vehicle, determine, based on the positioning of the individual within the vehicle, an adjustment to the configuration of the vehicle component, and cause the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the configuration.

“In another embodiment, a method of configuring a vehicle component within a vehicle is provided, where the vehicle component may have a configuration. The method may include: accessing image data from at least one image sensor, the image data comprising a plurality of image frames depicting an interior of the vehicle, determining, from the plurality of image frames, at least a portion of image frames that depict an individual located within the vehicle, analyzing, by a computer processor, at least the portion of image frames to determine a positioning of the individual within the vehicle, determining, based on the positioning of the individual within the vehicle, an adjustment to the configuration of the vehicle component, and causing the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the configuration.

“The figures depict various aspects of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for configuring components of a vehicle, comprising: an image sensor; a vehicle component having a first configuration; a non-transitory memory storing a set of computer-executable instructions; and a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to cause the processor to: cause the image sensor to capture image data, the image data comprising a plurality of image frames depicting an interior of the vehicle, determine, from the plurality of image frames, a particular image frame that depicts an individual located within the vehicle, determine, based on a position of the individual, as illustrated in the particular image frame, a second configuration of the vehicle component different from the first configuration, determine, based on a difference between the first configuration and the second configuration, that an adjustment to the first configuration is needed, based on determining that the adjustment is needed, generate a configuration adjustment command based on the difference and a preference of the individual, cause the vehicle component to execute the configuration adjustment command, wherein execution of the configuration adjustment command results in the adjustment to the first configuration, and generate a driving report corresponding to a trip during which the vehicle component was utilized with the adjustment to the first configuration, the driving report including a summary of operating conditions of the vehicle during the trip.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the driving report further comprises at least one of: tracked statistics associated with the operating conditions; or comparisons of driving histories associated with the individual.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to perform at least one of: updating a driving pattern associated with the individual, or synchronizing the driving report with data stored in a computing device.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine, using a machine learning algorithm and based on the particular image frame, that the individual located within the vehicle is an authorized individual.

“5. The system of claim 4, wherein determining that the individual located within the vehicle is an authorized individual further comprises: accessing, from a database, images associated with a set of authorized individuals, and determining, by using the images associated with the set of authorized individuals and the particular image frame as inputs to the machine learning algorithm, that the individual located within the vehicle is the authorized individual, including: determining similarities between a face of the individual located within the vehicle and the faces of the set of authorized individuals, and in response to one of the similarities satisfying a threshold, determining that the individual located within the vehicle is the authorized individual.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein each face of the set of authorized individuals is encoded into a vector to represent a feature associated with each face, and the processor is further configured to: determine the similarity between an encoding of the face of the individual located within the vehicle and encodings of the faces of the set of authorized individuals; and in response to the similarity satisfying the threshold, determine that the individual located within the vehicle is the authorized individual.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle component is a dashboard including a user interface, and the adjustment to the first configuration includes adjusting an angle of the dashboard.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle component is an airbag, and the adjustment to the first configuration includes at least one of: adjusting a deployment angle for the airbag, or adjusting an ejection velocity for the airbag.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle component is a seat, and the adjustment to the first configuration includes at least one of: adjusting a position of the seat comprising at least one of a vertical position, a horizontal position, or a recline position, or adjusting a seat temperature.

“10. A method for configuring a vehicle component, the method comprising: causing an image sensor to capture image data, the image data comprising a plurality of image frames depicting an interior of a vehicle; determining, from the plurality of image frames, an image frame that depicts an individual located within the vehicle; obtaining a current configuration of the vehicle component; determining, based on a position of the individual, as illustrated in a particular image frame, a second configuration of the vehicle component different from the current configuration; determining, based on a difference between the current configuration and the second configuration, that an adjustment to the current configuration is needed; based on determining that the adjustment is needed, generating a configuration adjustment command based on the difference and a preference of the individual; causing the vehicle component to execute the configuration adjustment command, wherein execution of the command results in the adjustment to the current configuration; and generating a driving report corresponding to a trip during which the vehicle component was utilized with the adjustment to the current configuration, the driving report characterizing the preference of the individual and including a summary of operating conditions of the vehicle during the trip.

“11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining, based on a position of the individual, as illustrated in a particular image frame, a second configuration of the vehicle component different from the current configuration further comprises: determining, based on the position of the individual located within the vehicle, a head position of the individual.

“12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining, based on a position of the individual, as illustrated in a particular image frame, a second configuration of the vehicle component different from the first configuration further comprises: determining, based on the head position of the individual, the second configuration of the vehicle component.

“13. The method of claim 10, wherein the vehicle component includes at least one of a dashboard including a user interface, an airbag, or a seat, and causing the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the current configuration includes at least one of: adjusting an angle of the dashboard, adjusting a deployment angle for the airbag, or adjusting a position of the seat.

“14. The method of claim 10, further comprising: generating a notification indicating the adjustment of the current configuration of the vehicle component; and causing a user interface to present the notification.

“15. A non-transitory computer-readable memory storing instructions for configuring a vehicle component that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: cause an image sensor to capture image data, the image data comprising a plurality of image frames depicting an interior of a vehicle; determine, from the plurality of image frames, an image frame that depicts an individual located within the vehicle; determine, based on a position of the individual, as illustrated in the image frame, a desired configuration of the vehicle component; obtain a set of preferences associated with the individual; determine, based on the desired configuration and the set of preferences, that an adjustment to a current configuration of the vehicle component is needed; generate, based on determining that the adjustment to the current configuration is needed, a configuration adjustment command; and cause the vehicle component to execute the configuration adjustment command, wherein execution of the command results in the adjustment to the current configuration, wherein the vehicle component includes a dashboard, and the adjustment to the current configuration includes adjusting an angle of the dashboard.

“16. The non-transitory computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to: generate a driving report corresponding to a trip during which the vehicle component was utilized with the adjustment to the current configuration, the driving report characterizing the set of preferences associated with the individual.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the vehicle component includes at least one of an airbag, or a seat, and causing the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the current configuration includes at least one of: adjusting a deployment angle for the airbag, or adjusting a position of the seat.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to: analyze, using an image analysis technique, the plurality of image frames to estimate an age of the individual; and determine, based on the position of the individual located within the vehicle and the age of the individual, the desired configuration of the vehicle component.

“19. The method of claim 13, wherein the vehicle component is the airbag, and causing the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the current configuration further includes: adjusting an ejection velocity for the airbag.

“20. The method of claim 13, wherein the vehicle component is the seat, and causing the vehicle component to implement the adjustment to the current configuration further includes: adjusting a seat temperature.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Li, Yuntao. Technologies for using image analysis to facilitate adjustments of vehicle components. U.S. Patent Number 11794675, filed January 20, 2022, and published online on October 24, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11794675)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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