Facilitating response to emergent situation at vehicle with vehicle context

1 . A method of facilitating a response to an emergent situation at a vehicle, comprising:

detecting an emergent situation at a vehicle via a data processing unit onboard the vehicle;

in response to detecting the emergent situation at the vehicle, obtaining snapshot data that is generated based on a snapshot of sensor data being transmitted over an onboard communications network and stored in a sensor data store onboard the vehicle;

generating contextualized snapshot data based on the snapshot data, wherein the contextualized snapshot data is a contextualized representation of the snapshot data that is generated by classifying one or more raw sensor values from the snapshot data into a class of a plurality of predetermined classes; and

providing, from a wireless communications device onboard the vehicle, the conceptualized snapshot data and an indication of the emergent situation to a responder subsystem located remotely and separate from the vehicle.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the emergent situation is detected based on sensor data from one or more sensors.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the snapshot of the sensor data communications includes one or more vehicle operating values captured by one or more other sensors that are separate from the one or more sensors used to detect the emergent situation.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein at least one of the one or more other sensors used to capture the one or more vehicle operating values is an autonomous vehicle sensor configured to capture sensor data for use in performing one or more autonomous operations for the vehicle.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein vehicle state information indicating an autonomous state of the vehicle is provided to the responder subsystem and used to generate the snapshot data that is provided to the responder subsystem.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the autonomous state of the vehicle indicates a planned autonomous operation of the vehicle that was not yet performed by the vehicle.

7 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the autonomous state of the vehicle indicates an autonomous operation that was performed by the vehicle prior to detecting the emergent situation.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the snapshot data represents vehicle operating values at a point in time.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the point in time is a time that is not more than two (2) seconds after the emergent situation is detected at the vehicle.

10 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the point in time is a time that is not more than one (1) second after the emergent situation is detected at the vehicle.

11 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the snapshot of sensor data is a snapshot of a communications bus over which the sensor data is transmitted.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the communications bus is a controller area network (CAN) bus or an ethernet bus.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the communications bus is a controller area network (CAN) bus, wherein the snapshot data is CAN snapshot data that is obtained from a sensor data store, and wherein the vehicle is configured to store a CAN snapshot of data being communicated over the CAN bus according to a time interval.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the time interval is a static predetermined amount of time.

15 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the CAN snapshot data is generated based on one or more most recent CAN snapshots of data stored in the sensor data store.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the sensor data store is a transitory computer-readable medium, and wherein the CAN snapshot data is stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium in response to detecting the emergent situation at the vehicle.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining the snapshot data is accomplished with a wireless communications transceiver that is onboard the vehicle and that obtains the snapshot data from the sensor data store and wherein the wireless communications transceiver is the wireless communications device.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the contextualized snapshot data includes generating a semantically-interpretable value based on one or more raw sensor values of the snapshot data, wherein the semantically-interpretable value is adapted to be readily-interpretable by a human through conveying text, audio, or a graphic representing a semantic meaning of the one or more raw sensor values, and wherein the semantically-interpretable value is provided to an operator of the responder subsystem.

19 . An emergent situation vehicle response system, comprising:

vehicle electronics of a vehicle, including at least one sensor and an onboard communications network for transmitting sensor data captured by the at least one sensor, the onboard communications network including a wireless communications device; and

a responder subsystem having a responder computer configured to provide electronic data to an operator stationed at the responder computer, the responder computer being located remotely and separate from the vehicle electronics;

wherein the emergent situation vehicle response system is configured to execute computer instructions that, when executed by one or more electronic processors, cause the emergent situation vehicle response system to:

detect an emergent situation at the vehicle via a data processing unit onboard the vehicle;

in response to detecting the emergent situation at the vehicle, obtain snapshot data that is generated based on a snapshot of the sensor data captured by the at least one sensor as the sensor data is being transmitted over an onboard communications network and stored in a sensor data store onboard the vehicle;

generate contextualized snapshot data based on the snapshot data, wherein the contextualized snapshot data is a contextualized representation of the snapshot data that is generated by classifying one or more raw sensor values from the snapshot data into a class of a plurality of predetermined classes; and

provide, from the wireless communications device, the conceptualized snapshot data and an indication of the emergent situation to the responder computer.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the data processing unit and the responder computer each provide a portion of the contextualized snapshot data with the data processing unit providing a first semantically-interpretable value and the responder computer providing a second semantically-interpretable value.