IP Library Granted Patent US 12,128,919
Granted Patent B2
US 12,128,919 · App. 18/188,173 · Granted Oct 29, 2024

Dash cam with artificial intelligence safety event detection

Inventors: Mathew Chasan Calmer (Sacramento, CA); Justin Delegard (West Chester, OH); Justin Pan (San Francisco, CA); Sabrina Shemet (Felton, CA); Meelap Shah (Portland, OR); Kavya Joshi (Mammoth Lakes, CA); Brian Tuan (Cupertino, CA); Sharan Srinivasan (San Francisco, CA); Muhammad Ali Akhtar (Chicago, IL); John Charles Bicket (Burlingame, CA); Margaret Finch (Austin, TX); Vincent Shieh (San Francisco, CA); Bruce Kellerman (Atlanta, GA); Mitch Lin (Berkeley, CA); Marvin Arroz (San Francisco, CA); Siddhartha Datta Roy (Decatur, GA); Jason Symons (Dublin, CA); Tina Quach (Los Altos, CA); Cassandra Lee Rommel (Chicago, IL); Saumya Jain (Redwood City, CA)
Assignee: SAMSARA INC.
B60W50/14B60W40/08G06F3/012G06N3/02G06T7/70G06V10/44G06V10/761G06V20/44G06V20/56G06V20/597G07C5/008G07C5/0866H04N19/132H04N23/51B60W2050/143B60W2520/105B60W2540/229G06V2201/07G06V2201/10
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,128,919
App. No.
18/188,173
Filed
Mar 22, 2023
Granted
Oct 29, 2024
Kind
B2
Examiner
FAN, HONGMIN
Art Unit
2687
USPC
340/576
Abstract

A vehicle dash cam may be configured to execute one or more neural networks (and/or other artificial intelligence), such as based on input from one or more of the cameras and/or other sensors associated with the dash cam, to intelligently detect safety events in real-time. Detection of a safety event may trigger an in-cab alert to make the driver aware of the safety risk. The dash cam may include logic for determining which asset data to transmit to a backend server in response to detection of a safety event, as well as which asset data to transmit to the backend server in response to analysis of sensor data that did not trigger a safety event. The asset data transmitted to the backend server may be further analyzed to determine if further alerts should be provided to the driver and/or to a safety manager.

Claims (44)

1. A computerized method, performed by a computing system having one or more hardware computer processors and one or more non-transitory computer readable storage device storing software instructions executable by the computing system to perform the computerized method comprising:

accessing images of an area in front of a vehicle acquired by an outward-facing camera associated with the vehicle;

evaluating at least some of the accessed images with reference to each of a plurality of safety event criteria associated with a corresponding plurality of safety event types;

triggering a first safety event in response to determining that features of the at last some of the accessed images match a first safety event criteria associated with a first safety event type;

accessing an asset data structure including associations between safety event types and respective asset data, wherein a first asset data associated with the first safety event type is different than a second asset data associated with a second safety event type; and

initiating access to additional sensor data including asset data from one or more sensors associated with the vehicle, wherein the additional sensor data is identified based at least on a type of the triggered first safety event.

2. The computerized method of claim 1 , further comprising:

detecting, based at least on application of an event detection model to at least portions of the accessed images, features within the accessed images.

3. The computerized method of claim 2 , wherein said detecting features includes providing a confidence level associated with each detected feature.

4. The computerized method of claim 3 , wherein the features include one or more of: identification of an object in front of the vehicle, an eye pose of a driver, a head pose of the driver, identification of objects in an inward-facing video, identification of other objects in the outward-facing video, metadata associated with identified objects, accelerometer data, global positioning system (GPS) data, ECU data, and vehicle speed data.

5. The computerized method of claim 2 , wherein the features of the one or more accessed images include a distance to a vehicle or object in front of the vehicle.

6. The computerized method of claim 1 , wherein the first safety event indicates one or more of: a forward collision warning, a tailgating warning, a distracted driver warning, or a policy violation.

7. The computerized method of claim 1 , wherein the additional sensor data includes metadata associated with the first safety event type.

8. The computerized method of claim 7 , wherein the metadata for a forward collision warning and tailgating warning safety event types includes:

location of a lead vehicle in front of the vehicle; and

lead vehicle metadata associated with the lead vehicle.

9. The computerized method of claim 4 , wherein a default head pose is customized for the driver.

10. The computerized method of claim 1 , further comprising:

accessing, in real-time as images are acquired by an inward-facing camera, inward facing images of the driver area;

detecting, based at least on application of a second event detection model comprising one or more neural networks to at least portions of the accessed inward facing images, second features within the one or more inward facing images;

triggering a second safety event in response to determining that the second detected features match second safety event criteria associated with the second safety event;

determining second metadata based on the sensor data that is associated with the detected second safety event; and

transmitting the second metadata to the event analysis system server.

11. The computerized method of claim 10 , wherein the second features of the one or more accessed images include a head pose of the driver.

12. The computerized method of claim 11 , wherein the head pose of the driver indicates how far away from straight ahead the driver's head is positioned.

13. The computerized method of claim 1 , wherein the additional sensor data includes metadata indicating the first safety event type, wherein the first safety event type is one or more of a forward collision warning, a tailgating warning, a distracted driver warning, or a policy violation;

wherein the method further comprises:

accessing settings for determining portions of video data from one or more of the inward-facing camera and outward-facing to transmit to the event management system; and

generating and transmitting to an event management system the determined portions of video data associated with the detected safety event.

14. The computerized method of claim 13 , wherein generating the determined portions of video data associated with the detected safety event comprises trimming a portion of the video data and downsampling the trimmed portion of the video data.

15. The computerized method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system comprise one or more of a vehicle device attached to the vehicle or an event management system.

16. A computing system comprising:

one or more hardware computer processor;

one or more non-transitory computer readable medium having software instructions stored thereon, the software instructions executable by the hardware computer processor to cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

accessing images of an area in front of a vehicle acquired by an outward-facing camera associated with the vehicle;

evaluating at least some of the accessed images with reference to each of a plurality of safety event criteria associated with a corresponding plurality of safety event types;

triggering a first safety event in response to determining that features of the at last some of the accessed images match a first safety event criteria associated with a first safety event type;

accessing an asset data structure including associations between safety event types and respective asset data, wherein a first asset data associated with the first safety event type is different than a second asset data associated with a second safety event type; and

initiating access to additional sensor data including asset data from one or more sensors associated with the vehicle, wherein the additional sensor data is identified based at least on a type of the triggered first safety event.

17. The computing system of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise:

detecting, based at least on application of an event detection model to at least portions of the accessed images, features within the accessed images.

18. The computing system of claim 16 , wherein said detecting features includes providing a confidence level associated with each detected feature.

19. The computing system of claim 16 , wherein the computing system comprises one or more of a vehicle device attached to the vehicle or an event management system.

20. The computing system of claim 16 , wherein the additional sensor data includes metadata associated with the first safety event type.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jan 20, 2026
From: CHASAN, MATHEW
To: SAMSARA INC.
Reel/Frame 073522/0441 →
Continuity (3)
Continuation 17475114 · Sep 14, 2021
Provisional Application 63117271 · Nov 23, 2020
Related Publication 20230219592A1 · Jul 13, 2023
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