Granted Patent B2

US 12,485,842 · App. 18/462,271 · Granted Dec 2, 2025

Inventors: Vinay R. Majjigi (Mountain View, CA); Sriram Venkateswaran (Sunnyvale, CA); Aniket Aranake (San Jose, CA); Tejal Bhamre (Mountain View, CA); Alexandru Popovici (Santa Clara, CA); Parisa Dehleh Hossein Zadeh (San Jose, CA); Yann Jerome Julien Renard (San Carlos, CA); Yi Wen Liao (San Jose, CA); Stephen P. Jackson (San Francisco, CA); Rebecca L. Clarkson (San Francisco, CA); Henry Choi (Cupertino, CA); Paul D. Bryan (San Jose, CA); Mrinal Agarwal (San Jose, CA); Ethan Goolish (Mountain View, CA); Richard G. Liu (Sherman Oaks, CA); Omar Aziz (Santa Clara, CA); Alvaro J. Melendez Hasbun (San Francisco, CA); David Ojeda Avellaneda (San Francisco, CA); Sunny Kai Pang Chow (San Jose, CA); Pedro O. Varangot (San Francisco, CA); Tianye Sun (Sunnyvale, CA); Karthik Jayaraman Raghuram (Foster City, CA); Hung A. Pham (Oakland, CA); Lauren Schutz (San Francisco, CA)

Assignee: Apple Inc.

B60R21/013G06F18/213B60R2021/0027B60R2021/01302

Abstract

Claims (58)

1 . A method comprising:

detecting, with at least one processor, a crash event on a crash device;

extracting, with the at least one processor, multimodal features from sensor data generated by multiple sensing modalities of the crash device;

computing, with the at least one processor, a plurality of crash decisions based on a plurality of machine learning models applied to the multimodal features; and

determining, with the at least one processor, that a severe vehicle crash has occurred involving the crash device based on the plurality of crash decisions and a severity model;

responsive to a severe crash being determined, presenting a notification on a screen of the crash device requesting a response from a user of the crash device;

determining whether the crash device is stationary for a predetermined period of time;

responsive to the crash device being stationary for the predetermined period of time,

starting a timer or counter;

determining that the timer or counter meets a threshold time or count, respectively; and

escalating the notification.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining, as a result of the escalating, that no response to the notification was received after the threshold time or count was met, automatically contacting emergency services using one or more communication modalities of the crash device.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending, to a network server computer, at least one of the multimodal features, crash decisions, inference of a severe crash or user interactions with the notification;

receiving, from the network server, at least one update to at least one parameter of at least one machine learning model or the severity model; and

updating, with the at least one processor, the at least one parameter with the at least one update.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a deceleration pulse signature present in acceleration data.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is sound pressure level of audio data captured by at least one microphone of the crash device.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a pressure change due to airbag deployment in the vehicle.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a drop in speed of the crash device.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving, with the at least one processor, crash-related features from a companion device coupled to the crash device;

computing, with the at least one processor, a plurality of crash decisions based on a plurality of machine learning models applied to the multimodal features and crash-related features; and

inferring, with the at least one processor, that a severe vehicle crash has occurred involving the crash device based on the plurality of crash decisions and a severity model.

9 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

matching epochs for the multimodal features with epochs for additional multimodal features to remove misalignment between epoch boundaries.

10 . An apparatus comprising:

at least one motion sensor;

at least one processor;

memory storing instructions that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:

detecting a crash event based at least in part on sensor data from the at least one motion sensor;

extracting multimodal features from sensor data generated by multiple sensing modalities of the apparatus;

computing a plurality of crash decisions based on a plurality of machine learning models applied to the multimodal features; and

inferring that a severe vehicle crash has occurred involving the apparatus based on the plurality of crash decisions and a severity model;

responsive to a severe crash being determined, presenting a notification on a screen of the apparatus requesting a response from a user of the apparatus;

determining whether the apparatus is stationary for a predetermined period of time;

responsive to the apparatus being stationary for the predetermined period of time,

starting a timer or counter;

determining that the timer or counter meets a threshold time or count, respectively; and

escalating the notification.

11 . The apparatus of claim 10 , further comprising:

determining that no response to the notification was received from the user; and

automatically contacting emergency services using one or more communication modalities of the apparatus.

12 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a deceleration pulse signature present in acceleration data.

13 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is sound pressure level of audio data captured by at least one microphone of the apparatus.

14 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a pressure change due to airbag deployment in the vehicle.

15 . The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein at least one of the multimodal features is a drop in speed of the apparatus.

16 . The apparatus of claim 10 , further comprising:

receiving crash-related features from a companion device coupled to the apparatus;

computing a plurality of crash decisions based on a plurality of machine learning models applied to the multimodal features and crash-related features; and

inferring that a severe vehicle crash has occurred involving the apparatus based on the plurality of crash decisions and a severity model.

17 . The apparatus of claim 16 , further comprising:

matching epochs for the multimodal features with epochs for additional multimodal features to remove misalignment between epoch boundaries.

18 . The apparatus of claim 10 , further comprising:

sending at least one of the multimodal features, crash decisions, inference of a severe crash or user interactions with the notification to a network server;

receiving at least one update to at least one parameter of at least one machine learning model or the severity model; and

updating the at least one parameter with the at least one update.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (3)

References Cited (27)