Occupant profiling system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10112505-B2
Application number	US-201615271959-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 21, 2016
Priority date	Sep 21, 2016
Publication date	Oct 30, 2018
Grant date	Oct 30, 2018

Abstract

Various systems and methods for providing an occupant profiling system are described herein. A system for profiling a vehicle occupant includes a vehicle control system, comprising: a sensor fusion circuit coupled to a plurality of sensors installed a vehicle seat, the sensor fusion circuit to: determine that a human occupant is seated in the vehicle seat; sample a backrest sensor arrangement and a base cushion sensor arrangement of the vehicle seat to obtain backrest sensor data and base cushion sensor data, when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat; sample, when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat, a height sensor to obtain a height sensor value; and statistically determine from the backrest sensor data, the base cushion sensor data, and the high sensor data, whether the human occupant matches a reference profile.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for profiling a vehicle occupant, the system comprising:
a vehicle control system, comprising:
a sensor fusion circuit coupled to a plurality of sensors installed a vehicle seat, the sensor fusion circuit to:
determine that a human occupant is seated in the vehicle seat;
sample a backrest sensor arrangement and a base cushion sensor arrangement of the vehicle seat to obtain backrest sensor data and base cushion sensor data, when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat;
sample, when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat, a height sensor to obtain height sensor data; and
statistically determine from the backrest sensor data, the base cushion sensor data, and the height sensor data, whether the human occupant matches a reference profile, the reference profile used as a baseline to identify the human occupant.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein to determine that the human occupant is seated in the vehicle seat, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
interface with an image processor, the image processor coupled to a camera array interface and operable to:
obtain an image of the vehicle seat; and
use a facial detection process on the image to determine whether a face is present in the image.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the image processor is to conditionally use the facial detection process when the base cushion sensor data indicates that more than a threshold weight is on the vehicle seat.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the height sensor comprises an ultrasonic sensor.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the height sensor data comprises a distance between the height sensor and an upper portion of the human occupant.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the reference profile comprises a reference backrest sensor data set, a reference base cushion sensor data set, and a reference height sensor data set, and wherein to statistically determine whether the human occupant matches the reference profile, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
obtain a backrest confidence value indicating the likelihood that the backrest sensor data corresponds to the reference backrest sensor data set;
obtain a base cushion confidence value indicating the likelihood that the base cushion sensor data corresponds to the reference base cushion sensor data set;
obtain a height confidence value indicating the likelihood that the seat height sensor data corresponds to the reference height sensor data set; and
aggregate the backrest confidence value, the base cushion confidence value, and the height confidence value to obtain a total confidence value.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the backrest sensor data comprises a set of sensor values corresponding to a plurality of sensors in the backrest sensor arrangement.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein to obtain the backrest confidence value, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
calculate a sum of sums of dot products of the set of sensor values corresponding to the plurality of sensors in the backrest sensor arrangement and a set of sensor values corresponding to the reference backrest sensor data set; and
compare the sum of sums with a sum of sums of the set of sensor values corresponding to the reference backrest sensor data set with itself.

9. The system of claim 6 , wherein the base cushion sensor data comprises a set of sensor values corresponding to a plurality of sensors in the base cushion sensor arrangement.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein to obtain the base cushion confidence value, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
calculate a sum of sums of dot products of the set of sensor values corresponding to the plurality of sensors in the base cushion sensor arrangement and a set of sensor values corresponding to the reference base cushion sensor data set; and
compare the sum of sums with a sum of sums of the set of sensor values corresponding to the reference base cushion sensor data set with itself.

11. The system of claim 6 , wherein to obtain the height confidence value, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
calculate a difference of the height sensor data and the reference height sensor data; and
use the difference to determine the height confidence value.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein to aggregate the backrest, base cushion, and height confidence values, the sensor fusion circuit is to:
aggregate the backrest, base cushion, and height confidence values in a weighted function.

13. A method of profiling a vehicle occupant, the method comprising:
determining that a human occupant is seated in a vehicle seat;
sampling, at a sensor fusion circuit, a backrest sensor arrangement and a base cushion sensor arrangement of the vehicle seat to obtain backrest sensor data and base cushion sensor data, when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat;
sampling, at the sensor fusion circuit when the human occupant is determined to be seated in the vehicle seat, a height sensor to obtain height sensor data; and
statistically determining from the backrest sensor data, the base cushion sensor data, and the height sensor data, whether the human occupant matches a reference profile, the reference profile used as a baseline to identify the human occupant.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein determining that the human occupant is seated in the vehicle seat comprises:
obtaining an image of the vehicle seat; and
using a facial detection process on the image to determine whether a face is present in the image.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising conditionally using the facial detection process when the base cushion sensor data indicates that more than a threshold weight is on the vehicle seat.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein the height sensor comprises an ultrasonic sensor.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein the height sensor data comprises a distance between the height sensor and an upper portion of the human occupant.

18. The method of claim 13 , wherein the reference profile comprises a reference backrest sensor data set, a reference base cushion sensor data set, and a reference height sensor data set, and wherein statistically determining whether the human occupant matches the reference profile comprises:
obtaining a backrest confidence value indicating the likelihood that the backrest sensor data corresponds to the reference backrest sensor data set;
obtaining a base cushion confidence value indicating the likelihood that the base cushion sensor data corresponds to the reference base cushion sensor data set;
obtaining a height confidence value indicating the likelihood that the seat height sensor data corresponds to the reference height sensor data set; and
aggregating the backrest confidence value, the base cushion confidence value, and the height confidence value to obtain a total confidence value.

19. The method of claim 13 , wherein aggregating the backrest, base cushion, and height confidence values comprises:
aggregating the backrest, base cushion, and height confidence values in a weighted function.

20. At least one non-transitory machine-readable medium including instructions for profiling a vehicle occupant, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:
determine that a human occupant is seated in a vehicle seat;
sample, at a sensor fusion circuit, a backrest sensor arrangement and a base cushion sensor arrangement of the vehicle seat to obtain backrest sensor data and base cushion sensor data, when the human occupant is det

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Tanriover Cagri Cagatay
• Luebbers Enno Luebbert Egge
• Sargut Selin

Classifications

• B60R21/01538

  for image processing, e.g. cameras or sensor arrays · CPC title

• B60R21/01512

  Passenger detection systems · CPC title

• B60N2002/0268

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B60N2/002

  Seats provided with an occupancy detection means mounted therein or thereon (detection means responsive to presence or absence of children B60N2/266) · CPC title

• B60N2/0244 Primary

  with logic circuits · CPC title