Systems and methods for locating a mobile phone in a vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10637985-B1
Application number	US-201916423328-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 28, 2019
Priority date	May 28, 2019
Publication date	Apr 28, 2020
Grant date	Apr 28, 2020

Abstract

In one embodiment, a system for locating a mobile phone in a vehicle is provided. The system includes one or more processors and a memory communicably coupled to the one or more processors and storing a detection module and a safety module. The detection module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to: determine that a mobile phone is located in a vehicle. The safety module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to: in response to the determination, play a sound in the vehicle; record the sound played in the vehicle; based on the recorded sound and a sound model, determine if the mobile phone is in a driver seat of the vehicle; and if it is determined that the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle, disable at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for locating a mobile phone in a vehicle comprising:
one or more processors;
a memory communicably coupled to the one or more processors and storing:
a detection module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
determine that a mobile phone is located in a vehicle; and

a safety module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
in response to the determination, play a sound in the vehicle;
record the sound played in the vehicle;
based on the recorded sound and a sound model, determine if the mobile phone is in a driver seat of the vehicle; and
if it is determined that the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle, disable at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety module further includes instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
determine that the vehicle has stopped moving; and
in response to the determination, enable the at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety module further includes instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
determine that the mobile phone has moved within the vehicle; and
in response to determining that the mobile phone has moved within the vehicle:
play the sound in the vehicle;
record the sound played in the vehicle;
based on the recorded sound and the sound model, determine if the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle; and
if it is determined that the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle, disable the at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety module further includes instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
determine a vehicle type of the vehicle; and
select the sound model from a plurality of sound models based on the determined vehicle type.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein each sound model of the plurality of sound models is trained using a different vehicle type of a plurality of vehicle types.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sound is played from a vehicle speaker.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sound is played from a speaker of the mobile phone.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sound is a sine sweep.

9. A method for locating a mobile phone in a vehicle comprising:
determining that a mobile phone is located in a vehicle;
in response to the determination, playing a sound in the vehicle;
recording the sound played in the vehicle;
based on the recorded sound and a sound model, determining if the mobile phone is in a driver seat of the vehicle; and
if it is determined that the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle, disabling at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining that the vehicle has stopped moving; and
in response to the determination, enabling the at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining that the mobile phone has moved within the vehicle; and
in response to the determining that the mobile phone has moved within the vehicle:
playing the sound in the vehicle;
recording the sound played in the vehicle;
based on the recorded sound and the sound model, determining if the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle; and
if it is determined that the mobile phone is in the driver seat of the vehicle, disabling the at least some functionality of the mobile phone.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining a vehicle type of the vehicle; and
selecting the sound model from a plurality of sound models based on the determined vehicle type.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein each sound model of the plurality of sound models is trained using a different vehicle type of a plurality of vehicle types.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein the sound is played from a vehicle speaker.

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein the sound is played from a speaker of the mobile phone.

16. The method of claim 9 , wherein the sound is recorded from a microphone associated with the mobile phone.

17. The method of claim 9 , wherein the sound is a sine sweep.

18. A method of training a sound model for a vehicle comprising:
selecting a first vehicle, wherein the first vehicle is associated with a vehicle type of a plurality of vehicle types;
generating training data comprising a plurality of data samples, wherein generating each data sample comprises:
selecting a seat of a plurality of vehicle seats of the first vehicle;
placing a first mobile phone in the selected seat;
playing a sound in the first vehicle by the first mobile phone;
recording the sound played in the first vehicle by the first mobile phone; and
generating the data sample from the recorded sound, wherein the data sample is associated with the selected seat; and

training a sound model for the vehicle type associated with the first vehicle using the training data.

Assignees

• Toyota Res Inst Inc

Inventors

• Saad Mohammad

Classifications

• G06N20/00 Primary

  Machine learning · CPC title

• G01S1/76 Primary

  Systems for determining direction or position line · CPC title

• H04M1/72577 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04M1/72569

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04M1/724098

  Interfacing with an on-board device of a vehicle (for hands-free speaking in vehicles H04M1/6075) · CPC title