In-car status notification system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10643445-B2
Application number	US-201816229780-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 21, 2018
Priority date	Feb 9, 2018
Publication date	May 5, 2020
Grant date	May 5, 2020

Abstract

An in-car status notification system that detects that a situation requiring attention has arisen in which a child is alone inside an automobile by using at least one of a plurality of sensors or a camera; detects positional information of the automobile; and in cases in which the situation requiring attention has been detected, sends notification of the automobile positional information and situation requiring attention detected information indicating a child is alone in the automobile to at least a pre-set first mobile phone and a pre-set second mobile phone.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An in-car status notification system, comprising: a memory, and a processor that is configured to:
detect that a situation requiring attention has arisen in which a child is alone inside an automobile by using at least one of a plurality of sensors or a camera;
detect positional information of the automobile;
in cases in which the situation requiring attention has been detected, send notification of the automobile positional information and situation requiring attention detected information indicating a child is alone in the automobile to at least a pre-set first mobile phone and a pre-set second mobile phone;
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the first mobile phone, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a first predetermined period of time from when the situation requiring attention was detected;
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the second mobile phone, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a second predetermined period of time from when notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information was sent to the first mobile phone;
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to a predetermined organization, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a third predetermined period of time from when notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information was sent to the second mobile phone; and
in a case in which the notification has been sent to the predetermined organization, record the notification to the predetermined organization, and shorten the first to the third predetermined periods of time in cases in which there is a record of a previous notification to the predetermined organization in a case in which the situation requiring attention is detected.

2. The in-car status notification system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
detect the automobile being stationary; and
in cases in which the automobile being stationary has been detected and the situation requiring attention has been detected, send notification of the situation requiring attention detected information and the automobile positional information to the first mobile phone and to the second mobile phone.

3. The in-car status notification system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to:
in cases in which the situation requiring attention has been resolved after sending notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the first mobile phone and the second mobile phone, send notification of resolution of the situation requiring attention to at least a mobile phone not contributing to resolution of the situation requiring attention, from among the first mobile phone and the second mobile phone.

4. The in-car status notification system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to:
in a case in which the notification has been sent to the predetermined organization, record the notification to the predetermined organization, and in cases in which there is a record of a previous notification to the predetermined organization in a case in which the situation requiring attention is detected, send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the first mobile phone and to the predetermined organization after the first predetermined period of time elapses.

5. The in-car status notification system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to:
detect an in-car temperature by using a vehicle temperature sensor; and
shorten the first to the third predetermined periods of time in cases in which the in-car temperature lies outside a predetermined temperature range in a case in which the situation requiring attention is detected.

6. The in-car status notification system of claim 1 , further comprising an emergency button inside the vehicle cabin,
wherein the processor is configured to:
in cases in which pressing of the emergency button has been detected, send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the first mobile phone and the second mobile phone immediately after the situation requiring attention is confirmed.

7. The in-car status notification system of claim 6 , wherein the processor is configured to:
in cases in which pressing of the emergency button has been detected, send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to a predetermined organization immediately after the situation requiring attention is confirmed.

8. An in-car status notification method comprising:
by a processor, detecting that a situation requiring attention has arisen in which a child is alone inside an automobile by using at least one of a plurality of sensors or a camera;
detecting positional information of the automobile;
in cases in which the situation requiring attention has been detected, sending notification of the automobile positional information and situation requiring attention detected information indicating a child is alone in the automobile to at least a pre-set first mobile phone and a pre-set second mobile phone,
wherein the processor is configured to:
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the first mobile phone, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a first predetermined period of time from when the situation requiring attention was detected;
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to the second mobile phone, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a second predetermined period of time from when notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information was sent to the first mobile phone;
send notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information to a predetermined organization, in cases in which the situation requiring attention has not been resolved after a third predetermined period of time from when notification of the automobile positional information and the situation requiring attention detected information was sent to the second mobile phone;
record the notification to the predetermined organization, in a case in which the notification has been sent to the predetermined organization; and
shorten the first to the third predetermined periods of time in cases in which there is a record of a previous notification to the predetermined organization in a case in which the situation requiring attention is detected.

9. The in-car status notification method of claim 8 , further comprising:
by the processor, detecting the automobile being stationary; and
in cases in which the automobile being stationary has been detected and the situation requiring attention has been detected, sending notification of the situation requiring attention detected information and the automobile positional information to the first mobile phone and to the second mobile phone.

10. A non-transitory storage medium

Assignees

• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Nagatomi Keiko
• Toyama Noritaka
• Kobayashi Atsuko
• Ito Keisuke

Classifications

• G08B21/24

  Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms · CPC title

• H04W4/40

  for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P] · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• G08G1/20

  Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles · CPC title

• G08B21/0205 Primary

  Specific application combined with child monitoring using a transmitter-receiver system · CPC title