Systems and methods for determining a vehicle driver using at least peer-to-peer network signals

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10880686-B1
Application number	US-202016736094-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Jan 7, 2020
Priority date	Jan 7, 2020
Publication date	Dec 29, 2020
Grant date	Dec 29, 2020

Abstract

A user computing device for identifying a driver of a vehicle on a trip is provided. The user computing device is associated with a first vehicle occupant, and is programmed to: (i) detect a second user computing device associated with a second vehicle occupant, (ii) initiate a ping exchange process including emitting a set of non-audible sonic ping signals and detecting a set of signals from the second user computing device over a duration of the trip, (iii) generate a relative positioning map of the user computing device with respect to the second user computing device, (iv) determine that the first vehicle occupant is one of a driver and a passenger of the vehicle, and (v) transmit, to a driver identification (“DI”) server, a trip report including the determination and the generated relative positioning map.

First claim

I claim:

1. A first user computing device for identifying a driver of a vehicle on a trip, the first user computing device is associated with a first vehicle occupant, the first user computing device comprising at least one processor in communication with a memory device, wherein the at least one processor is programmed to:
detect, a second user computing device associated with a second vehicle occupant;
initiate a ping exchange process including emitting a first set of non-audible sonic ping signals and detecting a second set of non-audible sonic ping signals from the second user computing device over a duration of the trip;
generate, a first relative positioning map of the first user computing device with respect to the second user computing device, the first relative positioning map including a first position associated with the first vehicle occupant and a second position associated with the second vehicle occupant;
determine, based at least in part upon the generated first relative positioning map, that the first vehicle occupant is the driver or a passenger of the vehicle for the trip; and
transmit, to a driver identification (“DI”) server, a trip report including the determination and the generated first relative positioning map.

2. The first user computing device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to establish a local peer-to-peer network connection with the second user computing device to coordinate the ping exchange process.

3. The first user computing device of claim 2 , wherein the local peer-to-peer network connection is established over at least one of BLUETOOTH™ Low Energy (“BLE”) and ad hoc Wi-Fi.

4. The first user computing device of claim 2 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to transmit the generated first relative positioning map to the second user computing device over the established local peer-to-peer network connection.

5. The first user computing device of claim 1 , wherein during the ping exchange process, the at least one processor is further programmed to:
detect, using a microphone associated with the first user computing device, a first ping signal emitted by the second user computing device;
emit, in response to detecting the first ping signal, a second ping signal for detection by the second user computing device; and
measure a time delay between the first ping signal and the second ping signal.

6. The first user computing device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to calculate, based at least in part upon the generated first relative positioning map, a confidence factor associated with the determination.

7. The first user computing device of claim 6 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to:
receive, from the second user computing device, data associated with a second relative positioning map generated by the second user computing device; and
update the calculated confidence factor based at least in part upon the received data.

8. The user computing device of claim 1 , wherein the first set of non-audible sonic ping signals are high frequency sounds emitted in succession, wherein each ping signal of the first set of non-audible sonic ping signals is emitted at a predefined time increment over the duration of the trip.

9. A computer-implemented method for identifying a driver of a vehicle on a trip using a first user computing device, the first user computing device being associated with a first vehicle occupant, the first user computing device including at least one processor in communication with a memory device, the method including:
detecting, by first the user computing device, a second user computing device associated with a second vehicle occupant;
initiating, by the first user computing device, a ping exchange process including emitting a first set of non-audible sonic ping signals and detecting a second set of non-audible sonic ping signals from the second user computing device over a duration of the trip;
generating, by the first user computing device, a first relative positioning map of the first user computing device with respect to the second user computing device, the first relative positioning map including a first position associated with the first vehicle occupant and a second position associated with the second vehicle occupant;
determining, by the first user computing device, based at least in part upon the generated first relative positioning map, that the first vehicle occupant is the driver or a passenger of the vehicle for the trip; and
transmitting, by the first user computing device, to a driver identification (“DI”) server, a trip report including the determination and the generated first relative positioning map.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 further comprising establishing, by the first user computing device, a local peer-to-peer network connection with the second user computing device to coordinate the ping exchange process.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the local peer-to-peer network connection is established over at least one of BLUETOOTH™ Low Energy (“BLE”) and ad hoc Wi-Fi.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 further comprising transmitting, by the first user computing device, the generated first relative positioning map to the second user computing device over the established local peer-to-peer network connection.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 further comprising:
detecting, using a microphone associated with the first user computing device, a first ping signal emitted by the second user computing device;
emitting, by the first user computing device, in response to detecting the first ping signal, a second ping signal for detection by the second user computing device; and
measuring, by the first user computing device, a time delay between the first ping signal and the second ping signal.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 further comprising:
calculating, by the first user computing device, based at least in part upon the generated first relative positioning map, a confidence factor associated with the determination; and
transmitting, by the first user computing device, to the DI server, the calculated confidence factor along with the trip report when the trip ends.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising:
receiving, by the first user computing device, from the second user computing device, data associated with a second relative positioning map generated by the second user computing device; and
updating, by the first user computing device, the calculated confidence factor based at least in part upon the received data.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , wherein the first set of non-audible sonic ping signals are high frequency sounds emitted in succession, wherein each ping signal of the first set of non-audible sonic ping signals is emitted at a predefined time increment over the duration of the trip.

17. A driver identification (“DI”) server for identifying a driver of a vehicle on a trip, the DI server comprising at least one processor in communication with a memory device, wherein the at least one processor is programmed to:
detect, within the vehicle, a first user computing device associated with a first vehicle occupant and a second user computing device associated with a second vehicle occupant;
initiate a ping exchange process by instructing the detected user computing devices to (i) emit a first set of non-audible sonic ping signals and (ii) de

Assignees

• Blueowl Llc

Inventors

• Smith Bennett

Classifications

• H04W84/18

  Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks · CPC title

• G01S15/74

  Systems using reradiation of acoustic waves, e.g. IFF, i.e. identification of friend or foe · CPC title

• H04W4/48 Primary

  for in-vehicle communication · CPC title

• H04W4/023 Primary

  using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds · CPC title

• G06Q40/08

  Insurance · CPC title