Monitoring device, monitoring method, and monitoring system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11971265-B2
Application number	US-202217682445-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2022
Priority date	Apr 1, 2021
Publication date	Apr 30, 2024
Grant date	Apr 30, 2024

Abstract

A monitoring device includes: an instruction unit configured to instruct a vehicle to acquire appearance data of a monitoring object designated by a user; a detection unit configured to receive the appearance data from the vehicle and to detect whether a state of the monitoring object has changed based on the appearance data; and a monitoring result notifying unit configured to notify the user of a monitoring result of the monitoring object when the detection unit detects that the state of the monitoring object has changed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A monitoring device comprising:
a processor configured to:
instruct a vehicle to acquire appearance data of a monitoring object designated by a user;
receive the appearance data from the vehicle and to detect whether a state of the monitoring object has changed based on the appearance data;
notify the user of a monitoring result of the monitoring object when the processor detects that the state of the monitoring object has changed; and
determine a charge for monitoring the monitoring object,

wherein the vehicle is a regular-route bus of which a travel route is determined in advance, and
wherein the processor is configured to set the charge for use to be higher when the monitoring object is not located on the travel route than when the monitoring object is located on the travel route.

2. The monitoring device according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to notify the user that the state of the monitoring object has changed when the processor detects that the state of the monitoring object has changed.

3. The monitoring device according to claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to detect whether the monitoring object has an abnormality based on the appearance data, and
wherein the processor is configured to notify the user of the monitoring result of the monitoring object when the processor detects that the monitoring object has an abnormality.

4. The monitoring device according to claim 3 , wherein the monitoring result processor is configured to notify the user that an abnormality of the monitoring object has occurred when the processor detects that the monitoring object has an abnormality.

5. The monitoring device according to claim 1 , wherein the appearance data of the monitoring object includes a captured image of the monitoring object.

6. The monitoring device according to claim 5 , wherein the processor is configured to notify the user of the monitoring result by transmitting the captured image of the monitoring object to the user when the processor detects that the state of the monitoring object has changed.

7. The monitoring device according to claim 5 , wherein the processor is configured to transmit the captured image of the monitoring object to the user in response to a request from the user.

8. The monitoring device according to claim 5 , wherein the processor is configured to transmit the captured image of the monitoring object to the user when disaster information of an area in which the monitoring object is situated is acquired.

9. The monitoring device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
detect a rate of change of the appearance data;
determine that the state of the monitoring object has changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is equal to or greater than a predetermined value; and
determine that the state of the monitoring object has not changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is less than the predetermined value.

10. A monitoring method comprising:
instructing a vehicle to acquire appearance data of a monitoring object designated by a user;
receiving the appearance data from the vehicle and detecting whether a state of the monitoring object has changed based on the appearance data;
notifying the user of a monitoring result of the monitoring object when it is detected that the state of the monitoring object has changed; and
determining a charge for monitoring the monitoring object,
wherein the vehicle is a regular-route bus of which a travel route is determined in advance, and
wherein the charge for use is set to be higher when the monitoring object is not located on the travel route than when the monitoring object is located on the travel route.

11. The monitoring method of claim 10 , further comprising:
detecting a rate of change of the appearance data;
determining that the state of the monitoring object has changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is equal to or greater than a predetermined value; and
determining that the state of the monitoring object has not changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is less than the predetermined value.

12. A monitoring system comprising:
a vehicle; and
a server,
wherein the vehicle includes a surrounding information detecting device configured to detect surrounding information of the vehicle, and
wherein the server includes:
a processor configured to:
instruct the vehicle to acquire appearance data of a monitoring object designated by a user;
receive the appearance data from the vehicle and to detect whether a state of the monitoring object has changed based on the appearance data;
notify the user of a monitoring result of the monitoring object when the processor detects that the state of the monitoring object has changed; and
determine a charge for monitoring the monitoring object,

wherein the vehicle is a regular-route bus of which a travel route is determined in advance, and
wherein the processor is configured to set the charge for use to be higher when the monitoring object is not located on the travel route than when the monitoring object is located on the travel route.

13. The monitoring system of claim 12 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
detect a rate of change of the appearance data;
determine that the state of the monitoring object has changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is equal to or greater than a predetermined value; and
determine that the state of the monitoring object has not changed when the rate of change of the appearance data is less than the predetermined value.

Assignees

• Toyota Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Ishikawa Marie
• Hamajima Aya
• Hotta Daichi
• Ito Hayato
• Sasaki Hidekazu
• Kobatake Yasuhiro
• Kusumoto Akihiro

Classifications

• G01C21/3461 Primary

  Preferred or disfavoured areas, e.g. dangerous zones, toll or emission zones, intersections, manoeuvre types or segments such as motorways, toll roads or ferries · CPC title

• B60W50/10 Primary

  Interpretation of driver requests or demands · CPC title

• G01C21/3438

  Rendezvous; Ride sharing · CPC title

• G01C21/3492

  employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical (traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968) · CPC title

• B60W2420/403

  Image sensing, e.g. optical camera · CPC title