Systems and methods for facilitating safe school bus operations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12065075-B2
Application number	US-202217659855-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 20, 2022
Priority date	Apr 20, 2022
Publication date	Aug 20, 2024
Grant date	Aug 20, 2024

Abstract

Systems and methods for facilitating safe vehicle operations, such as reducing illegal passings, avoiding possible collisions, and assisting road users around a vehicle are provided. The system uses a smart algorithm to perform negotiations between the vehicle, e.g., a school bus, and other road users, e.g., road vehicles, bicycles, scooters, etc. The method may include capturing image data of the surroundings of the school bus to identify violations within a proximity of the school bus such as children jay-walking and vehicles illegally passing the school bus when the stop arm is raised. The captured data may be recorded and shared with the school bus, other road users, or local authorities.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A system comprising:
a memory that stores computer-executable instructions; and
a processor configured to access the memory and execute the computer-executable instructions to:
receive data from one or more sensors indicative of a hazard adjacent to a vehicle;
identify the hazard based on the data received from the one or more sensors;
generate an alert indicative of the identified hazard; and
transmit the alert to a road user within a predetermined distance from the vehicle,

wherein the hazard comprises a person jay-walking adjacent to the vehicle, and wherein the alert comprises a dynamic message of the person's location, and
wherein the data received from the one or more sensors comprises image data received from one or more cameras disposed on a road vehicle adjacent to the vehicle, the image data indicative of the person jay-walking adjacent to the vehicle, and wherein the processor is further configured to:
store the image data indicative of the person jay-walking adjacent to the vehicle; and
transmit the image data to the vehicle to facilitate safety sessions with the person for safety awareness.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle is a school bus.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the hazard comprises the road user exceeding a predetermined minimum separation distance between the road user and the vehicle.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the data received from the one or more sensors comprises image data received from one or more cameras disposed on at least one of the vehicle or the road user, the image data indicative of relative distance between the vehicle and the road user.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the data received from the one or more sensors comprises location data of the vehicle and the road user received from a GPS system of the vehicle and the road user, respectively, the location data indicative of relative distance between the vehicle and the road user.

6. The system of claim 3 , wherein the hazard comprises the road user exceeding a minimum separation distance between the road user and the vehicle while the vehicle is moving, while the vehicle is stationary, or while a stop arm of the vehicle is raised.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the alert is transmitted to the road user via a cloud database.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Bandi Krishna
• Lewis Nancy
• Shailendra Swetha
• James Gibin
• Palakonda Sathyanarayana Chary
• Klos Brandon

Classifications

• B60W2420/403

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

• B60W50/14

  Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention · CPC title

• H04W4/44

  for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H] · CPC title

• G06V20/17

  taken from planes or by drones · CPC title

• G06V20/54

  of traffic, e.g. cars on the road, trains or boats · CPC title