Rear occupant warning system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9630496-B2
Application number	US-201514666832-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 24, 2015
Priority date	Mar 24, 2015
Publication date	Apr 25, 2017
Grant date	Apr 25, 2017

Abstract

A vehicle occupant alert system may include an in-vehicle sensor configured to detect an object in a rear seat of a vehicle, and a controller configured to receive, from the sensor, an indication of an object in the rear seat, and to transmit, in response to the indication, presence information to a mobile device to cause the mobile device to transmit a command to a wearable device including instructions for an alert at the wearable device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A vehicle occupant alert system comprising:
an in-vehicle sensor configured to detect an object in a vehicle rear seat; and
a controller configured to
receive, from the sensor, an indication of an object in the rear seat, and
transmit, in response to the indication, presence information indicating the object in the rear seat to a mobile device to cause the device to transmit a command to a wearable device, the command including instructions for an alert at the wearable device.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to monitor, via at least one door sensor, the opening and closing of the vehicle doors.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether a driver door has been opened and subsequently closed.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the controller is further configured to determine, subsequent to the driver door opening and closing, whether a rear door of the vehicle has opened.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether a rear door of the vehicle has opened within a predefined time from the driver door closing.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the controller is configured to transmit the presence information in response to the indication and in response to a rear door not opening within the predefined time from the driver door closing.

7. A vehicle occupant alert system comprising:
a mobile device having a processor configured to
receive, from a vehicle, presence data indicative of an object in a rear seat of a vehicle; and
transmit, in response to the data, a command to a wearable device including instructions for a haptic alert at the wearable device.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the wearable device is configured to come into contact with a user for realization of the haptic alert.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the presence data further indicates that a rear door of the vehicle has not been opened for a predefined amount of time since a driver door of the vehicle has been closed.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the presence data is received over a first communication link and the command is transmitted over a second communication link distinct from the first communication link.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the second communication link is a communication link between the mobile device and the wearable device.

12. A system comprising:
a controller configured to
receive, from a door sensor, an indication of a closing of a driver door,
receive, from a seat sensor, an indication of an object in a rear seat, and
transmit, in response to the indication of the object and a rear door not opening within a predefined amount of time from the closing of the driver door, presence information indicating the object in the rear seat to a mobile device, the presence information to cause the mobile device to transmit a command to a wearable device including instructions for an alert at the wearable device.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the controller is further configured to receive an indication of an engine key-off triggering the controller to monitor the vehicle doors.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the alert is a haptic alert at the wearable device.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Cuddihy Mark A
• Rao Manoharprasad K
• Prakah-Asante Kwaku O

Classifications

• B60W2556/45

  External transmission of data to or from the vehicle · CPC title

• B60W50/14

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

• B60W2422/00

  Indexing codes relating to the special location or mounting of sensors · CPC title

• B60W2050/146

  Display means · CPC title