Anti-abandonment alarm device

Abstract

Anti-abandonment alarm device with application in a specific scope of artificial intelligence and use of existing state-of-the-art components applied to AI to implement and achieve health protection and prevention goals and to prevent the abandonment of children, person and animals in vehicles both in civilian and industrial environment in which it would prevent and avoid many workplace accidents, saving many lives and providing employers with an effective accident prevention tool. It can be installed inside not only motor vehicles, but its effectiveness can also extend to many other fields and sectors and work segments such as: cockpits and / or control / monitoring rooms and in any work environment in general in compliance and support of the protection and accident prevention legislation regarding the worker, including all those high-risk environments such as for example chemical, physical, biological.

Description

[0001] Anti-abandonment alarm device

[0002] DESCRIPTION

[0003] Alarm device, consisting of one or more interconnected elements, whose function is to prevent the abandonment of children under the age of four on board vehicles of categories Ml, Nl, N2 and N3 and which is activated if the driver leaves the vehicle.

[0004] Today, cars only have dashboard-mounted cameras that record every metre travelled by the car, and once the internal memory is full, they begin overwriting the oldest recordings.

[0005] In-vehicle cameras were once thought to be a luxury or even an obstacle to driving. Now, however, it's increasingly important to have them inside fleet vehicles, not only to prevent potentially dangerous situations (e.g., during parking maneuvers, to record any collisions or acts of vandalism while the vehicle is parked, to reconstruct the dynamics of an accident, etc.) and to prevent potentially dangerous situations related to events or human behavior that are difficult to manage or predict, such as alert situations related to minors left inside the vehicle and / or objects left inside that could pose a risk to the minors themselves or to the vehicle's physical safety.

[0006] The device being described is something different from the current surveillance cameras installed in car interiors as they are simple "dashcams", i.e. video cameras that perform merely passive recording and do not offer any functionality other than the possibility of disabling or turning them off.

[0007] The device to be developed is equipped with advanced features, i.e., it implements "intelligent" functions as it is able to process data from the video camera, according to a complex set of diversified technologies currently existing in the field of artificial intelligence (i.e., machine learning, object identification, vision, etc.), but above all through its original and unique combination of different materials and / or technological artifacts united, assembled and innovative aimed at an easier and more convenient application of the same in the sector of accident prevention and prevention of risks of any kind inside motor vehicles and which identify a series of critical and / or potentially dangerous situations that cannot be detected except through an advanced device, simulating and replacing human behavior as an "artificial eye" would do.

[0008] Furthermore, this device, when appropriately configured and "trained", is able to autonomously modify its behavior based on operational experience.

[0009] In this sense, artificial intelligence plays a very important role in providing logistical support in the large-scale industrial distribution sector. Once critical situations have been identified, this system, the result of an original and innovative combination of raw materials, tends to eliminate them by recognizing them and activating automated processes that essentially reduce the associated risks to zero, also based on specific operational experience.

[0010] In fact, these devices are also supported by specific regulations that have made the adoption of anti-abandonment systems for children and animals in cars mandatory, thus encouraging car manufacturers to structure their vehicles as much as possible during the sales phase by equipping them with all the technological tools aimed at reducing the margin of human error in this regard.

[0011] PURPOSE OF THE DEVICE: The device in question responds to the regulatory requirement of the INNOVATIVE HIGHWAY CODE through a constant application of the procedures derived from the selected components deriving from the use of artificial intelligence, important and easily introduceable in practical and industrial application, according to a minimally invasive approach in "plug-in" mode on the vehicle both "pre" and "post" registration (i.e. both for vehicles already produced and in production), which provides for the mandatory use of similar devices, currently non-existent, inside the passenger compartments of cars. In particular, in art. Article 172 of the Highway Code states: "1 -bis. The driver of vehicles in categories Ml, Nl, N2 and N3 registered in Italy, or registered abroad and driven by residents in Italy, when transporting a child under the age of four years secured to the seat with the restraint system referred to in paragraph 1, is required to use a special alarm device designed to prevent the child from being abandoned, compliant with the technical-constructive and functional specifications established by decree of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport ."

[0012] There are no fixed, in-vehicle devices similar to this one in the vehicles currently on the market. There are only stand-alone "gadgets" that attach to removable child seats.

[0013] The current device allows for 360° innovation in passenger compartment safety, not only for the safety of passengers inside the vehicle, but also to prevent damage inside the vehicle caused by potentially dangerous objects.

[0014] The legislation was established to protect and safeguard the interests of minors, and the proposed device is equipped with artificial intelligence to monitor the minor's movements inside the vehicle at all times, preventing them from abandoning or even forgetting dangerous objects, such as lighters or other items that could pose a risk to them and the safety of the vehicle itself.

[0015] Through the creation of specific machines, equipped with very precise technical details and through innovative and original development phases, as well as a component of technological artefacts combined and / or raw materials assembled for its characteristics, and existing in the state of the art and through specific new configurations of objects of use, such as tools, machines (or parts thereof) and in any case only in the right proportions and quantities of material found in order to achieve the result desired in the claims and known only to the owners who execute the prototypes, one wants to confer a particular effectiveness or convenience of application and use in daily life, compared to what is already known, to the devices that one wants to create and one is able to perform, through them, the aforementioned tasks that typically require human intelligence.

[0016] Artificial intelligence in this specific sector provides a robot or eye with computing capabilities that allow it to perform complex operations and "reasoning"— until recently the exclusive capabilities of human reasoning— in extremely short timeframes and with even greater reaction capacity and precision.

[0017] Thanks to artificial intelligence, it is possible (at least this is the ultimate goal) to make machines capable of performing complex actions and "reasoning," learning from mistakes and experience, and performing functions that until now have been exclusive to human intelligence.

[0018] Today, in Italy and around the world, artificial intelligence is used in businesses and beyond to perform tasks that would otherwise take a long time for humans.

[0019] Unlike traditional computer systems and programs that follow rigid, pre-established rules, the devices that are intended to be built and installed inside car interiors, as proposed through current claims, are designed specifically to analyze data acquired from sensors and cameras inside the car, to identify human patterns and make autonomous decisions that can be modified by specific operational experience with minimal human intervention.

[0020] The above works through a combination of sequences of secret technical data (at least in part), existing components assembled for this function and reused and even distributed on sensors, which implement innovative functions (so-called edge-AI) that can process huge amounts of data in real time .

[0021] At the heart of the Al learning process are elements / data, developed in a specific, secret sequence, created in the field and experimentally using innovative components to achieve its prevention functions: these are a set of devices useful for solving problems or performing tasks in the specific field of accident prevention applied to motor vehicles, for which legal requirements have been imposed. Machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, uses statistical techniques to give computers the ability to "learn" from data. When the device is exposed to more data, it adapts its results to improve its performance, just like a human learning from experience. "Deep learning," a more advanced form of machine learning, uses multilayered neural networks (hence "deep") to analyze such data. These neural networks are inspired by the structure of the human brain and are capable of learning from unstructured data such as images and text. This allows Al to recognize patterns and make decisions with remarkable precision, specifically in relation to the objectives inspired by the regulations applicable to the sector in question.

[0022] The "Anti-abandonment alarm device", as already conceived when the original patent application for utility model no. 202024000003010 dated 16 / 07 / 2024, and on the basis of the materials that will be assembled for a more correct application and ease of use already existing in the state of the art and in the commercial and industrial world, it can be installed inside not only motor vehicles, but its effectiveness can also extend to many other fields and sectors and work segments such as: cockpits and / or control / monitoring rooms and in any work environment in general in compliance with current legislation but above all in compliance and support of the protection and accident prevention legislation regarding the worker, including all those high-risk environments (e.g. chemical, physical, biological), being able to monitor through the addition of sensors of various kinds such as, for example, but not limited to, cameras and / or thermal cameras for the detection of situations of potential risk for the personnel employed therein, such as: "immobility" also due to illness, ambient temperature - too high or too low -, acoustic noise, vibrations in general, the presence of pathogens, etc., can be activated semi- automatically, activating alarms and / or automated reporting / verification processes (subject to appropriate configuration of the thresholds for the various triggers). This device would prevent and avoid many workplace accidents, saving many lives and providing employers with an effective accident prevention tool. Its application in accident prevention and safeguarding may lead to its widespread industrial application in multiple sectors, both nationally and internationally.

Claims

AMENDED CLAIMS received by the International Bureau on 20 November 2025 (20.11.2025)

1. [Amended] The anti-abandonment device consists of a box containing an SBC board (a certified industrial and military MCU), an optical acquisition system that uses artificial intelligence / machine learning techniques to autonomously recognize people and / or animals inside the passenger compartment and automatically respond in the event of a critical situation, acting directly on the actuators downstream of the control unit and simultaneously sending a distress signal to the outside via the wireless interfaces contained in the same box, as well as electro-mechanical actuators that act directly on the vehicle's controls (i.e., window lifts, horn, etc.).

2. [Amended] The device described in claim 1, placed inside the passenger compartment in an integrated or semi-integrated manner, powered by a pass-through battery to have total autonomy and independence from the vehicle's power supply, also implements an optical system for indirect temperature measurement that cross-references the image data acquired by the two optical sensors (camera and thermal camera) and, through the use of Al / machine learning techniques following training of the neural network on an appropriate dataset, allows it to self-train and further improve its operational capabilities.

3. [Cancelled]

4. [Cancelled]

5. [Cancelled]

6. [Cancelled]

7. [Cancelled]

8. [Cancelled]

9. [Cancelled]

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