Automatic Air Recirculation Using Computer Vision for Cabin Air Quality
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicles with internal combustion engines emit significant air pollution, leading to harmful exhaust fumes that can enter vehicle cabins, especially in enclosed spaces or when following polluting vehicles, and existing air recirculation systems have limitations such as fogging in cold weather and inadequate activation timing.
Innovation Solution
An automatic air recirculation system using computer vision to detect exhaust fumes and other pollutants, activating or deactivating the recirculation based on visual indicators and air quality thresholds, integrating convolutional neural networks for object detection and analysis with map data to optimize air quality management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If air recirculation is left off by default to maintain fresh air, then comfort is improved, but the vehicle allows exhaust fumes to enter when drivers are slow to activate recirculation
Solution Approach 1:
The air recirculation system performs self-service by automatically detecting harmful exhaust fumes and activating recirculation without requiring driver intervention. The system monitors the environment continuously and takes autonomous action to protect occupants, eliminating the need for drivers to manually operate the system while maintaining both comfort and protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary detection of air quality conditions before exhaust fumes can significantly penetrate the cabin. By continuously monitoring and being ready to activate recirculation immediately upon detecting pollutants, the system takes preliminary protective action rather than reacting after contamination has already occurred.
2Use of energy by moving object
If manual air recirculation activation is used to control air quality, then energy consumption is reduced, but response time to pollutant exposure is delayed
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual mechanical operation with automated optical detection and electronic control. Cameras and computer vision algorithms substitute for manual driver actions, enabling automatic detection and response to exhaust fumes without requiring physical intervention from the driver.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary detection layer between the external environment and the cabin air system. The camera-based detection system acts as an intermediary that senses pollutants before they can significantly enter the cabin, providing early warning and enabling preemptive activation of recirculation.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus includes a capture device and a processor. The capture device may be configured to generate pixel data corresponding to an exterior view from a vehicle. The processor may be configured to generate video frames from the pixel data, perform computer vision operations on the video frames to detect objects in the video frames and determine characteristics of the objects, analyze the characteristics with respect to the vehicle to determine visual indicators to predict an air quality and generate a control signal in response to an air quality value. The control signal may be configured to toggle an activation of an air recirculation feature of the vehicle when the air quality value reaches a threshold value. The visual indicators may be used to adjust the air quality value.