Cabin Image Monitoring for Accurate Infant Left-Behind Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional devices inaccurately determine if an infant is left behind in a vehicle cabin based on rear door openings and closings, leading to false positives when the infant enters via the front door.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle-mounted system using an imaging device to capture stationary images of the cabin interior, combined with image processing to confirm the presence of an infant in a child seat and detect actions of placing or removing the infant, accurately determining if the infant is left behind.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If door opening/closing detection is used to determine infant presence, then the system can detect infant entry/exit, but false positives occur when infant enters via front door and exits via rear door
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an imaging device as an intermediary to directly observe and confirm infant presence in the cabin. Instead of relying solely on door detection signals, the system uses images captured by the imaging device to verify whether an infant is actually present, thereby eliminating false positives from door detection logic
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical door detection system with an optical imaging system. The imaging device captures images of the cabin interior, and image processing algorithms analyze these images to detect infant presence, substituting the mechanical door sensor approach with a visual detection method that provides more accurate and reliable results
2Measurement precision
If imaging device is used to capture cabin images, then infant presence can be confirmed accurately, but system complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the imaging device serve multiple functions: it captures images for infant presence detection, monitors cabin conditions, and provides visual records for safety verification. By making the imaging device multi-functional, the patent justifies the added complexity as it delivers comprehensive safety monitoring beyond simple presence detection
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the vehicle's existing communication infrastructure and processing capabilities to handle image data and generate alerts. The control unit leverages available computational resources and communication systems already present in modern vehicles, reducing the need for entirely new dedicated hardware subsystems
Data Source
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AI summary
A vehicle control unit 40 monitors an infant possibly left behind in a cabin of a vehicle. The vehicle control unit 40 performs a danger avoidance process of either avoiding or reducing a danger to the infant based on a monitoring result. The vehicle control unit 40 includes an image acquirer for acquiring one or more vehicle stationary images indicating an interior of the cabin. The one or more vehicle stationary images are captured by an imaging device 21 during stopping of the vehicle. A leaving behind determiner is provided to determine presence or absence of an infant left behind in the cabin based one or more vehicle stationary images.