Vehicle Cabin Item Detection for Passenger Exit Alerts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle cabin monitoring systems struggle to accurately identify and notify passengers of personal items left behind during travel-for-hire, leading to inconvenience and loss of revenue due to the time and resources required to determine ownership and return such items.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle control unit equipped with camera devices and door sensors identifies items within the cabin using image recognition and associates them with a passenger's identifier, generating alerts via mobile devices or vehicle announcements when the passenger exits, employing convolutional neural networks for enhanced image processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If image recognition is performed on the entire vehicle cabin image, then item identification accuracy is improved, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the vehicle cabin image into multiple regions of interest (ROIs) based on passenger location and potential item placement areas. Instead of processing the entire image, the system selectively analyzes specific regions where items are likely to be found, such as seats, floor areas, and storage compartments. This segmentation approach maintains identification accuracy while significantly reducing processing time and computational resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different processing quality levels to different regions of the image. High-resolution analysis is applied to regions with detected passengers or suspected item locations, while lower-resolution or no processing is applied to empty regions. This local quality adjustment optimizes the balance between identification accuracy and processing efficiency.
2Reliability
If the system monitors all items in the vehicle cabin continuously, then item loss mitigation is improved, but energy consumption and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by capturing images at specific trigger events such as passenger entry or exit, rather than continuous monitoring. The system proactively identifies items when passengers are present and sends notifications before items are lost, maintaining high reliability while reducing energy consumption through event-driven operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic monitoring at key moments in the passenger journey (entry, during trip, exit) rather than continuous monitoring. This periodic action pattern maintains effective item loss mitigation at critical transition points while significantly reducing overall energy consumption compared to continuous operation.
3Measurement precision
If the system processes and analyzes every detected item, then identification accuracy is improved, but processing speed and productivity decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and focuses analysis only on the most relevant portions of the image data - specifically regions containing passengers and areas where items are likely to be placed or left. By taking out and analyzing only these critical regions rather than processing every pixel and object in the entire cabin, the system maintains high identification accuracy for relevant items while improving overall processing speed.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method and device for mitigating passenger-related item loss in a travel-for-hire context are disclosed. An item (130) within a vehicle passenger region (124) is identified, and associated the identified item (130) with a passenger (162) identified by a passenger identifier. A vehicle cabin inventory database is updated with an entry based on the identified item (130) associated with the passenger identifier. A presence of the identified item (130) is detected within the vehicle cabin passenger region (124) when a passenger exit event occurs, and message data is generated including the entry that relates to the identified item (130) based on the presence of the identified item (130) within the vehicle cabin passenger region (124).