Camera-Based Stop Signal Alarm for Legacy Vehicle Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current technologies fail to provide effective driving safety systems for legacy vehicles without native sensors or controls, as they rely on external data transmission or native vehicle data, making it commercially unfeasible to install aftermarket sensors and controls in millions of vehicles on the road.
Innovation Solution
A system using a non-native camera, such as an ordinary cell phone, positioned inside a vehicle to capture images of stop signals and process them to estimate the likelihood of needing to stop, triggering an alarm if necessary, without relying on Wi-Fi, cellular, or vehicle-native data, and allowing for user-adjustable risk tolerance and alarm escalation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If native sensors and controls are installed in legacy vehicles to provide autonomous vehicle safety features, then driving safety is improved, but the cost and complexity of vehicle modification increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a camera to capture images of stop signals and processes these images to extract stop signal information, effectively creating a visual copy of the traffic environment. This approach replicates the sensing capability of native sensors without requiring actual sensor installation, thereby improving safety while avoiding the complexity and cost of hardware modification
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the need for mechanical sensor installations and control systems with a software-based image processing approach. By using a camera and image analysis algorithms to detect stop signals and calculate vehicle parameters, the system substitutes complex mechanical/electrical sensor systems with a simpler optical and computational approach
2Reliability
If external data transmission pathways like Wi-Fi and cellular are used to provide stop signal information, then driving safety is improved, but the system becomes dependent on external infrastructure and data connectivity
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the vehicle's own camera to capture stop signal images and processes these images internally to extract all necessary information including stop signal presence, distance, and vehicle speed. This self-service approach eliminates dependence on external data transmission pathways while maintaining safety functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts all necessary driving safety information directly from images captured by the camera, removing the need for external data transmission. By taking out the dependency on Wi-Fi and cellular infrastructure and performing all processing locally, the system achieves both safety improvement and infrastructure independence
3Measurement precision
If vehicle-native speed and acceleration data are used to determine stopping likelihood, then accuracy is improved, but the system cannot be implemented in legacy vehicles without native sensors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses images captured by a camera to create a visual representation of the vehicle's environment and motion. By analyzing changes in stop signal appearance, position, and timing across sequential images, the system derives speed and acceleration information without requiring native sensors, making implementation feasible in legacy vehicles
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces images as an intermediary medium to obtain vehicle motion information. Instead of directly measuring speed and acceleration with native sensors, the system uses image sequences as an intermediary to indirectly derive these parameters through analysis of stop signal characteristics, enabling legacy vehicle compatibility while maintaining measurement capability
Data Source
AI summary
The inventive subject matter provides devices and methods for improving driving safety using information obtained from images taken by a camera in a device. Among other things, contemplated devices and methods can produce alarms when it appear from rates of speed and acceleration/deceleration, that a vehicle will likely go through a red light, or fail to stop or sufficiently slow down at a stop sign. A significant feature of preferred devices and methods is that they are not dependent on WI-FI, cellular, satellite and radio signals, or any other external data transmission, and are not even dependent on speed, acceleration, or other information native to the vehicle.