Patents Simplified: Methods and Systems for Assisting a Driver of a Vehicle

About the Patent

The advantages of machine assistance to driving are manifold, whether while travelling to a getaway place on a vacation or while on a tour to a hilly station. The environmental and weather conditions subsumed in a decision making while traversing a route, can be effective in smooth driving experience. This could further help in efficient energy management by following a predictable pattern and trend in real time. While driving, sensors and image data processed in a method via a computer aided software system can be of paramount advantage. This is the subject matter of the granted patent with the application No. 201841034614 filed by ANI Technologies Private Limited.

How it Works

Ordinarily, a driver assisted system can facilitate a smooth driving experience with a multitude of factors such as wear and tear of the tyres, pressure and temperature condition among others. The Patent in question has unique inventive aspects, where the sensor and image data are processed to generate driving-assisting features.

Environmental and fleet data associated with the route are further retrieved from data sources. The environmental and fleet data are further processed to generate driving-assisting features.

A warning message is generated based on the driving-assisting features. The warning message is communicated to each driver for facilitating driving-assistance in real-time.

In tune with the flair of driving, the driver is assisted with real time data captured by image-capturing devices installed in the vehicle. The data is then processed by a data processor helping to generate driving-assisted features indicative of real time smooth or bumpy road conditions, speed-time-distance attributes and health condition of the vehicle.

This is just the tip of an iceberg in terms of its functionality. To add icing to the cake, even driving patterns of each driver of each vehicle is processed by the system to make the system robust, supply as well as nimble at the same time. Imagine if the meteorological and weather data, road data in varied route conditions are augmented with passenger feedback data and vehicle maintenance data over a long period of time being assisted with a statistical model indicate of patterns of accident location and timing subsumed in designing a careful driving system is going to be a win-win scenario for any stakeholder in automotive value chain.

The patent is boosted by a method which processes sensor data consisting of at least one of location data, proximity data, gyroscope data, accelerometer data, and on-board diagnostic data. What propels creativity in a unique way in which the data collected by a panoply of sensors including location sensor, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor and an accelerometer sensor and further processed into a data which helps in decision making real time, assisting the driver while he is driving. This ensures both a smooth accident-free journey, while also being engine and fuel efficient at the same time!

Advantages

Patents are all about harnessing technology for the inventors and the ultimate users, so to say, the drivers driving the vehicle in this case. This is going to widen the scope of ensuring better health monitoring and assisting drivers in their decisions to avoid accidents, curate drivers’ risk profiles, monitor vehicle health conditions along with alerting accident location and time of each accident associated with the route by generating a warning message.

The value addition to any invention is to dovetail the same for improving user experience and ultimately adding to the efficacy and the utility of the state of the art. Today the landscape of driver assisted systems are changing the automotive sector. An early mover advantage would surely place you in a comfortable and a competitive space and a patent is one of the methods to achieve that competitiveness.

Author: Samrat Bandopadhyay, Legal Intern at PA Legal.

In case of any queries, kindly contact us here.