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GM GLOBAL TECH OPERATIONS LLC [US] - 2022-07-07

AIRBORNE CORONAVIRUS DETECTOR AND ALERTING SYSTEM
Detecting systems configured to detect airborne viruses, and methods of forming the same, are provide. A method for preparing a system for detecting an airborne virus includes preparing a thin-film coating on a surface of a substrate; ablating the coating to form an optical grating structure; and associating a plurality of receptors having an affinity and specificity for the virus with the optical grating structure so that the structure is capable of indicating the presence of the virus. A detecting system includes the optical grating structure and an optical component. The optical component includes a cavity defined by two opposing reflecting surfaces and configured to receive the optical grating structure, and a light source disposed adjacent to an exterior surface of a first reflecting surface. The light source may be configured to direct light towards the first reflecting surface so that light in resonance enters the cavity.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=37&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20220707&CC=US&NR=2022214480A1&KC=A1
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20220214480.pdf

[0124] For example, regarding the five evaluation levels used by the second determination processor 40B described in FIG. 13, the level may be set higher as the numerical value of the item is greater for the heart rate, the heart rate variability, the respiratory rate, the body temperature, the blood pressure, the hemoglobin level, and the number of times of blinking. The level may be set higher as the numerical value is smaller for the opening degree of an eye. For the vehicle external environment information, the level may be set higher as the situation is worse.

[0125] The third determination processor 100 may determine a rest state of the occupant inside the vehicle on the basis of the information obtained from the imaging unit 10, the information acquisition unit 20, or both. For example, the third determination processor 100 may determine the rest state of the occupant regarding, for example but not limited to, the activity amount, the sleep duration, the number of times of rolling while sleeping, the sleep state, and the rest duration. For example, the third determination processor 100 may determine the rest state from sleep state information including the sleep duration and the quality of sleep of the occupant acquired by the information acquisition unit 20. Further, the third determination processor 100 may determine the rest state, for example, from a moving image at a resting time of the occupant acquired by the imaging unit 10.

[0126] For example, regarding the five evaluation levels used by the third determination processor 100 described in FIG. 13, the level may be set higher as the numerical value of the item is greater for the activity amount, the number of times of rolling while sleeping, and the sleep state. The level may be set higher as the numerical value of the item is smaller for the sleep duration and the rest duration.

[0127] Non-limiting examples of the information to be obtained from the imaging unit 10 may include the rest duration, the sleep duration, and the number of times of rolling while sleeping. Non-limiting examples of the information to be obtained from the information acquisition unit 20 may include the rest duration, the sleep duration, the number of times of rolling while sleeping, and the sleep state including the quality of sleep.

SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ISOLATING COMPARTMENTS OF A VEHICLE
[0003] A manufacturer may build vehicles with sensors to gather sensor data about an occupant. A system may use the sensor data to adapt automated driving modes, climate control, safety systems, and so on. For example, the system may provide comfort by controlling air temperature or quality (e.g. smoke) for an occupant. Concerning safety, a safety system may be unable to measure the health risk of a stranger and determine exposure risk to other occupants. For example, an operator may be at increased risk when interacting with strangers, particularly for ride-sharing services. If preemptive action is needed, certain safety systems may also lack adaptive controls or cabin systems to mitigate the risk to the operator or occupants.

[0004] Furthermore, health risks in a vehicle are impacted by climate control systems. A climate control system may circulate air carrying a biological hazard between occupants in a cabin. For example, a virus may originate from an occupant who may be asymptomatic or showing light symptoms. The virus may be a risk for other occupants in the vehicle depending on immune system and health profiles. Accordingly, a climate control system may need particular controls and purposeful hardware in a cabin to mitigate health risks to occupants.

[0032] An assessed risk or risk level may factor location data of an occupant(s). The sensor controller 320 may acquire remote data from the edge server 340 or the cloud server 350. The remote data may include past travel history or contact tracing indicating travel of an occupant(s) through a pandemic, severe communicable disease, or an elevated risk area. The contact tracing information may include information from health authorities, crowd-sourcing, social media, and so on. Communicable diseases may include cholera, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, measles, coronaviruses, COVID-19, tuberculosis, and so on that are transmissible by contact with infected individuals or their bodily discharges or fluids (such as respiratory droplets, blood, or semen), by contact with contaminated surfaces or objects, and so on. In one approach, the isolation system 300 may execute contact tracing using a graphical neural network (GNN) that identifies relations between map data and location-based services (LBS) information of an occupant(s). The computer 315 may request the remote data using wireless module 335 that communicates with the wireless module 345 of the edge server 340. The edge server 340 may request the remote data from the cloud server 350 if none is located for occupants of the vehicle 100.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/description?CC=US&NR=2022185214A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20220616&DB=&locale=en_EP
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20220185214.pdf

METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR GENERATING TARGETED WARNINGS
A method and system for generating and outputting a targeting warning in association with a road agent is provided. The method includes detecting, by a sensor operating in conjunction with a computing device of a vehicle, a road agent at a distance from the vehicle, analyzing, by the computing device of the vehicle, one or more characteristics of the road agent at the distance, generating, by the computing device, a targeted warning based on analyzing the one or more characteristics of the road agent at the distance, and outputting, by a component operating in conjunction with the computing device of the vehicle, the targeted warning in association with the road agent at the distance.

0052] FIGS. 6A and 6B schematically depict an example operation of the vehicle system 200 that is configured to generate targeted warning that is output in association with a road agent (e.g., pedestrians, bicyclists, scooter operators, skateboarders, autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles, etc.) based on detecting the gaze of one or individuals within the vehicle 100, according to one or more embodiments described and illustrated herein. It is noted that the features depicted in FIGS. 6A and 6B will be discussed interchangeably. Specifically, the vehicle 100 is shown to be located at an intersection of a roadway at distance 408 away from the road agent 104. In some embodiments, an inward facing camera 216 may capture multiple images or a live video stream of a driver within the vehicle 100. Additionally, the one or more processors 202 may analyze these images or the live video stream to determine the direction of a gaze (or orientation of the eyes) of the driver 600 of the vehicle 100 relative to the road agent 104 at certain distance away from the vehicle 100. In a non-limiting example, one or more supervised machine learning techniques may be utilized by the one or more processors 202 to analyze the one or more images or live video stream of the driver 600 (captured by the inward facing camera 216) to determine precisely which areas in the exterior of the vehicle the driver 600 may be viewing. For example, the locations of focus of the driver's gaze may be predicted based on analyzing the orientation of the eyes of the driver 600. In a non-limiting example, the orientation of the eyes of the driver 600 may be analyzed in conjunction with the orientation of the head of the driver 600. In embodiments, if the eyes of the driver are detected as oriented in a certain direction (e.g., 10 degrees to the right of the steering wheel), the vehicle system 200 may determine that the driver 600 is looking in an area directly in front of the vehicle. Other such orientations are contemplated.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/description?CC=US&NR=2022189308A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20220616&DB=&locale=en_EP
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20220189308.pdf

VEHICULAR ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT FOR SUDDEN EVENTS
A method, computer system, and computer program product for managing medical events affecting a driver or passenger of a vehicle are provided. The method comprises: detecting, based on sensor data, a medical event affecting a driver of the vehicle; confirming, with a secondary decision maker, the medical event and one or more environmental changes to an internal environment of the vehicle based on the detected medical event; and executing the one or more environmental changes.

[0061] Sensors 118 may be any sensor or number of sensors capable of gathering medical data on a user. Medical data may include any measurement of physical or mental characteristics of a user that may have implications for the health of the user and/or the user's ability to operate a vehicle safely. For example, medical data may include heart rate, pupil dilation, movement and position of eyes, whether eyes are open, user movement, blood-alcohol content, body temperature, blood pressure, user speech, how much a user is sweating, et cetera. In some embodiments, sensors 118 may monitor medical data of passengers in the car. Sensors 118 may include heart rate monitors, visual and/or thermal cameras, blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters, brainwave monitors, microphones, motion detectors, weight sensors, smart fabric or e-textiles equipped to measure, for instance, salt on skin, et cetera. Sensors 118 may be integrated into a vehicle, and/or may be independent or integrated into a mobile or wearable device, such as a cell phone or a vitality tracker. In some embodiments, one or more sensors 118 may be integrated into client computing device 102. Sensors 118 may be operated by or otherwise in communication with vehicle assistant 108 and/or event management program 110A, 110B. In some embodiments, sensors 118 may be capable of gathering vehicle data, which may be any data relevant to the physical condition or operation of the vehicle. For instance, vehicle data may include steering, braking, or acceleration inputs to the vehicle from the user, speed and/or acceleration of the vehicle, wear on vehicle components, immediate environment of the vehicle, shocks or jolts experienced by the vehicle, damage sustained by the vehicle, structural stress of the vehicle, environment around the vehicle, et cetera. In some embodiments, for instance where vehicle data is gathered, sensors 118 may comprise acoustic sensors, seismic sensors, strain gauges, transducers, cameras, radar/sonar/lidar receivers, et cetera.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=WO&NR=2022121677A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20220616&DB=&locale=en_EP
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/WO2022121677A1.pdf

SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETECTING DISTRACTED DRIVING BY A DRIVER OF A VEHICLE
This disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods for detecting distracted driving. In an example method, a light source identification procedure may be executed for detecting a first device present inside a vehicle and outside a field of view of a driver monitoring camera (such as upon a dashboard). The procedure can include evaluating an image data sample obtained from the driver monitoring camera so as to identify various devices that may be emitting light incident upon the face of the driver. The incident light may include a first pulse pattern corresponding to light emitted by the first device and a second pulse pattern corresponding to light emitted by a second device. The first device can be detected in various ways such as by evaluating a phase relationship between the first pulse pattern and the second pulse pattern and/or by evaluating spectral content present in the image data sample.

[0002] A major concern in traffic safety is driver behavior, particularly distracted driving and drowsiness. Vehicle manufacturers have addressed such types of driver behaviors by offering driver monitoring systems (DSMs). A typical driver monitoring system monitors various physical characteristics of a driver in order to continuously assess his/her alertness. One of the various physical characteristics that may be monitored includes the driver's eyes, which could identify various conditions including for example drowsiness. Typically, the eyelids of a sleepy driver tend to be droopy, partially closed, or fully closed. When such condition is detected, the driver monitoring system may provide an audible alarm and/or provide vibration in the steering wheel of the vehicle to alert and awaken the driver.

[0003] However, in some cases, a driver may be fully awake but may take his/her eyes off the road due to distraction inside or outside the vehicle. A driver monitoring system may monitor a direction of gaze of the driver and determine that the driver is not looking at the road but is instead looking towards an object located inside the vehicle such as, for example, a child in the back seat of the vehicle. The driver monitoring system may issue an audible warning to prompt the driver to stop being distracted and pay attention to the road. Such an arrangement works fairly well when the direction of the gaze of the driver is distinctly directed away from the road ahead. However, a devious driver may decide to fool the driver monitoring system by placing a device (such as a smartphone or a laptop) on the dashboard of the vehicle in a way that the driver's eyes appear to be looking at the road ahead even though the driver is actually looking at the device.
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20220180722.pdf
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=0&ND=4&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20220609&CC=US&NR=2022180722A1&KC=A1

[0140] To monitor the subject's heart rate, the eye interrogation system includes an ultrasound system to measure ocular pulse. Ocular pulsation results from pulsatile blood flow in vasculature of the eye and reflects heart rate. Systolic heartbeat results in pulsatile ocular blood flow which generates a pressure wave at the retina which is transmitted through the intraocular media to the cornea which distends, moving 1-50 microns and then reverts back to its original position during the diastolic portion of the heartbeat. To measure ocular pulse the eye interrogation system includes an ultrasound wave source 918 and a receiver 920 to measure movement of the cornea based on Doppler frequency shift (see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,948,248 issued to Zuckerman et al. on Apr. 6, 1976, which is incorporated herein by reference). For example the ultrasound source may be a piezoelectric-based transducer that produces a continuous ultrasonic wave at approximately 1 MHz frequency which is collimated into a beam 2 mm to 3 mm in diameter that is focused on the cornea. Ultrasonic waves are reflected from the moving cornea and detected by a receiver 920 which converts the ultrasonic energy into an electrical signal that is processed by demodulation circuitry to reduce noise, amplify the signal and determine the frequency shift (a.k.a., the Doppler shift) of the reflected ultrasound waves. The frequency shift of the reflected ultrasound waves is used to calculate the movement, i.e., pulsation, of the cornea with respect to time, and the velocity of movement versus time is used to calculate heart rate. The relationship between ocular pulse and heart rate are described by linear equations (see e.g., Saha et al., Stroke 24: 1686-1690, 1993 which is incorporated herein by reference). A plot of ocular pulsation velocity versus time correlates with a simultaneous electrocardiogram (see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,948,248 Ibid.). Heart rates are determined by eye interrogation with ultrasound waves and transmitted to a computer for storage and comparison to average values for the computer user. Abnormal heart rate is reported to the computer user. Moreover, ocular pulsation data may be used to identify other diseases. For example, ocular pulse distortions may indicate: carotid stenosis, potential stroke and glaucoma. The eye interrogation system may alert the computer user when ocular pulsation data indicate potential diseases exist.

[0139] Health parameters for subject 906 are routinely monitored during use of the computer to provide information to subject 906 for example. Information regarding the subject's health parameters may also be provided to a health care provider or other party, for example via the internet. The interrogation system may monitor analytes present in the anterior chamber of the eye, for example, sodium salts, glucose, proteins, lipids and other metabolites. For example the concentration of sodium salts in the aqueous humor in the anterior chamber of the eye may be determined by reflectance spectroscopy and reference to a spectrum from a healthy subject with blood sodium levels in the normal range. Computer algorithms to determine sodium salt concentration based on reflection spectra are described (see e.g., U.S. Patent Appl. No. 2011/0184262, Ibid.). For example, user reflectance spectra are compared with reference spectra to compute analyte concentration. Multivariate analysis, e.g., Least Square analysis, may be used to calibrate the reference data and evaluate analyte concentrations. Sodium salt concentrations in aqueous humor of the eye may be correlated with blood sodium levels and hydration. To measure glucose levels of the subject reflectance spectra are obtained for concentrations of glucose as a function of wavelength. The intensity of light measured at a specific wavelength and the ratio of intensities at two or more wavelengths are characteristic for glucose in the aqueous humor of the eye. A characteristic pattern for glucose solutions at different wavelengths (e.g., 400 nm to 600 nm) may be established in vitro with the eye interrogation system, and an algorithm may be used to determine the concentration of glucose present in the aqueous humor of the eye. Noncontact optical systems to measure glucose in the eye including: energy sources emitting wavelengths in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum; reflectance detectors, e.g., spectrometers, and computer algorithms to analyze spectral data have been described (see e.g., Patent Application No. 2011/0184262, Ibid. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,197 issued to Stark on Jul. 18, 1995 is incorporated herein by reference). Glucose concentrations in the anterior chamber of the eye are correlated with blood glucose levels and since the aqueous humor is continuously replaced, changes in blood glucose concentrations are reflected in the aqueous humor with a delay of approximately 10 minutes (see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,197, Ibid.). Eye interrogation may be used to monitor the computer user's glycemic control. For example, the eye interrogation system may routinely monitor glucose levels in the eye and alert the user when hyperglycemia is evident.

UNOBTRUSIVE ACTIVE EYE INTERROGATION
Methods and systems for determining a physiological parameter of a subject through interrogation of an eye of the subject with an optical signal are described. Interrogation is performed unobtrusively. The physiological parameter is determined from a signal sensed from the eye of a subject according to a schedule, under the control of a scheduling controller.

[0137] FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a system as described generally in connection with FIG. 1. FIG. 9 illustrates an eye interrogation system 900 positioned relative to computer monitor 902. Eye interrogation system 900 detects gaze alignment and interrogates the eye 904 of a subject (computer user) 906 to determine health parameters while subject 906 works at the computer 908. To detect gaze alignment, a gaze tracking system is used to detect when the subject 906 looks at the interrogation source and/or the interrogation sensor. The gaze tracking system includes gaze tracking stimulus source which includes IR light source 910 and gaze signal sensor which includes IR camera 912, which detects the reflection of IR light from the eyes 904 of the subject 906. For example, a gaze tracking system for monitoring eye position is available from Seeing Machines Inc., Tucson, Ariz. (see e.g., the Specification Sheet: "faceLAB.TM. 5 Specifications" which is incorporated herein by reference). Eye position, eye rotation, eye gaze position against screen, pupil diameter and eye vergence distance may be monitored. Eye rotation measurements of up to +/-45 degrees around the y-axis and +/-22 degrees around the x-axis are possible. Typical static accuracy of gaze direction measurement is 0.5-1 degree rotational error. The gaze tracking system includes software and circuitry forming a part of gaze signal processor (in eye interrogation system 900; the processing capability of computer 908 may also be used, through special purpose software or hardware installed therein) to analyze the gaze tracking data and to detect alignment of the user's gaze with an broad spectrum light source (interrogation signal source) 914 and/or an optical collector/spectrometer (response signal sensor) 916. Alignment of the user's eyes with the interrogation signal source 914 or the response signal sensor 916 triggers activation of the interrogation signal 914 source by the circuitry in system 900.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?II=104&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20190912&CC=US&NR=2019274537A1&KC=A1
https://www.freepatentsonline.com/20190274537.pdf

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