WO2014181303A1

WO2014181303A1 - Vehicle monitoring and feedback system

Info

Publication number: WO2014181303A1
Application number: PCT/IB2014/061325
Authority: WO
Inventors: Aron HOWARD
Original assignee: OUTSURANCE HOLDINGS Ltd
Current assignee: OUTSURANCE HOLDINGS Ltd
Priority date: 2013-05-09
Filing date: 2014-05-09
Publication date: 2014-11-13
Anticipated expiration: 2015-11-09

Abstract

A vehicle monitoring and feedback system suitable for use in a telematics insurance scheme. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system includes a mobile communication device and a driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device, with the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device being adapted to transmit information to the mobile communication device. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system also includes a remote data receiving and analysis system for receiving driver behaviour information emanating from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device via the mobile communication device. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system is characterized in that at least some of the driver behaviour information is also displayable directly on the mobile communication device.

Description

VEHICLE MONITORING AND FEEDBACK SYSTEM

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

THIS invention relates to a vehicle monitoring and feedback system and more particularly but not exclusively, to a vehicle monitoring and feedback system suitable for use in a telematics insurance scheme.

Telematics is a sphere of information and communications technology (iCT) that involves the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics. It includes the technology of sending, receiving and storing information relating to moving vehicles via telecommunication devices. In one particular, but non-limiting, example telematics is used as an integrated system where driving behaviour is used to develop a driver profile, which is in turn integrated with an insurance scheme. In the insurance industry this is often referred to as telematic insurance. Various systems suitable for use in telematic insurance schemes are already known in the market. Existing systems are usually a combination of tracking devices that are augmented to be able to determine acceleration in order to detect driving behaviour, which information can then be sent to a remote database for further analysis. A driver profile can be developed using such data, and the driver profile can in turn be used in determining a risk profile, and hence to calculate a risk and merit-based driver insurance premium.

A number of shortcomings are associated with existing systems for use in telematic insurance. Existing systems often require the installation of a standard tracking device, which is costly and in addition also difficult to install, hence requiring installation by a professional installer. The communication link used by the tracking device is also a dedicated communication link which is only used for the purposes of tracking the vehicle. This results in potential duplication, as modern cellular telephones or smartphones already have the inherent capability of providing the necessary communication capability. Existing systems furthermore provide driver information to the insurer without giving real-time feedback (to prompt corrective action) to the driver.

It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a vehicle monitoring and feedback system that will, at least partially, alleviate the above disadvantages.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a vehicle monitoring and feedback system which will be a useful alternative to existing vehicle monitoring and feedback systems. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the invention there is provided a vehicle monitoring and feedback system including:

a mobile communication device;

a driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device; the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device being adapted to transmit information to the mobile communication device; and a remote data receiving and analysts system for receiving driver behaviour information emanating from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device via the mobile communication device;

characterized in that at least some of the driver behaviour information is also dispiayabie directly on the mobile communication device.

There is provided for the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device to have the ability to record driving events, as well as to provide visual feedback to the driver regarding driving behaviour.

The vehicle monitoring and feedback system may also include a Global Positioning System (GPS) device that collects vehicle location information for transmission to the data receiving and analysis system.

The mobile communication device may be in the form of a smartphone.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device may include communication means suitable for enabling wireless communication between the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device and the smartphone.

The communication means is preferably in the form of low energy Bluetooth enabling technology. The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device may include a gyroscope and an accelerometer for use in determining driver behaviour.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device may also include a number of LED's for use in conveying visible warning messages to the driver.

There is provided for the remote data receiving and analyses system to be an insurance administration system.

Preferably the system also includes a smartphone application for use in calibrating the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device.

There is also provided for the smartphone application to be configured for receiving and transmitting the data from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device to the remote data receiving analyses system.

There is also provided for the smartphone application to be configured for receiving and transmitting vehicle location information from the GPS device to the remote data receiving analyses system.

There is also provided for the smartphone application to be configured for displaying information from the remote data receiving analyses system on driving behaviour.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A preferred embodiment of the invention is described by way of a non- limiting example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is an illustration of the vehicle monitoring and feedback system in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

Figure 2 is a diagram of a driving behaviour feedback device forming part of the system of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a diagram of the GPS device that forms part of the system in Figure 1 ;

Figure 4 is a block diagram of the motion analysis sub-system used in the vehicle monitoring and feedback system;

Figure 5 shows the vehicle and earth coordinate systems;

Figure 6 shows the vehicle and device coordinate systems;

Figure 7 is a graphical representation of the cornering force;

Figure 8 depicts the vehicle roll and force vectors;

Figure 9 is a flow diagram of the discretional cornering calculation logic;

Figure 10 is a diagram showing the events detector inputs and outputs; Figure 11 shows an example of an event detection graph; Figure 12 is a graph setting out the adaptive cornering thresholds;

Figure 13 is a flow diagram describing the logic to separate the vehicle self acceleration signal; and

Figure 14 shows an example of the tilt compensation filtering graph.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION

Referring to the drawings, in which like numerals indicate like features, a non-limiting example of vehicle monitoring and feedback system in accordance with the invention is generally indicated by reference numeral

1.

The system includes a driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2, a GPS device 3, a smartphone 4 incorporating a smartphone application 4.1 , an insurance administration system 5, and a communication interface 8 for sending and receiving information between the smartphone 4 and the insurance administration system 5.

o

The feedback device 2 has a wireless communication interface 7 for communicating with the GPS device 3, for example via the Bluetooth module 2.5 and Bluetooth antenna 2.9 on the feedback device and the Bluetooth module 3.1 and Bluetooth antenna 3.5 on the GPS device.

The feedback device 2 has a wireless communication interface 6 for communicating with the smartphone 4, for example via Bluetooth module 2.5 and Bluetooth antenna 2.9. The GPS device 3 has a wireless communication interface 9 for communicating with the smartphone 4, for example via the Bluetooth module 3.1 and Bluetooth antenna 3.5.

The smartphone 4 in turn communicates with the insurance administration system 5 through a conventional cellular communication interface 8.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 is used to monitor driving behaviour using data collected by sensors 2.6 and together with the micro controller 2.1 and driving behaviour software 2.3. The driving behaviour events are then logged in non-volatile FLASH memory 2.7 and visual feedback to the driver by means of LED lights 2.8. The device records acceleration, cornering and braking forces at regular intervals. The driving behaviour and feedback device 2 is powered by an internal battery 2.4. The motion analysis algorithm that is employed is described in more detail below. The driving behaviour logs within the driving behaviour and feedback device 2 are then transmitted to the Bluetooth enabled smartphone 4 on request.

The GPS device 3, once powered on, will continuously attempt to acquire a number of the Global Positioning Satellites 10 via the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) module 3.4 and GNSS antenna 3.6. Once the acquisition of signals from satellites 10 is successful, the software on the GPS device 3.3 will derive the location via the software 3.3 based on the data received from the GNSS module 3.6 and the results are then stored in volatile memory 3.2. The location information that is stored in volatile memory 3.2 within the GPS device 3 is then transmitted to the Bluetooth enabled smartphone 4 on request.

The location information and behaviour information that are stored within the Bluetooth enabled smartphone 4 are then transferred to the insurance administration system 5 for analysis. The existing communication functionality of the smartphone 4 may be used for this, and no additional communication interface is required. The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 therefore only needs to communicate with the GPS device 3 and the smartphone 4, which is in close proximity thus allowing the use of, for example, Bluetooth, and no GSM based communication functionality has to be incorporated into the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2. This significantly reduces the size and cost of the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 and the GPS device 3.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 includes the following characteristics:

• A square plastic device approximately 40mm by 40mm wide and high, and approximately 20mm deep.

• A switch to pair the device to a smartphone using Bluetooth.

• A square opaque area with blue, red or amber LEDs behind it that can illuminate the device a particular colour.

• A removable tab at the back of the device. When removed it allows the device to be attached to a glass windscreen.

• An internal tamper switch that can detect if the device has been opened.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 is now described in more detail with reference to Figure 2.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 includes a micro controller 11 that intermittently reads data from a three-axis accelerometer 14 and three-axis gyroscope 15, with the outputs combined to produce information to be read by the micro controller 11. The micro controller 11 is then responsible for storing the relevant results in flash memory 20 as well as providing real time feedback via the status LED's (red and amber light emitting diodes) 12. The micro controller 11 is also responsible for managing communication between the device 2 and the GPS device 3 via the Bluetooth module 21 and Bluetooth antenna 21. The micro controller is also responsible for managing the communication between the device 2 and the smart phone 4 via the Bluetooth module 21 and Bluetooth antenna 22.

The power manager 19 is responsible for sending power usage information to the micro controller 11 as well as regulating the power to the components on the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2. The battery source 18 is a low voltage non-rechargeable power source that is sufficient to power the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2.

The status LED 12 is turned BLUE or off by the micro controller 11 and is used as an indicator that the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 is communicating to a smart phone 4 or when an error occurs. The status LED 12 is turned RED or off by the micro controller 11 and is used to provide real time feedback to the driver when Very bad¹ driving behaviour has been detected. The status LED 12 is turned amber or off by the micro controller 11 and is used to provide real time feedback to the driver when 'bad' driving behaviour has been detected.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 also includes flash memory 20, which is in the form of non-volatile FLASH RAM, and which is used by the micro controller 11 to store the results of the driving behaviour algorithm as a result of data collected from the three-axis acceierometer 14, the three-axis gyroscope 15 and the location data received from the GPS device 3.

A Bluetooth module 21 is used to communicate between a compatible smart phone device 4 and the micro controller 11. A Bluetooth antenna 22 can transmit up to 10 metres from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 to the smart phone 4 or the GPS device 3. A Bluetooth pair switch 13 is used by the user to synchronise or connect the smart phone application 4 to the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2. The GPS device 3 is now described in more detail with reference to Figure 3

The GPS device 3 is designed to plug into the 12V auxiliary connector within the vehicle 1. Once power is provided to the GPS device 3_t the power conditioning and protection module 25 then provides appropriate power to the components on the GPS device 3 as well as providing power to an USB charging interface 24. The GPS device 3 includes a micro controller and Bluetooth module 23 that continuously receives reads location related data from a GNSS module 27 via the GNSS antenna 29 with the outputs combined to produce information to be read by the micro controller 23. The micro controller 23 is then responsible for converting the information from the GNSS module and converting it into location coordinates and storing the results in the internal memory of the MCU 23. The MCU 23 also provides real time feedback on the status of acquiring satellite signals via the LED indicators 26. The micro controller 23 is also responsible for managing communication between the GPS device 3 and the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 via the incorporated Bluetooth and Bluetooth antenna 28.

In use, the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 uses information collected from the acce!erometer 14, gyroscope 15 and location information from the GPS device 3 and stores the following information in the FLASH memory 20:

• Date / time (in UTC format)

• location of the vehicle;

• acceleration;

• driving events (including hard breaking, hard cornering, hard acceleration or hard lane changes); and

• average speed. The information is to be stored whenever a driving event has occurred or at least every 5 minutes for the time the vehicle is in movement. The frequency of the recordings can also vary depending on the amount of change experienced by the sensors.

The microcontroller connected to the various sensors is used to record the output from sensors and record the values into non-volatile RAM. These recorded values are then analysed by an equation to determine if any of the driving scenarios described above exceed thresholds. If thresholds are exceeded, the device will provide feedback to the driver, using a red LED for very bad driving or amber LED for bad driving behaviour.

When the device is not actively recording sensor data or calculating driving behaviour, or sending or receiving data to the smartphone device, it is put into a low power mode or sleep mode to conserve battery power. The device is to use Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy. The device is woken up for action, by one of the following conditions:

• The accelerometers detect motion;

• a "watchdog" event, e.g. time to record another sensor reading;

• a synchronisation request by a connected smartphone; or

• Bluetooth communication request by the smartphone.

The driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 is expected to be able to hold at least 6 months of information before reaching memory limits. The information is cleared once it has been transferred to the smartphone app and onto the insurance system. The configuration data that may contain personal information or smartphone details is encrypted using a high security encryption algorithm to protect customer information.

It is foreseen that the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device 2 will be used in conjunction with a smartphone application 4.1 that is installed on the smartphone. The smartphone application 4.1 will allow the user to access various aspects of his or her driving behaviour, and will also be able to calculate and display potential insurance policy savings based on the determined driver profile.

Based on the driving profile information a user will receive a benefit which will reduce his or her car insurance cost. The benefit could be passed on to the client in various ways, e.g:

• the user will receive a discount upon the annual renewal of their car insurance policy; or

• the user may receive a cash amount back, on an annual basis, ranging from (say) 5% to 50% of their premiums based on his or her driving behaviour and claims experience.

The motion analysis algorithm is described in more detail with reference to Figures 4 to 12. The purpose of the motion analysis algorithm is to detect specific driving events in real time by analysis of inertia! sensors. The algorithm has been optimized to work efficiently on a low-power microprocessor with limited memory and processing capabilities.

With reference to Figure 4, the functional blocks of the system perform the following key functions:

Sampling - The inertia! sensors are sampled at a constant rate (e.g.

50Hz), generating two 3D vectors per sample (Acceleration XYZ and rotational angular speed XYZ).

Tilt/Rotl Compensation - The acceleration and angular speed vectors are transformed according to the device calibrated tilt/roll angles in order to align the motion vectors with the coordinates system of the vehicle.

Tilt/Roil Compensation - The transformed vectors are filtered with a low-pass digital filter.

Vehicle Motion Extraction - The vehicle relative forces are calculated from the filtered motion vectors.

Events Detection - An events detection system is used to extract discrete events based on the forces acting on the car (e.g. "braking event"). Two levels of events severity are detected - "moderate" and "hard" events.

In order to correctly calculate the forces acting on the vehicle, the device coordinates system must be aligned with the vehicle coordinates system as shown in Figure 5. While assuming that the Y axis of the measuring device is aligned, the pitch and roll angles must be compensated for. The aligned vectors are calculated by using standard affinity matrices math:

M_t = M_rx(pitch) .M _ry(roll )

M_rx = X axis affine rotation matrix ("roll" matrix)

M_ry = axis affine rotation matrix ("pitch matrix")

M_rt = Combined transform matrix

The inertial sensors data is filtered by using a two poles recursive IIR digital low-pass filter. The cut-off frequency is set to different values for the accelerometers XY axes, accelerometer Z axis and the Gyro axes. The two poles IIR filter is calculated according to the recursive equation:

The "c" coefficients are calculated offline according to the required cut-off frequency.

The forces acting on the vehicle are calculated based on the corrected and filtered inertial data. This calculation is "history independent" and is being performed without taking into consideration the previous state of the system. This approach is different from classic inertial navigation (where the data is integrated along a long period of time in order to calculate the vehicle motion). The gravity component and the self-acceleration component of the vehicle cannot be separated without knowing the pitch angle of the vehicle relative to the ground, illustrated in Figure 6. The forces measured by the acceierometer are:

β = vehicle pitch angle relative to the ground

If the vehicle pitch angle is known, the forward/backward acceleration of the vehicle can be calculated:

The pitch angle of the vehicle may be calculated directly by using the 2 acceleration component of the vehicle:

This calculation method assumes that the vehicle does not accelerate significantly along its Z axis.

By using the direct pitch angle calculation approach it is impossible to know whether the vehicle is travelling uphill or downhill -

The processing algorithm supports the direct pitch angle calculation method in order to verify the correctness of the vehicle forward acceleration vector extraction by limiting the allowed pitch angle to a limited (relatively small) range (e.g. +=12 degrees).

The processing algorithm supports an additional method for calculating the pitch angle by detecting the right "opportunity" for calculation. An opportunity is detected where the combined acceleration vector is equal to 1g (i.e. the vehicle is travelling at constant velocity). When the right opportunity is detected, the pitch angle is calculated according to the following formula:

The calculated pitch angle is used for the vehicle forces extraction and remains valid until a new opportunity for calculation is detected.

The algorithm also calculates the forces acting on the vehicle during a turn in order to detect a cornering event. The following values are calculated:

• Centripetal force

• Turn radius

• Linear velocity during the turn

The relationship between the vehicle speed, turn radius and radial turn rate is shown in Figure 7. The radial turn rate is directly measured by the Gyro sensor.

The centripetal force is extracted from the accelerometers data and is dependent of the roll angle of the vehicle. More particularly, and with reference to Figure 8:

F_v = Centripetal force acting on the vehicle

Measured acceleration on the Y axis a - Roll angle during the turn

The roll angle of the vehicle during a turn is calculated by using the measured acceleration forces acting on the vehicle:

The roll angle equation is solved by using numerical solver algorithm by calculating the derivative function of the roll angle function:

The equation can be solved by using the Newton-Raphson iterative method:

In order to preserve power during operation, the computation intensive calculation of the cornering parameters is enabled only if certain conditions are met. The logic shown in Figure 9 is used in order to decide whether to perform the full cornering calculation. The selective enabling of the cornering algorithm has the additional advantage that the Gyro sensor can be turned off while it is not required for additional power saving.

The events detection part of the algorithm uses the calculated vehicle motion values in order to generate discrete driving events. Figure 10 summarises the Event Detector inputs and outputs.

Two sets of threshold values (moderate + hard) are used for each event type, as is illustrated in Figure 11. After a moderate event threshold is detected, a time window is used in order to decide whether the event is moderate or hard (a "moderate" event will always occur before a "hard" event).

In order to provide better estimation for the level of risk associated with high speed cornering while driving, the threshold parameters for the cornering event detection are dynamically adjusted according to the vehicle speed. As the vehicle speed goes up, the threshold value for the centripetal acceleration force goes down (thus the amount of force required for triggering an event is reduced).

An "effective" threshold value is calculated using linear interpolation between two fixed threshold values for "low" and "high" speeds, as shown in Figure 12.

Tiit compensation is an optional feature in the processing algorithm designed to minimize the effect of the road inclination on the calculated forces.

It is impossible to distinguish in a given moment in time between the acceleration force projection by the earth's gravity and the vehicle self- acceleration forces.

By using an assumption that the rate of change of the vehicle tiit is significantly slower than the rate of change of the vehicle acceleration, it is possible to distinguish between the two forces. The tilt compensation algorithm uses frequency domain analysis in order to separate the frequency components of the acceleration.

The vehicle X axis signal is assumed to contain two frequency components:

A_x(f) = R(f) + V(f)

V{f) = Vehicle self motion frequency component

R(f) = Road inclination frequency component

The vehicle self-acceleration signal is separated using the algorithm as detailed in Figure 13.

An example graph of the tilt compensation filtering is shown in Figure 14. The blue line shown in the graph in Figure 14 represents the acceleration force measured in a vehicle accelerating and braking while driving on a tilted road (e.g. going uphill or downhill).

At the left most part of the graph in Figure 14, the vehicle is standstili, but the measured acceleration is negative ("-4000") and not zero due to the gravity force projection on the X axis of the vehicle.

The red line represents the tilt component of the signal extracted using aggressive low-pass filter. The green line represents the result after subtracting the tilt component and applying additional filtering.

It will be appreciated that the above is only one embodiment of the invention and that there may be many variations without departing from the spirit and/or the scope of the invention.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A vehicle monitoring and feedback system including:

a mobile communication device;

a driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device; the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device being adapted to transmit information to the mobile communication device; and

a remote data receiving and analysis system for receiving driver behaviour information emanating from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device via the mobile communication device;

characterized in that at least some of the driver behaviour information is also displayable directly on the mobile communication device.

2. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 1 in which the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device has the ability to record driving events, as well as to provide visual feedback to the driver regarding driving behaviour.

3. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 1 or claim 2 in which the vehicle monitoring and feedback system includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) device that collects vehicle location information for transmission to the data receiving and analysis system.

4. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims in which the mobile communication device is in the form of a smartphone.

5. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims in which the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device includes communication means suitable for enabling wireless communication between the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device and the smartphone.

6. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 5 in which the communication means is in the form of low energy Bluetooth enabling technology.

7. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims in which the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device includes a gyroscope and an accelerometer for use in determining driver behaviour.

8. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims in which the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device includes a number of LED's for use in conveying visible warning messages to the driver.

9. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims in which the remote data receiving and analyses system is an insurance administration system.

10. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of any one of the preceding claims including a smartphone application.

1 1. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 10 in which the smartphone application is configured for calibrating the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device.

12. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 10 in which the smartphone application is configured for receiving and transmitting the data from the driver behaviour monitoring and feedback device to the remote data receiving analyses system.

13. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 10 in which the smartphone application is configured for receiving and transmitting vehicle location information from the GPS device to the remote data receiving analyses system.

14. The vehicle monitoring and feedback system of claim 10 in which the smartphone application is configured for dispiaying information from the remote data receiving analyses system on driving behaviour.