FIELD

[0001] The present application generally relates to automatic control technology, and more particularly, to warning control device and method.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Recently, Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) is popular in vehicles. The ADAS can warn a driver a possible danger, thus making driving safer. On the other hand, when the driver has already noticed the warning or a danger source, or when the driver has paid enough attention to the operations that cause the warning, the still intensive warnings will always make the driver distracted, annoyed and stressed, thus reducing the safety and comfort of driving.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a warning control device, comprising: a reception unit configured to receive data monitored in real time; a determination unit configured to determine whether an operator has noticed an interest area associated with a warning by analyzing the monitored data; and a control unit configured to control the warning based on the determination, wherein the control unit is configured to: if the determination unit determines that the operator has noticed the interest area associated with the warning, suppress the warning.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a warning control method, comprising: receiving data monitored in real time; determining whether an operator has noticed an interest area associated with a warning by analyzing the monitored data; and controlling the warning based on the determination, wherein if it is determined that the operator has noticed the interest area associated with the warning, the warning is suppressed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS |0003] Principles in the application may be better understood when reading the following detailed description in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate like elements.

(0004) Figure 1 is a simplified block diagram of a car in which a warning control device according to the present application may be applied.

[0005] Figure 2 shows a flow chart of a warning control method for a vehicle, according to the present application.

[0006] Figure 3 shows an example scenario of suppressing blind spot warning, according to the present application.

[0007] Figure 4 shows an example scenario of suppressing lane departure warning, according to the present application.

[0008] Figure 5 shows a schematic diagram of an information processing device by which the warning control device can be implemented, according to the present application.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0009] Detailed description for various aspects and example embodiments of the present application is provided. In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present application. However, it is obvious for those skilled in the art that the present application can be practiced without some of the specific details. The embodiments are merely examples and the present application is not limited to the specific configurations and algorithms set forth in the example embodiments. However, the present application can cover any modification, replacement and improvement of elements, components and algorithms, without departing from the scope of the present application. In the accompanying drawings and the detailed description, the well-known structures and techniques are omitted in order not to obscure the present application.

[0010] Figure 1 is a simplified block diagram of a car 100 in which a warning control device according to the present application may be implemented. Although a car is taken as an example, the present application is not limited to the car and may apply to other kinds of vehicles, e.g. those having internal-combustion engine, electric motor, etc. as power mechanism. As shown in figure 1 , the car 100 includes a warning control device 1 10, a vehicle-mounted sensor 120 and an ADAS 130, which are connected with each other, for example, by a controller area network (CAN) bus or through a FlexRay® network. Although the warning control device 1 10 and the ADAS 1 30 are illustrated as separated modules in Figure 1 , the warning control device 1 10 can be a part of the ADAS 130. For simplicity, some well-known components such as power and manipulation system, transmission system, etc. are not shown in figure 1 .

[0011] The warning control device 1 10 may include an independent processor, or use the existing processor in the car, such as an electronic control unit (ECU). The ECU may include one or more of processor (e.g. micro-processor), controller (e.g. micro-controller), programmable logic circuit (e.g. field programmable gate array (FPGA)), and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), etc. In an embodiment, the ECU may also include one or more memories, such as random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically EPROM (EEPROM), etc. The memories may store data, instructions, software, codes, etc. executed by, for example, the processor to perform the actions described in the present application.

[0012] According to an embodiment, the warning control device 1 10 may include a reception unit 1 12, a determination unit 1 14 and a control unit 1 16, which are described in details below. These units can be implemented with hardware, software or a combination thereof.

[0013] The vehicle-mounted sensor 120 may include one or more of cameras. The cameras can be mounted at an inner rear-view mirror, at either side of the car or at other places of the car, and may include an automatic tracking camera. The automatic tracking camera may employ image tracking and infrared tracking technologies to identify and track eyes of a driver to detect the driver's glance. For example, the vehicle-mounted sensor 120 can detect and track the driver's glance in real time during driving period or when the ADAS 130 give out a warning, and send to the warning control device 1 10 the monitored data of glance detection and tracking.

[0014] The ADAS 130 can detect the surrounding environment with various sensors mounted on the car during driving, and identify, detect and track static and dynamic objects. In combination with data from a navigator, the ADAS 130 can compute and analyze possible dangers to warn the driver to increase safety of driving. The ADAS generally uses various warnings to attract the driver's attention to the possible dangers. The ADAS warning can include e.g. a blind spot warning, a lane departure warning and a parking acoustic warning. For example, when the ADAS detects there is a car in the blind spot area, it can give out a blind spot warning. If the driver has already turned on a turn signal lamp at that moment, the blind spot warning can be a blinking light at the side view mirror along with a vibration of a steering wheel and a sound warning. If the driver has not turned on a turn signal lamp at that moment, the warning light can be on without blinking. The ADAS can also detect whether the car is keeping driving on the current lane, e.g. via a front camera, and may display an optical warning on an instrument panel or other display screens, as well as giving out an acoustic warning or a haptic warning. Parking sonar device of the ADAS uses ultrasonic waves to detect the distance between the car and an obstacle, and give out an acoustic warning with a certain frequency during parking.

[0015] According to the present application, the car 100 can suppress the ongoing ADAS warning under certain conditions, thus reducing unnecessary disturbance to the driver. Figure 2 shows a flow chart of a warning control method 200 for a vehicle, according to the present application. The method 200 can be carried out by the warning control device 1 10 of the car 100.

[0016] In step 210, the reception unit 1 12 of the warning control device 1 10 may receive data monitored in real time from the vehicle-mounted sensor 120. The reception unit 1 12 may receive the monitored data when the ADAS warning occurs, although the present application is not limited to this aspect. The monitored data may include the driver's glance detection and tracking data. The reception unit 1 12 may receive the data from the vehicle-mounted sensor 120 through any wired and/or wireless media.

[0017] The method 200 may process to step 21 5, in this step, the determination unit 1 14 of the warning control device 1 10 may determine whether the driver has noticed an interest area associated with the warning by analyzing the monitored data received by the reception unit 1 12.

[0018] The interest area may include an area where the ADAS warning is located, an area reflecting a dangerous object or infrastructure indicated by the ADAS warning, or an area of a display where an auxiliary view for the operations associated with the ADAS warning is being displayed. For example, when an ADAS blind spot warning occurs, the interest area may be an area where the ADAS blind spot warning is located, or an area reflecting a danger indicated by the ADAS blind spot warning, such as a blind spot area, the side mirror area reflecting the blind spot area, or an area in the blind spot area where an overtaking car is located. For example, when an ADAS lane departure warning occurs, the interest area may be an area where the ADAS lane departure warning is located or an area reflecting a danger indicated by the ADAS lane departure warning, such as an area where the car actually departs from its current lane. For example, when an ADAS parking acoustic warning occurs, the interest area may be a display area where a rear view or a top view for parking operations is being displayed or an area reflecting a danger indicated by the ADAS parking acoustic warning, such as an area where an object or an infrastructure which may collide with the car is located.

[0019] In one embodiment, the monitored data include the driver's glance detection and tracking data. In this embodiment, firstly, the determination unit 1 14 may determine, based on the glance detection and tracking data, the glance information of the driver, including the location of the driver's glance, the duration of the driver's glance and the number of times that the driver's glance falls into a certain area, which can be achieved by an intelligent algorithm, such as machine learning and fuzzy logic, which is common knowledge in the eye/glance recognition field.

[0020] Then, the determination unit 1 14 may determine whether the driver has noticed the interest area associated with the ongoing ADAS warning by analyzing the determined glance information of the driver. For example, if the location of the driver's glance falls into the interest area associated with the ongoing ADAS warning, the determination unit 1 14 may determine that the driver has noticed the interest area. In another embodiment, if the location of the driver's glance falls into the interest area associated with the ongoing ADAS warning and the duration of the glance reaches a predefined amount of time, or if the number of times that the location of the driver's glance falls into the interest area associated with the ongoing ADAS warning during a period of time reaches a predefined number, the determination unit 1 14 may determine that the driver has noticed the interest area.

[0021 ] The method 200 then proceed to step 220, in this step, the control unit 1 16 may control the ADAS warning based on the determination in step 21 5. The control can include suppression of the warning. The control can be based on some predefined rules.

[0022J The "suppression" means reducing the possibility of calling the driver's attention by the warning, including turning off the warning, reducing the frequency of the warning and reducing the intensity of the warning, such as making the warning from on to off, from bright to dark, from loud to quiet, from blinking to constantly being on, from fast blinking to slow blinking and so on. The predefined rules specify different control actions of different situations. Examples of the predefined rules can include but not limited to: in the blind spot warning scenario, if it is determined that the driver has noticed the dangerous object or the blind spot warning signal itself, the blind spot warning may be suppressed; in the lane departure warning scenario, if it is determined that the driver has noticed the car has departed from the current lane or the lane departure warning signal itself, the lane departure warning may be suppressed; in the parking acoustic warning scenario, if it is determined that the driver has noticed the object or the infrastructure which may collide with the car or the display screen which is displaying the auxiliary view for parking operations, such as the rear view and/or the top view, the parking acoustic warning may be suppressed. The predefined rules can be specified by an operator or can be obtained by experience algorithms. The predefined rules can be configured locally and/or stored in a remote database. For example, the predefined rules can be configured or stored in tables which include the types of warnings, the interest areas, and the corresponding control actions and so on.

[0023] In one embodiment, if the determination unit 1 14 determines that the driver has noticed the interest area associated with the ADAS warning, the control unit 1 16 may look for a predefined rule matching with the determination. If the predefined rule specifies a suppression action, the control unit 1 16 may send a suppression command associated with the suppression action to the ADAS 1 30 to suppress the associated ADAS warnings. The control unit 1 16 may send the suppression command to the ADAS 1 30 through the CAN and FlexRay® communications.

[0024] Figure 3-4 show different scenarios of suppressing the ADAS warnings. [0025] Figure 3 is a scenario of suppressing ADAS blind spot warnings. As shown in Figure 3, when the ADAS detects there is a car in the blind spot area, warning lights at a side view mirror of the car will be blinking or constantly on without blinking, along with a vibration of a steering wheel and a sound warning. The vehicle-mounted sensor 120 can detect and track the driver's glance in real time and send the monitored data of glance detection and tracking to the warning control device 1 10. The warning control device 1 10 determines whether the driver has noticed an interest area shown in Figure 3 (within the dashed), i.e. the area where the ADAS blind spot warning is located. In another embodiment, the interest area is different from the one as shown in Figure 3, for example, it may be an area reflecting a danger indicated by the ADAS blind spot warning, such as a blind spot area, the side mirror area reflecting the blind spot area, or an area in the blind spot area where an overtaking car is located. If it is determined that the driver has noticed the interest area, the warning control device 1 10 may query a database of predefined rules to determine corresponding suppression actions. For example, the suppression actions may include making the warning lights from on to off, from bright to dark, from fast blinking to slow blinking, from blinking to constantly being on, etc. In addition, the suppression actions may also include suppressing other associated ADAS warnings, such as turning off the vibration of the steering wheel and the sound warning. The warning control device 1 10 may send a suppression command indicating the corresponding suppression actions to the ADAS 130 to suppress the associated ADAS warnings.

[0026] Figure 4 is a scenario of suppressing ADAD lane departure warnings. As shown in Figure 4, when the ADAS detects the car is departing from the current lane, it may display an optical warning on a windscreen, as well as giving out other acoustic or haptic warnings. In an example, if the warning control device 1 10 determines that the driver has noticed an interest area shown in Figure 4 (within the dashed) or an area where the car actually departs from its current lane based on the driver's glance information, the warning control device 1 10 may query a database of predefined rules to determine corresponding suppression actions. For example, the suppression actions may include making the warning lights from on to off, from bright to dark, from fast blinking to slow blinking, etc. In addition, the suppression actions may also include suppressing other associated ADAS warnings, such as turning off other acoustic or haptic warnings.

[0027] Figure 5 shows a schematic diagram of an information processing device 500 by which the warning control device 1 10 can be implemented, according to the present application. As shown in figure 5, the device 500 can include one or more of a processor 520, a memory 530, a power component 540, an input/output (I/O) interface 560 and a communication interface 580, which are communicatively connected by a bus 510, for example.

[0028] The processor 520 controls the operations of the device 500, such as the operations associated with data communication and computation process. The processor 520 may include one or more processing cores and can execute instructions to perform some or all of the steps in the method described in the present application. The processor 520 may include various devices capable of processing, including but not limited to, general purpose processor, specific purpose processor, micro-processor, micro-controller, graphics processing unit (GPU), digital signal processor (DSP), ASIC, programmable logic device (PLD), FPGA, etc. The processor 520 may include a cache memory 525 or may communicate with the cache memory 525, in order to increase access speed of data.

[0029] The memory 530 is configured to store various instructions and/or data to support the operations of the device 500. Examples of data can include any data, instructions or the like of application programs or methods operating on the device 500. The memory 530 can be implemented by any volatile or non-volatile storages or their combinations. The memory 530 can include a semiconductor memory such as RAM, static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), ROM, programmable ROM (PROM), EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, etc. The memory 530 may also include any storage using paper, magnetic, and/or optical media, such as tape, hard disk, cassette, floppy, magneto-optic (MO), CD, DVD, Blue-ray, etc.

[0030] The power component 540 provides power to various components of the device 500. The power component 540 may include an internal battery and/or an external power interface, and may include a power management system and other components associated with generating, managing and distributing power for the device 500.

[0031 ] The I/O interface 560 provides an interface by which a user can interact with the device 500. The I/O interface 560 may include an interface based on, for example, PS/2, RS-232, USB, FireWire, Lightening, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc., to enable user to interact with the device 500 by peripheral devices such as keyboard, mouse, touch pad, touch screen, joystick, button, microphone, loudspeaker, display, camera, projection port, etc.

[0032] The communication interface 580 is configured to enable the device 500 to communicate with other devices wiredly or wirelessly. Through the communication interface 580, the device 500 may access a network which is based on one or more communication standards, such as Wi-Fi, 2G, 3G, 4G communication networks. In an example embodiment, the communication interface 580 may also receive broadcast signals or broadcast-related information from an external broadcast management system through a broadcast channel. Examples of communication interface 580 may include an interface which is based on Near Field Communication (NFC), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Infrared Data Association (IrDA), Ultra Wide Band (UWB), Bluetooth (BT), etc.

|0033] Function blocks shown in the above block diagrams can be implemented as hardware, software, firmware or their combination. When the function block is implemented in hardware, it may be, for example, electronic circuit, ASIC, suitable firmware, plug-in, functional card, etc. When the function block is implemented in software, the elements of the present application are programs or code segments for performing required tasks. The programs or code segments may be stored in a machine-readable media, or may be transmitted over some transmission media or communication links by signals in carrier waves. The term "machine-readable media" can include any media that can store or transmit information. Examples of the machine-readable media may include electronic circuit, semiconductor memory, ROM, flash memory, erasable ROM (EROM), floppy, CD-ROM, optical disk, hard disk, optical fiber, radio frequency link, etc. The code segments can be downloaded via a computer network such as Internet, intranet and the like.

[0034J Although the present application is described w ith vehicles, the warning control method and device can also be applied to other situations, such as other devices and infrastructures which can give out warnings. For example, when an operator has noticed the warning or events associated with the warning, the warning can be suppressed accordingly.

[0035] The present invention can be implemented in other ways without departing from the spirit and essence of the present application. For example, the algorithms described in specific embodiments can be modified while the architecture of the system does not depart from the spirit of the present application. Therefore, the embodiments should in all aspects be regarded to be illustrative instead of restrictive. The scope of the present application is defined by the appended claims rather than by the above description, therefore all changes that fall within the scope of the claims and their equivalents are included in the scope of the present application.