US 11,454,509 B2Granted

Alert system for environmental changes

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsPaul R. Bastide, Piyush Madan, Vishrawas Gopalakrishnan, Fang Lu

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Abstract

For locations along a route a user will be traveling, the alert system for environmental changes compares first and second sets of images associated with first and second timestamps, respectively. The alert system determines degrees of environmental changes for the locations based on the comparisons. The alert system then generates and sends an alert to a user device. In determining the degrees of environment changes, the alert system retrieves first and second set of images matching a given location and associated with first and second timestamps. The alert system identifies first and second sets of objects and extracts first and second sets of attributes for the first and second sets of images. The alert system compares the first and second sets of attributes and the first and second set of objects, and determines a given degree of environmental changes at the given location based on the comparisons.

Claims17

Dependent claims

A method for managing an alert system for environmental changes, comprising:

in response to determining a current location of a user device triggers an alert process, determining, by an alert system, a route on which a user of the user device will be traveling;
determining, by the alert system, environmental changes for each location of a plurality of locations along the route by comparing a first image of each location of the plurality of locations along the route with a second image of each location of the plurality of locations along the route, wherein the first image and the second image were captured at different times, wherein determining the environmental changes for each location of a plurality of locations along the route comprises:
identifying, by the alert system, a first set of objects in the first image and a second set of objects in the second image, wherein the first set of objects identified in the first image and the second set of objects identified in the second image consist of objects present in the landscape and are each equal to or greater than a minimum size;
dividing, by the alert system, each of the first image and the second image into a matrix comprising multiple sections;
extracting, by the alert system, a first set of attributes for each matrix section for the first image and a second set of attributes for each matrix section for the second image, wherein both the first set of attributes and the second set of attributes comprise a color, an intensity and a depth;
and
comparing, by the alert system, the first set of attributes with the second set of attributes and the first set of objects with the second set of objects;
and
in response to the determined environmental changes for at least one location of the plurality of locations along the route exceeding a threshold, generating, by the alert system, an alert and sending the alert to the user device prior to the user arriving at the at least one location.

6 more elements

A method for managing an alert system for environmental changes, comprising:

in response to determining a current location of a user device triggers an alert process, determining, by an alert system, a route on which a user of the user device will be traveling;
receiving, by the alert system from a repository, a first image and a second image for each location of a plurality of locations along the route, wherein the first image and the second image were captured at different times, where in the first image and the second image are from different sources;
comparing, by the alert system, the first image and the second image for each location of the plurality of locations along the route to determine environmental changes for each location of the plurality of locations along the route, wherein determining the environmental changes for each location of a plurality of locations along the route comprises:
identifying, by the alert system, a first set of objects in the first image and a second set of objects in the second image, wherein the first set of objects identified in the first image and the second set of objects identified in the second image consist of objects present in the landscape and are each equal to or greater than a minimum size;
dividing, by the alert system, each of the first image and the second image into a matrix comprising multiple sections;
extracting, by the alert system, a first set of attributes for each matrix section for the first image and a second set of attributes for each matrix section for the second image, wherein both the first set of attributes and the second set of attribute comprise a color, an intensity and a depth;
and
comparing, by the alert system, the first set of attributes with the second set of attributes and the first set of objects with the second set of objects;
and
in response to the determined environmental changes for at least one location of the plurality of locations along the route exceeding a threshold, generating, by the alert system, an alert and sending the alert to the user device prior to the user arriving at the at least one location.

7 more elements

A method for managing an alert system for environmental changes, comprising:

determining, by the alert system, that a current location of a user device triggers an alert process;
in response to determining the current location of the user device triggers the alert process, determining, by the alert system, a route on which a user of the user device will be traveling;
receiving, by the alert system, a first set of images and a second set of images for each location of a set of locations along the route, wherein the first set of images are associated with a first time stamp and the second set of images are associated with a second time stamp;
comparing, by the alert system, the first set of images associated with the first timestamp with the second set of images associated with the second timestamp, wherein the first set of images and the second set of images are retrieved from an image repository;
prior to the user traveling to each location and based on comparing the first set of images with the second set of images, determining, by the alert system, environmental changes for each location of the set of locations, wherein determining the environment changes for each location of the set of locations comprises:
identifying, by the alert system, a first set of objects in the first set of images and a second set of objects in the second set of images, wherein the first set of objects identified in the first set of images and the second set of objects identified in the second set of images are each equal to or greater than a minimum size;
extracting, by the alert system, a first set of attributes for the first set of images and a second set of attributes for the second set of images;
and
comparing, by the alert system, the first set of attributes with the second set of attributes and the first set of objects with the second set of objects;
determining, by the alert system, whether the environmental changes trigger an alert;
and
in response to determining the environmental changes do trigger the alert, generating, by the alert system, the alert and sending the alert to the user device prior to the user arriving at each location of the set of locations, respectively.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/293,625Filed 5 Mar 2019
Published: US 2020/0284609 A110 Sep 2020
Granted: 27 Sep 2022
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

G01C 21/3602
Input/output arrangements for on-board computers: input other than that of destination using image analysis, e.g. detection of road signs, lanes,…
G01C 21/3617
Destination input or retrieval: using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current…
G01C 21/3647
Details of the output of route guidance instructions: guidance involving output of stored or live camera images or video streams
G06V 20/00
Scenes