Amber alert monitoring and support

A method for responding to an incoming alert with an automatic alert processing system of a vehicle, the method comprising:

• receiving, from one or more neighboring vehicles, a report indicating a reported location of a reported object identified by the one or more neighboring vehicles as matching one or more alert parameters of the incoming alert, the one or more alert parameters describing one or more target objects;
• scanning an assigned region around the vehicle for an object matching at least a selected alert parameter of the one or more alert parameters of the incoming alert, the assigned region around the vehicle being selected based on the reported location of the reported object as indicated in the report;
• and
• transmitting, to an alert service, a notification indicating a location of a found object that matches at least the selected alert parameter of the one or more alert parameters of the incoming alert, the notification including a confidence score indicating a likelihood that the found object matches the one or more target objects of the incoming alert.

An in-vehicle computing system of a vehicle, the in-vehicle computing system comprising:

• a sensor subsystem in communication with an optical sensor and one or more additional scanning devices;
• a communication interface;
• a processor;
• and
• memory storing instructions executable by the processor to:
• receive, via the communication interface, an alert including one or more alert parameters associated with one or more target objects;
• instruct a first subset of scanning resources of the sensor subsystem including the optical sensor to scan a first assigned region around the vehicle;
• determine, using a first set of processing resources, that scanned data corresponding to the first assigned region includes an object having features matching a selected alert parameter of the one or more alert parameters;
• instruct a second subset of scanning resources of the sensor subsystem to scan a second assigned region around the vehicle, the second assigned region being smaller than the first assigned region and targeting the object, and the second subset of scanning resources including fewer scanning devices than the first subset of scanning resources;
• determine, using a second set of processing resources analyzing scanned data corresponding to the second assigned region, that the object has additional features matching one or more additional alert parameters of the one or more alert parameters, the second set of processing resources including more processing resources than the first set of processing resources;
• and
• transmit, to an alert service, a notification identifying the object and each of the features matching each associated alert parameter of the one or more alert parameters, the notification including a location of the object.