A vehicle safety support apparatus includes: a driver monitoring unit configured to monitor a driver; an external environment monitoring unit configured to monitor an external environment of a vehicle; and a control unit configured to: perform a controlled lane keeping function based on data acquired from the driver monitoring unit and the external environment monitoring unit; detecting whether a driver reacts to the controlled lane keeping function; determine a driving control for the vehicle in response to the driver not reacting to the controlled lane keeping function; perform autonomous driving to move the vehicle to a safe area, in response to determining to take over the driving control from the driver.

A method for switching modes for operating a vehicle, a non-transitory computer-readable medium for performing the method, and information processing apparatuses. The method includes determining, by circuitry of an information processing apparatus, whether a mode for operating the vehicle is to be switched from one of autonomous and manual driving modes to the other of the autonomous and manual driving modes. A state of a driver of the vehicle is obtained when the mode for operating the vehicle is determined to be switched. The method further includes switching, by the circuitry, the mode for operating the vehicle from the one of the autonomous and manual driving modes to the other of the autonomous manual driving modes based on the obtained state of the driver.

Smart car operations are detailed including capturing a point cloud from a vehicle street view and converting the point cloud to a 3D model; applying a trained neural network to detect street signs, cross walks, obstacles, or bike lanes; and generating driving recommendations based on driver behavior parameters by comparing the driver behavior parameters with one or more drivers with substantially similar behavior parameters.

A vehicle and method for determining an injury information of a vehicle occupant after an accident of the vehicle based on sensing, by a vital sensor, at least one physiological signal of the occupant and providing a first output signal indicative of an internal trauma of the occupant to the vehicle electronic control device; providing to the vehicle electronic control device at least one second output signal from a vehicle internal sensor indicative of an external physical injury of the occupant; and determining, by the vehicle electronic control device, an emergency severity index indicative of a life-criticality status based on the first output signal and the second output signal.

A vehicle control system installed on a vehicle includes: a driver abnormality detection device configured to detect abnormality of a driver of the vehicle; a vehicle control device configured to execute vehicle stop control that stops the vehicle and abnormality notification processing that activates a notification device, when the abnormality of the driver is detected; and an information acquisition device configured to acquire driving environment information including at least one of surrounding situation information indicating a situation around the vehicle, vehicle state information indicating a state of the vehicle, and driving operation information indicating a driving operation by the driver. The vehicle control device determines, based on the driving environment information, whether to continue or terminate the abnormality notification processing after termination of the vehicle stop control.

A vehicular driving assist system includes a camera disposed in a vehicle and at least viewing driver hand positions of hands of a driver present in the vehicle. The vehicular driving assist system determines driver hand positions via processing of image data captured by the camera. The vehicular driving assist system compares determined driver hand positions to a plurality of discrete driver hand positions, which includes (i) a plurality of discrete driver hand positions at a steering wheel of the vehicle, and (ii) a plurality of discrete driver hand positions at an interior portion of the vehicle and not at the steering wheel of the vehicle. The vehicular driving assist system, responsive to processing of image data captured by the camera and based at least in part on comparison of determined driver hand positions to the plurality of discrete driver hand positions, determines a level of attentiveness of the driver.

Methods and systems for monitoring use, determining risk, and pricing insurance policies for a vehicle having one or more autonomous or semi-autonomous operation features are provided. According to certain aspects, with the customer's permission, a vehicle operator in an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle may be determined by a sensor disposed within the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle or a mobile computing device associated with the vehicle operator. A determination may be made as to whether the vehicle operator is authorized to operate the vehicle based upon the determined identity of the vehicle operator; and if the vehicle operator is not authorized, an alert may be generated and/or the vehicle may be caused to not operate. Alternatively, autonomous operation features may be automatically engaged to automatically drive the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle to a safe location when the operator is not authorized. Insurance discounts may be provided based upon the anti-theft functionality.

Methods and systems for monitoring use, determining risk, and pricing insurance policies for a vehicle having autonomous or semi-autonomous operation features are provided. In certain aspects, with the customer's permission, a computer-implemented method for updating an autonomous operation feature may be provided. An indication of a software update associated with the autonomous operation feature may be received, and several autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles having the feature may be identified. The update may be installed within the several vehicles, such as via wireless communication. Also, a change in a risk level associated with the update to the autonomous operation feature may be determined, and an insurance discount may be determined or adjusted. As a result, an insurance discount may be provided to risk averse customers that affirmatively share their vehicle data with an insurance provider, and promptly and remotely receive new versions of software that operate autonomous vehicle safety features.

A vehicle control system can have an in-vehicle camera that monitors a state of the driver; a center display and a meter device that notify the occupant of information; and a controller that executes automatic stop control in the case where the driver abnormality is determined. The controller can perform: a first operation to decelerate the vehicle to a specified speed when the abnormality is determined; a second operation to further decelerate and stop the vehicle after the first operation; a third operation to change a lane of the vehicle between the first operation and the second operation; and a fourth operation to move the vehicle to a road shoulder between the first operation and the second operation. The controller can notify the operation performed, and notify of a stop of the operation in the case where the operation performed is stopped.

A system in a vehicle can have a camera and/or a sensor. Such a camera can be configured to record a visual feature of a user in the vehicle and send data derived from the visual feature. Such a sensor can be configured to sense a non-visual feature of the user in the vehicle and send data derived from the non-visual feature. The system can have a computing system configured to receive such data from the camera and the sensor. The computing device can also be configured to determine a state of the user based on the received data derived from visual and non-visual features, as well as an AI system. The computing device can also be configured to enable or disable a function of the vehicle based at least partially on the state of the user, which the AI system can infer from the received data.