Toronto, Ontario — General Motors (GM) has filed for a patent application that describes a vehicle system that could take control of driving functions if occupants fail specific mental wellbeing conditions.
The patent, which was originally filed in November 2022 and then published on May 16, 2024, specifically describes “methods and systems for assessing (the) mental wellbeing of an occupant within a vehicle and correspondingly deploying a personalized counter measure in an effort to mitigate a probability of the occupants’ wellbeing undesirably impacting operation of the vehicle.”
Notably, vehicles with the described system would collect data from occupants such as vocal tone, facial expressions and driving movements to determine overall wellbeing. If vehicle occupants were to fail the conditions of the wellbeing assessment at any time, the vehicle would then engage a countermeasure module to try and correct the response.
The patent outlines how the “wellbeing system may be configured to deploy the countermeasure without controlling the driving functions,” or, it may be programmed to instead “autonomously control one or more non-driving functions of the vehicle.”
For example, if drivers were to swerve consistently, tailgate other vehicles, or present any behaviours outside of a normal, accepted range, the vehicle’s system could then enact a series of responses anywhere from recommending the driver take some deep breaths to intervening in some of the driving processes.
Overall, while there is no guarantee that this feature will ever make it to a manufacturing stage, it presents one instance in which advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) could be used to combat future road rage.
To see the full patent, click here.
