Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Nikhitha Bekkanti

Scott Andrew Amman

John Craig Elson

Avrokin Surnilla

Ranjani Rangarajan

Leah N Busch

David Michael Herman

Joshua R Wheeler

John Edward Huber

Michael Monforton

Karthik Krishnamurthy

The disclosure generally pertains to systems and methods for identifying a location of an occupant in a vehicle. In an example method, a processor deconvolves a vocal utterance by an occupant of a vehicle and also determines an angle of arrival of the vocal utterance. The location of the occupant in the vehicle is then identified by the processor based on evaluating the deconvolved vocal utterance and the angle of arrival of the vocal utterance. Deconvolving the vocal utterance can involve applying a cabin impulse response to the vocal utterance for eliminating undesirable effects that may be imposed upon the vocal utterance by acoustic characteristics of the cabin of the vehicle (echo, sound reflections, sound damping, reverberation etc.). In some applications, the processor may refer to a lookup table to estimate a location of the occupant in the vehicle.

System and method to identify a location of an occupant in a vehicle

A vehicle seating assembly includes a seat base that has a first heating element. A seat back has a second heating element. A sensor is coupled to the seat base and is configured to obtain a weight data. A user-interface assembly is operably coupled to the first and second heating elements. A controller is in communication with the sensor to receive the weight data. The controller is configured to control the first and second heating elements in response to the weight data.

Vehicle seating assembly

A system, comprising a processor and a memory. The memory stores instructions executable by the processor to determine, from an image including a portion of a surface of a human body, a reflected light intensity from the body surface portion, determine, a skin reflectance of the body surface portion based on a location of the body surface, a light source, and an image sensor location, and to determine, for the body surface portion, an incoming radiance, based on the skin reflectance and the reflected light intensity.

Occupant light exposure detection

Detecting and isolating competing speech for voice controlled systems are provided herein. An example method includes isolating a voice command from a plurality of competing voice sound signals received internally or externally to a vehicle, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of competing voice sound signals are received using a sensor coupled with a window of the vehicle, and processing the voice command by the voice command system.

Detecting and isolating competing speech for voice controlled systems

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Farmington Hills, MI, United States of America

Nikhitha Bekkanti