American cities have a new tool for keeping municipal fleet vehicles running safely and efficiently, while citizens who block dedicated travel lanes might find themselves on the receiving end of a ticket for doing just that.
Oakland, Calif.-based Hayden AI recently received a patent for a behind-the-windshield AI camera system, made for “use in autonomous traffic violation detection.”
Hayden AI acknowledges that an interior camera installation isn’t without challenges, such as placement of the system so that it doesn’t interfere with the driver’s field of vision. The patent includes images of the camera system attached to the ceiling or headliner of a vehicle via a camera mount.
In its patent application, the company outlined how the efficiency of city buses can be compromised by lane violations, with consumer vehicles or even bicycles blocking or using dedicated bus lanes. The camera system allows cities and townships to add a traffic violation detection system to the interior of fleet vehicles, protecting it from the elements and providing a direct line of sight, which cameras installed alongside crosswalks may not have.
The company also says the camera system functions at night, which Hayden AI co-founder Bo Shen calls a “major advancement in the field of mobile cameras.”
“By designing a skirt around both our automated license plate recognition camera (ALPR) and our AI-powered context camera, our interior-mounted camera system can accurately detect objects without windshield glare from the interior ambient light in the bus,” he adds. “This significantly improves the usefulness of our system for automated bus lane and bus stop enforcement.”
Hayden AI has installed more than 650 systems on transit buses across the country.
