Intelligent Cockpit Patent Research: Cockpit AI, In?vehicle Health, and Infotainment Are Upgrade to Scenario?based and Proactive Functions
From a patent perspective, this report explores the cutting?edge development trends of intelligent cockpits. The research scope covers eight product categories including new cockpit displays, cockpit interaction, in?cabin monitoring, infotainment, digital key, smart seat, smart audio, panoramic sunroof, as well as patents related to in?vehicle health.
Through keyword retrieval, cleansing and duplicate removal for different segments, a relatively valid patent dataset is obtained for cross?analysis to present the technical features of the intelligent cockpit sector in current stage, including patent distribution, applicant rankings, tracking of featured patents and development trends of each segment.
Preface
In from January to July 2026, 3,054 intelligent cockpit patents were published in China, compared with 4,597 for the full year of 2025. Based on data from January to July 2026, the annualized number reaches about 5,232, higher than that of 2025.
Compared with the cumulative structure, two changes emerge in 2026. First, the proportion of infotainment dropped noticeably against its cumulative share (43.7%). A total of 543 infotainment patents were published during January?July 2026, lower than 994 in the same period of the prior year. Second, published in?cabin monitoring patents (262) has outnumbered new cockpit displays (257), and exceeded its level in full?year 2025 (141). The growth in in?cabin monitoring patents is mainly driven by domestic mandatory standards for driver monitoring systems and increasingly tight regulations in Europe, America and other regions.
Cockpit Patent Trend 1: Cockpit AI — Shift from Passive Response to Proactive Service
The product logic of early?stage automotive voice was “command?response”. Users issued explicit commands and the system executed single actions.
Patents filed from 2025 to 2026 reflect a different mindset. AI assistants evolve from command execution toward scenario judgment and function orchestration. They first identify scenarios, then decide whether to trigger actions, which functions to invoke and the execution sequence. Trigger conditions expand from single voice commands to three input categories including schedule, environment and vehicle status.
This transition also generates demand for mis?trigger prevention. Trigger thresholds are set via credibility scoring, and safety pre?verification is performed for functions that draw driver attention. It shows manufacturers have incorporated experience risks of proactive services into solution design.
Case 1: Cockpit pre-adjustment driven by travel schedule and environmental perception instead of explicit commands — Xiaomi Auto: Vehicle Cockpit Control Method
In March 2026, Xiaomi Auto published a patent: Vehicle Cockpit Control Method, Apparatus, Vehicle and Storage Medium.
Patent No.: CN122211318A
Problem Addressed: Cockpit pre-adjustment relies on user?initiated operations. Pre?information such as number of passengers and luggage specifications requires manual judgment and input by users.
Solution Highlights: Determine scenario type and departure time based on travel schedules. Before departure, collect mobility characteristics including passenger count and suitcase size and quantity via IoT devices. Pre?set seat positions and tailgate opening angles accordingly. Trigger conditions change from user commands to “schedule time + environmental collection”, reducing explicit user operations.
Case 2: Cross?domain function collaboration under two?tier Agent architecture — Junchu Technology: Intelligent Cockpit Multi?AI Agent Cross?domain Collaboration Super Brain
In July 2025, Junchu Technology published a patent: Intelligent Cockpit Multi?AI Agent Cross?domain Collaboration Super Brain System and Method.
Patent No.: CN120743112A
Problem Addressed: Individual functional domains of the cockpit operate independently. Cross?domain scenarios, e.g., rest mode require concurrent adjustments to seats, air conditioning and lighting, require separate user operations. No unified scheduling exists at the system level.
Solution Highlights: Adopt a two?tier AI Agent structure. The central Agent undertakes scenario understanding and priority arbitration (sorted by safety, health and comfort). Five sub-agents manage cockpit, powertrain, body, chassis and autonomous driving respectively. Information is exchanged through MCP and A2A communication standards, with access to more than 200 sensor channels. All systems maintain a synchronization cycle of 200 milliseconds, close to the human perceptual threshold for system latency.
Case 3: Suppression of false proactive interaction triggers via scenario credibility scoring — Dilu Technology: Intelligent Cockpit Adaptive Interaction Method and System
In December 2025, Dilu Technology published a patent: Intelligent Cockpit Adaptive Interaction Method and System.
Patent No.: CN121734433A
Problem Addressed: Trigger modes based on fixed thresholds and single dimensions tend to produce misoperations, which significantly undermine user trust and willingness to use proactive service functions.
Solution Highlights: Align occupant, environment and vehicle information in time to build unified scenario representation. The end?side small model outputs scenario labels with credibility scores. Only scenarios scoring above the threshold are retained. Then atomic service invocation chains are dynamically orchestrated through SOA, and cross?system execution is completed via Hypervisor and automotive Ethernet. Compared with fixed?rule solutions, this solution features confidence thresholds to avoid triggering for low?confidence scenarios.
Case 4: Multi?Agent task closed loop under safety pre?verification — GAC Honda: Automatic Landscape Shooting Based on AI Agent in Driving Scenarios
In June 2026, GAC Honda published a patent: Automatic Landscape Shooting Method, Apparatus, Device and Medium Based on AI Agent in Driving Scenarios.
Patent No.: CN122513650A
Problem Addressed: Shooting actions during driving carry safety risks, and existing functions mostly support one?off triggering without a complete closed loop from recognition to output.
Solution Highlights: Upon triggering, calculate safety risk values based on driver status and vehicle operating data. Shooting is executed only after verification passes. Three Agents including intent recognition, shooting control and copywriting generation collaborate to finish shooting, landscape type identification and personalized copy creation, followed by automatic storage or sharing. Safety pre?verification represents a common design pattern for functions involving vehicle control or driver attention occupation.
Case 5: Interactive style evolution of automotive assistants based on personality vectors — FAW: Bidirectional Cultivation Method for Automotive AI and Users
In September 2025, FAW published a patent: Bidirectional Cultivation Method for Automotive AI and Users.
Patent No.: CN121387063A
Problem Addressed: The interactive style of automotive assistants is statically set upon delivery and does not evolve with usage, failing to sustain user engagement.
Solution Highlights: Initialize multi?dimensional personality vectors. Trigger evolution algorithms to adjust vectors according to update cycles or behavioral events, which in turn modify linguistic styles, recommendation strategies and interaction modes. Supporting components include personality development trees, medals, social leaderboards and certification labels. Essentially, interaction styles are parameterized, and operational design is deployed to extend user usage duration.
Cockpit Patent Trend 2: In?vehicle Health — Monitoring and Intervention Differentiated by Population
A notable feature of health?related patents filed from 2025 to 2026 is population differentiation. Three categories of occupants correspond to distinct sensor configurations and technical paths.
Path for elderly occupants focuses on interactive?layer modifications including automatic identification, simplified interfaces and compressed emergency access routes with, relatively controllable engineering workload.
Path for children and presence detection and care centers on contact?free perception and low?power continuous monitoring, with layered allocation of vehicle-end and cloud computing power based on power consumption and accuracy;
Path for adult occupants shift from status display to intervention, and forms closed loops through verification windows.
1. Elderly Occupants: Lower Interaction Barriers and Shorter Emergency Response Paths
Case 1: Automatic switch to elderly-friendly interaction mode driven by palmprint age group identification — GAC Honda: AI?based Cockpit Interaction Method
In February 2026, GAC Honda published a patent: AI?based Cockpit Interaction Method.
Patent No.: CN122133070A
Problem Addressed: General HMIs feature deep functional hierarchies and high information density. Support for dialect and slow?speed voice recognition is insufficient. Emergency assistance requires multi?step operations.
Solution Highlights: Collect palm?print data at door handles. Adopt a CNN?Transformer age?group recognition model to identify elderly occupants and automatically activate elderly?friendly mode with simplified interfaces and enlarged fonts. Integrate voice, face, physical movement and age?group inputs into a dedicated intent recognition model for elderly?adapted interaction and rapid emergency assistance. Identification is triggered upon door opening without manual menu?based setup by users.
2. Child Occupants: Contact?free Monitoring, and Presence Detection and Care in Parked Vehicles
Case 2: Imperceptible occupant health monitoring and service closed loop in four?layer architecture — Dongfeng Motor: Scenario?based Intelligent Health Cockpit System with Multimodal Imperceptible Monitoring
In May 2026, Dongfeng Motor published a patent: A Scenario?based Intelligent Health Cockpit System with Multimodal Imperceptible Monitoring.
Patent No.: CN122494091A
Problem Addressed: Existing health functions operate in isolation with separated monitoring and execution links, lacking service closed loops and medical sector connectivity. Rear?seat occupants such as children and elderly passengers often cannot actively report physical discomfort.
Solution Highlights: Implementation across four layers. The perception layer conducts periodic imperceptible data collection and invalid frame filtering via RGB?NIR cameras for drivers, RGB?IR cameras for occupants as well as environmental and seat sensors. The health AI analysis layer fuses data to output risk levels and service strategy codes. The scenario decision layer converts strategy codes into control instructions. The service execution layer adjusts environment or interaction. Data encryption transmission and medical linkage designs are incorporated.
Case 3: Radar?vision two?stage trigger for parked?vehicle security monitoring and cloud hierarchical response — BICV: Automotive Security Method Based on Multimodal Perception and Distributed AI
In September 2025, BICV published a patent: Automotive Security Method Based on Multimodal Perception and Distributed AI.
Patent No.: CN120902673B
Problem Addressed: Conventional sentry mode is constrained by vehicle computing power and power consumption, making it difficult to balance false?alarm and missed?alarm rates. For scenarios where occupants are left inside parked vehicles, both false and missed alarms carry severe consequences.
Solution Highlights: Two?tier monitoring is activated after engine shutdown. Radar and IMU perform primary low?power monitoring. Upon triggering, panoramic cameras and microphones are waked up for secondary data collection. Extracted features are uploaded to cloud AI for threat identification, and corresponding alerts are executed according to risk grades. Essentially, computing power is allocated hierarchically between vehicle and cloud from the dimensions of power consumption and accuracy.
3. Adult Occupants: Physiological Status Recognition and Intervention Effect Verification
Case 4: Multi-physiological?signal?fusion motion?sickness level assessment and multi?actuator linked intervention — Dongfeng Motor: Vehicle Cockpit Motion?sickness Alleviation Method
In November 2025, Dongfeng Motor published a patent: Vehicle Cockpit Motion?sickness Alleviation Method.
Patent No.: CN121716630A
Problem Addressed: Motion?sickness intervention mostly relies on medication with side effects. Existing automotive countermeasures are unitary without post?execution effect assessment, operating as open?loop control.
Solution Highlights: Fuse multiple signals including electrodermal activity, heart?rate variability, skin temperature, head shaking amplitude, eye?movement disorder and vehicle acceleration fluctuation. An AI model dynamically weights these inputs to map four?tier motion?sickness severity levels. Link four categories of actuators including air conditioning (with directional or omnidirectional air supply and menthol delivery), seats (with low?frequency massage and synchronous vibration), acoustic systems (generating white noise and co?frequency sound waves), and displays (adjusting AR?HUD image positions and horizon anchor points). A 10?minute verification window is set. Alternative strategies are automatically switched if severity levels show no improvement, transforming open?loop regulation into closed?loop regulation.
Case 5: Adaptive seat massage strategy based on body?pressure distribution and heart?rate variability — Chery: AI?based Intelligent Adjustment System and Method for Automotive Massage Modes
In March 2026, Chery published a patent: AI?based Intelligent Adjustment System and Method for Automotive Massage Modes.
Patent No.: CN122354326A
Problem Addressed: Massage points are factory?set and fixed, failing to adapt to occupants of different body types or adjust according to real?time occupant status.
Solution Highlights: Upon occupant seating, pressure arrays and resting heart?rate data are compared with an ergonomic library to compute matching scores to identify key body regions and initial working points. During driving, dynamic fatigue indices are calculated based on heart?rate variability (HRV) and pressure variations to adjust massage modes across intervals. Manual adjustments feed back into the personalization library, and occupant identities are recognized via pressure distribution to automatically load user preferences.
Case 6: Coordinated in?cabin environment adjustment driven by multimodal emotion inference — Kwung's Aroma: Automotive Aromatherapy Healing System Based on Multimodal Perception and AI Large Model
In December 2025, Kwung's Aroma Published a patent: Automotive Aromatherapy Healing System Based on Multimodal Perception and AI Large Model.
Patent No.: CN121734277A
Problem Addressed: Automotive fragrance is released following fixed rhythms. Fragrance modules operate independently from lighting, audio and display modules without coordination, and cannot adapt to occupant status.
Solution Highlights: Temporally align visual inputs, physiological signals including EEG, HRV and GSR, environmental and behavioral data. A lightweight multimodal large model infers emotions and risks, driving coordinated outputs of micro?dose continuously?adjustable fragrance, lighting color temperature and brightness, music and visual images. Continuous iteration is supported via dynamic knowledge graphs and OTA updates.
Cockpit Patent Trend 3: Infotainment — Transition from Content Porting to In-vehicle Scenario Orientation
The priority of new patents between 2025 and 2026 lies not in content supply, but in adapting existing entertainment forms to vehicle interior space and usage time windows. Game controls reuse existing vehicle hardware. Music tuning evolves from fixed sound?effect settings toward joint solution considering song genres, vehicle acoustic characteristics and individual user preferences. Audio?video playback migrates from fixed screens to adaptive rendering following occupant viewing angles and extends to non?conventional projection surfaces such as panoramic sunroofs. Lifestyle services such as manicure are integrated into cockpits and interconnected with infotainment systems.
Case 1: Game control via reuse of automotive physical buttons and multi?dimensional sensors — Voyah: In?vehicle Game Control Method and Related Devices
In 2026, Voyah Published a patent: In?vehicle Game Control Method and Related Devices.
Patent No.: CN122424566A
Problem Addressed: In?vehicle games rely on external gamepads or touch operations. Native game?adapted input devices are absent inside vehicles, and additional gamepad deployment is constrained by seat layout and device quantity.
Solution Highlights: Switch automotive control buttons into game mode. Activate multi?dimensional sensors for gyroscope readings, pressure detection, operation duration and knob rotation, and enable low?latency communication protocols. Map posture, force magnitude, operation duration and knob rotation actions into game instructions via mapping tables, realizing gamified reuse of native buttons. The value is that multi?dimensional input controllers are realized without adding dedicated peripherals.
Case 2: Automatic tuning via joint solution of song genres and vehicle acoustic characteristics — Chongqing Huaweixu Electronics: An AI Model?based Automatic Song?style Tuning Method
In 2026, Chongqing Huaweixu Electronics published a patent: An AI Model?based Automatic Song?style Tuning Method.
Patent No.: CN122454939A
Problem Addressed: Automotive audio effects mostly adopt fixed sound modes and static EQ settings. They cannot simultaneously accommodate differences in song genres, acoustic characteristics across vehicle models and long?term user preferences. Historical listening preferences cannot be migrated after switching vehicles.
Solution Highlights: A music representation model extracts song style vectors. An acoustic encoding model extracts vehicle acoustic vectors. A preference reconstruction network generates acoustic correction to derive target preference memory. Frequency?band residuals are calculated between target frequency?band responses and cockpit frequency?band responses to output target tuning parameters. Tuning is transformed from fixed?gear selection to joint solution integrating songs, vehicles and user profiles.
Case 3: In?vehicle cinema mode with dimmable sunroof serving as projection surface — BYD: Vehicle and Control Method, System and Controller for Vehicle Dimmable Sunroof
In 2026, BYD published a patent: Vehicle and Control Method, System and Controller for Vehicle Dimmable Sunroof.
Patent No.: CN121822085A
Problem Addressed: In?vehicle content viewing is limited by the physical dimensions and installation positions of center console or rear?seat screens, making it difficult to achieve cinema?style viewing atmosphere.
Solution Highlights: Under projection mode, the dimmable sunroof switches to opaque status to act as a projection canvas. It links with projection device and seat posture to build cinema?style ambiance. Linkage with drones and telescopes is supported alongside multi?projector 3D imaging modes. Essentially, sunroofs originally designed for daylighting and sun shading are repurposed as display carriers.
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