Patent attributes
The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for detecting physical threats approaching a vehicle. External sensors on a vehicle capture the environment around the vehicle. Approaching targets detected by the external sensors can be fed into a neural network to recognize and/or classify approaching targets as potential threats. Tracking mechanisms (e.g., Kalman filters, Particle filters, etc.) can leverage temporal information to determine if a threat is approaching a vehicle. When an approaching threat is detected, a vehicle can activate one or more counter measures to deter the threat. When a vehicle includes autonomous driving capabilities, counter measures can include automatically attempting to drive away from an approaching threat.