Vehicle management system

• US 10,424,135 B2
• Filed: 10/11/2017
• Issued: 09/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uatc, LLC (Uber Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Poeppel, Scott, Letwin, Nicholas G., Kelly, Sean J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Marc-Coleman, Marthe Y
• Application Number:
  US15/730,211
• Publication Number:
  US 20180164813A1
• Time in Patent Office: 713 Days
• Field of Search: 701 23
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/047 Optimisation of routes or paths, e.g. travelling salesman problem
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0808 Diagnosing performance data testing of vehicles G01M17/00; testing of electrical installation on vehicles G01R31/005
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0825 using optical means

Abstract

Systems, methods, and vehicles for taking a vehicle out-of-service are provided. In one example embodiment, a method includes obtaining, by one or more computing devices on-board an autonomous vehicle, data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle. The autonomous vehicle is configured to provide a vehicle service to one or more users of the vehicle service. The method includes determining, by the computing devices, an existence of a fault associated with the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle. The method includes determining, by the computing devices, one or more actions to be performed by the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the existence of the fault. The method includes performing, by the computing devices, one or more of the actions to take the autonomous vehicle out-of-service based at least in part on the fault.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of taking a vehicle out-of-service, comprising:

obtaining, by one or more computing devices on-board an autonomous vehicle, data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, an existence of a fault associated with the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide a transportation service for one or more users based at least in part on the existence of the fault; and

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, providing, by the one or more computing devices to one or more remote computing devices that are remote from the autonomous vehicle, data indicating that the autonomous vehicle is to be removed from a pool of vehicles that are designated as available to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more remote computing devices are configured to remove the autonomous vehicle from a pool of vehicles that are designated as available to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, rejecting, by the one or more computing devices, a service request associated with the transportation service for the one or more users.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users based at least in part on the existence of the fault comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, a level of severity of the fault based at least in part on one or more characteristics of the fault;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, an operational state of the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the level of severity of the fault, wherein the operational state is indicative of whether the autonomous vehicle is in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the operational state indicates that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the operational state indicates that the autonomous vehicle is in condition to complete a provision of the transportation service for the one or more users before communicating that the autonomous vehicle is unavailable to provide the vehicle service.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein determining a level of severity of the fault is based at least in part on a potential effect of the fault on the one or more users of the transportation service.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

controlling, by the one or more computing devices, the autonomous vehicle to travel to and arrive at a maintenance location.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, providing, by the one or more computing devices to one or more remote computing devices, data indicative of a request for a different vehicle to provide the transportation service to a current user of the autonomous vehicle.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, providing, by the one or more computing devices to one or more remote computing devices, data indicative of a request for a human operator associated with the one or more remote computing devices to communicate with a current user of the autonomous vehicle.

11. A computing system for taking a vehicle out-of-service, the system comprising:

one or more processors on-board an autonomous vehicle; and

one or more memory devices on-board the autonomous vehicle, the one or more memory devices storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising;

obtaining data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle;

determining an existence of a fault associated with the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on a comparison of the one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle to one or more thresholds;

determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide a transportation service for one or more users based at least in part on the existence of the fault; and

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, providing, to one or more remote computing devices that are remote from the autonomous vehicle, data indicating that the autonomous vehicle is to be removed from a service queue associated with the transportation service for the one or more users.

12. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the autonomous vehicle does not accept requests for the transportation service for the one or more users when the autonomous vehicle is unavailable to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

13. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

providing one or more control command signals to one or more systems on-board the autonomous vehicle to cause the autonomous vehicle to initiate travel to a maintenance location.

14. The computing system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the parameters is indicative of an amount of available data storage on-board the autonomous vehicle.

15. The computing system of claim 14, wherein at least one threshold is indicative of a threshold amount of available data storage.

16. An autonomous vehicle comprising:

one or more systems;

one or more processors; and

one or more memory devices, the one or more memory devices storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising;

obtaining data indicative of one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle, wherein at least a portion of the data is provided by one or more of the systems on-board the autonomous vehicle;

determining an existence of a fault associated with the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the one or more parameters associated with the autonomous vehicle;

determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide a transportation service for one or more users based at least in part on the existence of the fault; and

in response to determining that the autonomous vehicle is not in condition to provide the transportation service for the one or more users, providing, to one or more remote computing devices that are remote from the autonomous vehicle, data indicating that the autonomous vehicle is to be removed from a pool of vehicles that are designated as available to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

17. The autonomous vehicle of claim 16, wherein the autonomous vehicle is included in a plurality of vehicles associated with a service provider.

18. The autonomous vehicle of claim 17, wherein the one or more remote computing devices are associated with the service provider.

19. The autonomous vehicle of claim 18, wherein the one or more remote computing devices do not provide the autonomous vehicle with a request for the transportation service for the one or more users when the autonomous vehicle is unavailable to provide the transportation service for the one or more users.

20. The autonomous vehicle of claim 16, wherein the one or more systems on-board the autonomous vehicle comprise one or more image capture devices configured to acquire image data to be used for operation of the autonomous vehicle, and wherein the fault is associated with storing the image data.