Directed alert notification by autonomous-driving vehicle

• US 10,726,687 B2
• Filed: 09/23/2019
• Issued: 07/28/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pony.ai, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Pony.ai, Inc.
• Inventors: Song, Hao, Zhang, Zhuo, Xiao, Sinan, Yu, Xiang, Lou, Tiancheng, Peng, Jun, Hou, Jie, Li, Tianyi, Liu, Yiming
• Primary Examiner(s): Haile, Benyam
• Application Number:
  US16/579,238
• Publication Number:
  US 20200020212A1
• Time in Patent Office: 309 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 1/506 specific to silent vehicles, e.g. for warning that a hybrid or electric vehicle is approaching
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 1/507 specific to autonomous vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 1/525 automatically indicating risk of collision between vehicles in traffic or with pedestrians, e.g. after risk assessment using the vehicle sensor data
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 2400/50 Projected symbol or information, e.g. onto the road or car body
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 5/005 automatically actuated
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 5/006 indicating risk of collision between vehicles or with pedestrians
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 9/008 for anti-collision purposes
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 21/34 Protecting non-occupants of a vehicle, e.g. pedestrians B60R19/02 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2555/20 Ambient conditions, e.g. wind or rain
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/08 Active safety systems predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision or attempting to minimise its consequences
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/095 Predicting travel path or likelihood of collision
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/0956 the prediction being responsive to traffic or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/0097 Predicting future conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/51 Relative positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0088 characterized by the autonomous decision making process, e.g. artificial intelligence, predefined behaviours using knowledge based models G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0212 with means for defining a desired trajectory involving a plurality of land vehicles G05D1/0287
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0214 in accordance with safety or protection criteria, e.g. avoiding hazardous areas monitoring the location of vehicles within a certain area, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas, in traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/13
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0248 in combination with a laser lasers per se H01S
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 7/06 using electric transmission , e.g. involving audible and visible signalling through the use of sound and light sources
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/005 including pedestrian guidance indicator
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/16 : Anti-collision systems road vehicle drive control systems for predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision otherwise than by control of a particular sub-unit B60W30/08
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 : for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes

Abstract

A system included and a computer-implemented method performed in an autonomous-driving vehicle are described. The system performs: detecting one or more movable objects; determining a target movable object from the one or more detected objects; determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object; and causing a directed alert notification of the determined manner to be generated toward the target movable object.

Claims

1. A system for a vehicle, comprising:

one or more processors; and

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

detect one or more movable objects;

determine a target movable object from the one or more detected movable objects, the determining the target movable object comprising;

selecting a movable object based on a criteria, the criteria being based on any of a distance from the vehicle to the one or more movable objects at a current or a future time or a risk of a traffic incident caused by the one or more movable objects;

determine a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprising;

directing an optical device in a bug shape in response to the target movable object being an animal; and

cause the directed alert notification of the determined manner to be generated toward the target movable object.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to:

determine a vehicle route of the vehicle;

determine predicted moving paths of the detected one or more movable objects based on metadata of the one or more movable objects, the metadata being based on a type of the one or more movable objects;

determine one or more of the detected movable objects that are predicted to be within a predetermined distance from the vehicle as one or more candidate movable objects, based on the vehicle route and the predicted moving paths of the one or more movable objects; and

determine the target movable object from the one or more candidate movable objects based on the criteria.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein, in response to the type of the one or more movable objects being a pedestrian, the metadata comprises a walking speed, an existence of other movable objects, body orientation face direction, or eye direction;

and

the determining predicted moving paths comprises predicting positions of a sidewalk the pedestrian passes or positions of a crosswalk the pedestrian passes, based on the metadata.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein, in response to the type of the one or more movable objects being a vehicle, the metadata comprises a driving speed, an acceleration value, a deceleration value, a vehicle orientation, wheel directions, states of lamps, or an existence of other movable objects, a make of the vehicle, or a specification of the vehicle;

and

the determining predicted moving paths comprises predicting a lane of a road is to be used, or a parking spot to be used, based on the metadata.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein, in response to the type of the one or more movable objects being an animal, the metadata comprises a type of the animal, a behavioral attribute of the animal, or past move history of the animal;

and

the determining predicted moving paths comprises predicting a lane of a road to be used, or a parking spot to be used, based on the metadata.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the determining a vehicle route of the vehicle is based on a geographic crime rate.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

predict a reactive movement of the target movable object in response to the directed alert notification being generated; and

control a locomotion of the vehicle based on the predicted reactive movement.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein, in response to a type of the target movable object being a pedestrian, and in response to the predicted reactive movement of the target movable object being stopping, the controlling the locomotion of the vehicle comprises driving apart from or avoiding a stop position of the target movable object.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein, in response to a type of the target movable object being a animal, and in response to the predicted reactive movement of the target movable object being rushing in a direction, the controlling the locomotion of the vehicle comprises driving the vehicle in a different direction.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification in response to determining a type of the directed alert notification and a position of the directed alert notification.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification to be a time when a speed of the vehicle decreases below or increases above a predetermined value.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification to be a time when a separation between the vehicle and another nearest vehicle is greater than a threshold distance.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification comprises selecting any of a visual directed alert notification, an acoustic directed alert notification, a somatosensory directed alert notification, or an electromagnetic directed alert notification, based at least in part on a visual perceptibility level, an acoustic perceptibility level, a somatosensory perceptibility level, and a via-electronic-device perceptibility level.

14. A computer-implemented method performed in a vehicle comprising:

detecting one or more movable objects;

determining a target movable object from the one or more detected movable objects, the determining the target movable object comprising;

selecting a movable object based on a criteria, the criteria being based on any of a distance from the vehicle to the one or more movable objects at a current or a future time or a risk of a traffic incident caused by the one or more movable objects;

determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprising;

directing an optical device in a bug shape in response to the target movable object being an animal; and

causing the directed alert notification of the determined manner to be generated toward the target movable object.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising:

determining a vehicle route of the vehicle;

determining predicted moving paths of the detected one or more movable objects based on metadata of the one or more movable objects, the metadata being based on a type of the one or more movable objects;

determining one or more of the detected movable objects that are predicted to be within a predetermined distance from the vehicle as one or more candidate movable objects, based on the vehicle route and the predicted moving paths of the one or more movable objects; and

determining the target movable object from the one or more candidate movable objects based on the criteria.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising:

predicting a reactive movement of the target movable object in response to the directed alert notification being generated; and

controlling a locomotion of the vehicle based on the predicted reactive movement.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification in response to determining a type of the directed alert notification and a position of the directed alert notification.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification to be a time when a speed of the vehicle decreases below or increases above a predetermined value.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object comprises determining a timing of generating the directed alert notification to be a time when a separation between the vehicle and another nearest vehicle is greater than a threshold distance.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform:

detecting one or more movable objects;

determining a target movable object from the one or more detected movable objects, the determining the target movable object comprising;

selecting a movable object based on a criteria, the criteria being based on any of a distance from the vehicle to the one or more movable objects at a current or a future time or a risk of a traffic incident caused by the one or more movable objects;

determining a manner of generating a directed alert notification selectively toward the target movable object, comprising;

directing an optical device in a bug shape in response to the target movable object being an animal; and

causing the directed alert notification of the determined manner to be generated toward the target movable object.