IDENTIFYING A STOPPING PLACE FOR AN AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE

• US 20180113463A1
• Filed: 10/20/2016
• Published: 04/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motional AD, LLC (Aptiv PLC)
• Original Assignee: nuTonomy, Inc. (Aptiv PLC)
• Inventors: Iagnemma, Karl, Ravichandran, Harshavardhan
• Granted Patent: US 10,857,994 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/00 Purposes of road vehicle drive control systems not related to the control of a particular sub-unit, e.g. of systems using conjoint control of vehicle sub-units
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3407 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3438 Rendez-vous, i.e. searching a destination where several users can meet, and the routes to this destination for these users; Ride sharing, i.e. searching a route such that at least two users can share a vehicle for at least part of the route
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0061 for transition from automatic pilot to manual pilot and vice versa
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/047 Optimisation of routes or paths, e.g. travelling salesman problem

Abstract

Among other things, a planning process is associated with an autonomous vehicle. The planning process has inputs including static map data and dynamic data from sensors on the autonomous vehicle and outputs including a route to be driven through a road network to reach a goal position, a continually updated choice of a currently selected stopping place in the vicinity of the goal position, and a trajectory to be executed through a road network to reach the currently selected stopping place. A communication element communicates information about the updated choice of a currently selected stopping place to a device of a passenger, receives from the device of the passenger information about the goal position, and delivers the information to the planning process as an input.

Claims

1. A system comprising

a planning process associated with an autonomous vehicle, the planning process having inputs comprising static map data and dynamic data from sensors on the autonomous vehicle and outputs comprising a route to be driven through a road network to reach a goal position, a continually updated choice of a currently selected stopping place in the vicinity of the goal position, and a trajectory to be executed through a road network to reach the currently selected stopping place,

a communication element that communicates information about the updated choice of a currently selected stopping place to a device of a passenger, receives from the device of the passenger information about the goal position and delivers the information to the planning process as an input.

2. The system of claim 1 in which the currently selected stopping place is updated based on non-feasibility of a currently selected stopping place.

3. The system of claim 1 comprising

the planning process updating the selection of a stopping place based on the information from the device of the passenger about the stopping place.

4. The system of claim 1 in which the communication element communicates to the device of the passenger that the planning process has selected a stopping place.

5. The system of claim 1 in which the information received from the device of the passenger comprises an indication that a stopping place farther from the goal position would be acceptable.

6. The system of claim 1 in which the information received from the device of the passenger comprises an indication of a maximum acceptable distance.

7. The system of claim 1 in which the information received from the device of the passenger comprises an indication of a new goal position to be considered by the planning process.

8. The system of claim 1 in which the information received from the device of the passenger includes an indication that further time spent searching for an acceptable stopping place would be acceptable to the passenger.