Intervention in operation of a vehicle having autonomous driving capabilities

• US 10,627,810 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2017
• Issued: 04/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motional AD, LLC (Aptiv PLC)
• Original Assignee: nuTonomy, Inc. (BorgWarner Incorporated)
• Inventors: Liu, Shih-Yuan, Ravichandran, Harshavardhan, Iagnemma, Karl, Chang, Hsun-Hsien
• Primary Examiner(s): Tissot, Adam D
• Application Number:
  US15/624,839
• Publication Number:
  US 20180364703A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,040 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0027 involving a plurality of vehicles, e.g. fleet or convoy travelling fleet control of land vehicles from a control room G05D1/0297; traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/00; for marine craft G08G3/00; for aircraft G08G5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0038 by providing the operator with simple or augmented images from one or more cameras located onboard the vehicle, e.g. tele-operation images analyzed by a computer and used for automatic navigation G05D1/0246
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0044 by providing the operator with a computer generated representation of the environment of the vehicle, e.g. virtual reality, maps maps used for automatic navigation G05D1/0274; flight directors G01C23/005
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0055 with safety arrangements
• 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: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0816 Indicating performance data, e.g. occurrence of a malfunction

Abstract

Among other things, a determination is made that intervention in an operation of one or more autonomous driving capabilities of a vehicle is appropriate. Based on the determination, a person is enabled to provide information for an intervention. The intervention is caused in the operation of the one or more autonomous driving capabilities of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

causing a vehicle to drive in an autonomous mode on a road, the vehicle comprising one or more autonomous driving capabilities;

treating a current location of the vehicle as a non-deterministic location having a conditional probability;

identifying, by probabilistic reasoning, a geolocation of the vehicle based on the conditional probability;

transmitting, to a teleoperation server, a request for an intervention regarding an operation of the one or more autonomous driving capabilities, the request for the intervention comprising the geolocation;

receiving the intervention regarding the operation of the one or more autonomous driving capabilities; and

analyzing the intervention and configuring, based on the intervention, one or more hardware components or one or more software processes of the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the intervention further comprises the current location of the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises:

treating the geolocation of the vehicle as prior knowledge; and

using an inference algorithm to update the geolocation of the vehicle.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the intervention comprises a goal location for the vehicle.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises:

treating the goal location in the intervention request as prior knowledge; and

using an inference algorithm to update the goal location.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the intervention comprises a trajectory for the vehicle.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises:

treating the trajectory in the intervention as prior knowledge; and

using an inference algorithm to update the trajectory.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the intervention comprises one or more trajectory sampling points for the vehicle.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises:

treating the one or more trajectory sampling points as prior knowledge; and

using an inference algorithm to update the one or more trajectory sampling points.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises inferring a trajectory or a trajectory segment based on the one or more trajectory sampling points.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the inferring of the trajectory or the trajectory segment is further based on one or more trajectory primitives.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the inferring of the trajectory or the trajectory segment comprises concatenating two shorter trajectory segments, the concatenating comprises smoothing the shorter trajectory segments and smoothing speed profiles across the shorter trajectory segments.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the intervention further comprises one or more un-traversable road segments.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the intervention comprises a speed profile.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises:

treating the speed profile as prior knowledge; and

using an inference algorithm to update the speed profile.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises inferring a speed profile by a learning algorithm.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises inferring a steering angle by a learning algorithm.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises enabling, editing or disabling a hardware component or a software process.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises enabling, editing or disabling a subcomponent of a hardware component or a processing step of a software process.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the intervention comprises overwriting a travel preference or a travel rule.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing of the intervention comprises editing data, the data comprising one or more of the following:

a map, sensor data in the vehicle or a related AV system, trajectory data in the vehicle or a related AV system, vision data in the vehicle or a related AV system, or any past data in the vehicle or a related AV system.