Personalized driving of autonomously driven vehicles

• US 9,766,625 B2
• Filed: 07/25/2014
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HERE Global B.V. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: HERE Global B.V. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Boroditsky, Vladimir, Stenneth, Leon Oliver, Fowe, James Adeyemi, Giurgiu, Gavril Adrian
• Primary Examiner(s): SMITH, JELANI A
• Application Number:
  US14/341,198
• Publication Number:
  US 20160026182A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,152 Days
• Field of Search: 701 23
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 31/00 Vehicle fittings, acting on a single sub-unit only, for automatically controlling vehicle speed, i.e. preventing speed from exceeding an arbitrarily established velocity or maintaining speed at a particular velocity, as selected by the vehicle operator fittings acting on two or more sub-units B60W30/14; speedometers G01P; systems or devices for controlling speed in general G05D13/00 ; in traffic anti-collision system for road vehicles G08G1/16
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/043 Identity of occupants
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/30 Driving style
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2552/05 Type of road, e.g. motorways, local streets, paved or unpaved roads
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2554/406 Traffic density
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2555/20 Ambient conditions, e.g. wind or rain
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/45 External transmission of data to or from the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 60/0013 specially adapted for occupant comfort
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0221 involving a learning process
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0112 from the vehicle, e.g. floating car data [FCD]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0129 for creating historical data or processing based on historical data
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0145 for active traffic flow control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/22 Platooning, i.e. convoy of communicating vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Methods for personalized driving of autonomously driven vehicles include: (a) downloading at least a portion of a driving profile to a vehicle, wherein the vehicle is configured for autonomous driving and wherein the driving profile is associated with a specific driver; and (b) executing one or a plurality of operating instructions prescribed by the driving profile, such that the vehicle is operable in a driving style imitative of the specific driver. Apparatuses for personalized driving of autonomously driven vehicles are described.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining a portion of a driving profile associated with one variation of driving manner of a specific driver based on a spatial or temporal environmental property around a vehicle, wherein the driving profile contains a plurality of variations of driving manners of the specific driver;

downloading, by a processor, the portion of the driving profile from a cloud server to the vehicle, wherein the vehicle is configured for autonomous driving, wherein downloading the portion of the driving profile downloads less than an entirety of the driving profile; and

executing, by the processor, one or a plurality of operating instructions prescribed by the portion of the driving profile, such that the vehicle is operable in a driving style imitative of the specific driver.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the driving profile is stored in a plurality of cloud servers.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the downloaded portion is constrained by a variable related to the vehicle and/or an environment of the vehicle.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the variable is selected from the group consisting of a geographical location, a type of road, a type of terrain, a type of weather, a type of season, a time of day, a degree of visibility, a volume of traffic, a priority of travel purpose, and combinations thereof.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

refreshing, by the processor, a content of the downloaded portion based on a change to the spatial or temporal environmental property around the vehicle.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, by the processor, identification information for the specific driver, whereby the driving profile associated with the specific driver is determinable.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the driving profile represents only one of a plurality of stored driving profiles associated with the specific driver.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

selecting, by the processor, which of the plurality of stored driving profiles to access.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining, by the processor, whether a driving profile exists for the specific driver.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the vehicle comprises:

a plurality of vehicles, wherein each of the plurality of vehicles is configured for autonomous driving, wherein each of the plurality of vehicles is operable to download the portion of the driving profile for the specific driver from the cloud server, and wherein the plurality of vehicles is configured to participate in a platooning trip.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the driving profile represents a generic profile, wherein the generic profile is associated with a specific driving category, and wherein the method further comprises matching, by the processor, the specific driver to the specific driving category.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

modifying, by the processor, the driving profile.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

deleting, by the processor, the driving profile.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

constructing, by the processor, the driving profile if a determination is made that the driving profile does not already exist.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

acquiring, by the processor, telematics sensor data from one or a plurality of telematics sensors onboard the vehicle;

accessing, by the processor, real world reference data;

acquiring, by the processor, real time environmental data corresponding to a status of an environment of the vehicle; and

modeling, by the processor, the driving profile based on at least a portion of the telematics sensor data, at least a portion of the real world reference data, and at least a portion of the real time environmental data.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the downloaded portion of the driving profile is restricted based on a driving profile of an owner of the vehicle.

17. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code for one or more programs, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following;

determine a portion of a driving profile associated with a specific driver and a vehicle type, wherein the determined portion of the driving profile is associated with a manner of driving of the specific driver based on the type of vehicle;

download, from a remote server, the determined portion of the driving profile to a vehicle, wherein the vehicle is configured for autonomous driving and a type of the vehicle matches the vehicle type of the determined portion of the driving profile, wherein downloading the determined portion of the driving profile downloads less than an entirety of the driving profile; and

execute one or a plurality of operating instructions prescribed by the determined portion of the driving profile, such that the vehicle is operable in a driving style imitative of the specific driver for the vehicle type.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code is configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following:

constraining, prior to executing the one or more instructions, the downloaded portion of the driving profile based on an environment of the vehicle.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a programmed processor, the storage medium comprising instructions for:

determining a portion of a driving profile associated with a specific driver, an environmental condition and a vehicle type, wherein the determined portion of the driving profile is associated with a manner of driving of the specific driver based on the type of vehicle and the environmental condition;

downloading the portion of a driving profile to the vehicle, wherein the vehicle is configured for autonomous driving and a type of the vehicle matches the vehicle type of the portion of the driving profile; and

executing one or a plurality of operating instructions prescribed by the driving profile, such that the vehicle is operable in a driving style imitative of the specific driver for the vehicle type and the environmental condition.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the environmental condition comprises a rainy condition, a snowy condition or a dry condition.