Information processing apparatus, vehicle, information processing method, running control method, and map updating method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10935385-B2
Application number	US-201816045858-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 26, 2018
Priority date	Aug 28, 2017
Publication date	Mar 2, 2021
Grant date	Mar 2, 2021

Abstract

An information processing apparatus is configured to distribute, to a vehicle, a map showing a road shape of a road on which the vehicle runs makes, for each of a plurality of areas and determine whether it is necessary to update the map of that area. The determination is based on at least either an amount of change from the road shape shown by the map to the road shape at a present time in each of the plurality of areas or the number of occurrences of a predetermined action of a vehicle having run through in each of the plurality of areas.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An information processing apparatus, comprising:
a communication circuit configured to communicate with a vehicle;
a processor; and
a non-transitory recording medium storing thereon
(i) a map divided into a plurality of areas, the map showing:
a road, and
a road shape that is a shape of an area around the road, and

(ii) a computer program, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform operations including:

acquiring, via one or more sensors of the vehicle, sensing data indicating a road shape of the area around the road on which the vehicle runs;
determining whether the vehicle is in an autonomous mode;
determining, for each of the plurality of areas, whether it is necessary to update the map for navigating in each of the plurality of areas,
wherein the determining of whether it is necessary to update the map for navigating is based on:
a score based on

S
=

α
⁢

∑
i

⁢

c
i

P

⁢
T

+

∑
j

⁢

⁢

β
j

⁢

p
j

 formula, wherein S denotes the score, c i denotes an amount of change in past update score, P denotes a predetermined period of time preceding a last update time, T denotes time elapsed since the last update time up to a current time, p j denotes a number of occurrences of various events, and α and β j denote coefficients,
a number of a plurality of interventions performed that disrupt planned autonomous driving operations while the vehicle is in the autonomous mode, and
at least one of
an amount of change, in each of the plurality of areas, from the road shape shown by the stored map to the road shape acquired by the vehicle, and
a number of occurrences of a predetermined action of a vehicle having run through in each of the plurality of areas;

updating the map for at least one area among the plurality of areas when it is determined that it is necessary to update the map; and
transmitting, via the communication circuit and to the vehicle, the updated map,
wherein the occurrences include a driver intervention operation of the vehicle and an autonomous operation performed by the vehicle.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the operations further include:
determining available vehicles that are traveling or are planning to travel in an identified area of the map;
selecting at least one detecting vehicle that detects the road shape from among one or more of the available vehicles that are traveling or planning to travel in the identified area where it has been determined that the map needs to be updated; and
transmitting, via the communication circuit, a detection request that causes the selected detecting vehicle to obtain sensing data for detecting the road shape of the identified area for updating the map, to the selected detecting vehicle via a communication network.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the vehicle is a vehicle configured to perform automatic driving, and
the predetermined action is at least one of (i) sudden deceleration, (ii) sudden acceleration, (iii) manual driving interruption during the automatic driving, and (iv) quick avoidance, that have occurred during a predetermined period of time up to the current time.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the selecting includes selecting, as the detecting vehicle, a vehicle whose vehicle height is not lower than a predetermined height.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the selecting includes selecting, as the detecting vehicle, a vehicle having a sensor configured to detect the road shape and whose detection accuracy is not lower than a predetermined degree of accuracy.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the selecting includes selecting, as the detecting vehicle, a vehicle that has ever run in a detection mode in which to detect the road shape in order to update the map.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the determining includes:
computing a score for each of the plurality of areas using at least one of (i) the amount of change and (ii) the number of occurrences; and
determining that it is necessary to update the map of one of the plurality of areas whose computed score exceeds a predetermined score.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the determining includes:
increasing a predetermined score of one of the plurality of areas where the number of times it has been determined per unit period that updating is needed is not smaller than a first number of times; and
decreasing the predetermined score of that one of the plurality of areas where the number of times it has been determined per unit period that updating is needed is smaller than a second number of times that is not larger than the first number of times.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the processor determines that it is necessary to update the map if the number of the plurality of interventions performed that disrupt planned autonomous driving operations is greater than a predetermined threshold.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the determining of whether updating of the map is necessary for a particular area is based on the number of the plurality of interventions performed that disrupt planned autonomous driving operations by a plurality of cars that passes through the particular area.

11. A map updating system comprising:
a vehicle; and
an information processing apparatus,

wherein the vehicle comprises:
one or more sensors;
a processor; and
a memory storing thereon a computer program, which when executed by the processor of the vehicle, causes the processor of the vehicle to perform operations including:
acquiring, via the one or more sensors of the vehicle, sensing data indicating a road shape of an area around a road on which the vehicle runs;
determining whether the vehicle is an autonomous mode;
detecting (i) the road on which the vehicle runs, and (ii) the road shape that is a shape of the area around the road based on the acquired sensing data;
receiving a detection request to detect the road shape from the information processing apparatus via a communication network;
upon receiving the detection request, determining whether a running mode of the vehicle is switched from a normal mode in which to perform normal running to a detection mode in which to, in order to update a map for navigating, perform running t

Assignees

• Panasonic Ip Corp America

Inventors

• Ohyama Shinji
• Nakata Yohei
• Yamaguchi Takuya

Classifications

• G01C21/3819 Primary

  Road shape data, e.g. outline of a route · CPC title

• G01C21/3896

  Transmission of map data from central databases · CPC title

• G01C21/3848

  Data obtained from both position sensors and additional sensors · CPC title

• G01S17/42

  Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates (indirect measurement G01S17/46) · CPC title

• G01C21/34 Primary

  Route searching; Route guidance · CPC title