Shared vehicle obstacle data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11449073-B2
Application number	US-202016780403-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 3, 2020
Priority date	Aug 10, 2017
Publication date	Sep 20, 2022
Grant date	Sep 20, 2022

Abstract

Systems, methods, and apparatuses described herein are directed to sharing vehicle obstacle data between vehicles and/or between vehicles and a central server. Vehicles may include sensors capturing data including, but not limited to, speed, direction, acceleration, deceleration, LIDAR data, RADAR data, SONAR data, camera data, GPS data, etc. In some implementations, acceleration of a vehicle above a threshold, such as braking or swerving, may trigger the transmission of sensor data to other vehicles and/or infrastructure devices. Vehicles that receive the transmitted data may determine a validity of the data, and may incorporate the data into operations of the receiving vehicle based at least in part on the validity of the data. Validity of the data may be based on sensor type, elapsed time or distance between detection of an obstacle or event and reception of data, a number of retransmissions, duplicative data, independent sources of data, etc.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more computer readable storage media communicatively coupled to the one or more processors and storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to:
capture first sensor data from one or more sensors, the one or more sensors including one or more LIDAR sensors, one or more cameras, one or more RADAR sensors, one or more SONAR sensors, or one or more GPS sensors, the first sensor data representing a first environment;
receive second sensor data from a remote system, the second sensor data representing a second environment that is separate from the first environment, wherein the remote system comprises a vehicle system or an infrastructure system;
determine a confidence level associated with a validity of the second sensor data, the confidence level based at least in part on at least one of a timestamp associated with the second sensor data or a type of sensor capturing the second sensor data;
generate a trajectory for an autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the first sensor data, the second sensor data, and the confidence level associated with the validity of the second sensor data; and
control the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the trajectory.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second sensor data includes at least segmentation information associated with an obstacle or an event associated with the second environment.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the remote system is a remote autonomous vehicle, and further wherein the second sensor data includes at least a position and a velocity associated with the remote autonomous vehicle traversing the second environment.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the trajectory includes commands to control the autonomous vehicle through at least a portion of the first environment and through at least a portion of the second environment.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the remote system is a first remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to:
receive third sensor data from a second remote autonomous vehicle that is different from the autonomous vehicle;
determine that the second sensor data and the third sensor data represent a same object in the second environment; and
increase a confidence level associated with a validity of the second sensor data and the third sensor data.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the remote system is a first remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to:
determine that the second sensor data is associated with an obstacle associated with the second environment;
receive third sensor data from a second remote autonomous vehicle that is different from the autonomous vehicle; and
determine that the third sensor data is associated with the obstacle associated with the second environment.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to increase the confidence level associated with the validity of the second sensor data based at least in part on the third sensor data being associated with the obstacle associated with the second environment.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to transmit at least a portion of the second sensor data to one or more other vehicles proximate to the autonomous vehicle.

9. A method comprising:
capturing first sensor data from one or more sensors installed in an autonomous vehicle;
receiving data associated with a remote autonomous vehicle, the data including one or more of first data associated with a state of the remote autonomous vehicle or second data associated with second sensor data captured by the remote autonomous vehicle;
determining a confidence level associated with a validity of the data;
generating a trajectory of the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the first sensor data, the data, and the confidence level associated with the validity of the data; and
controlling the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the trajectory.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the data includes at least the first data associated with the state of the remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the first data includes at least one of a position of the remote autonomous vehicle, an orientation of the remote autonomous vehicle, a velocity of the remote autonomous vehicle, or a braking status of the remote autonomous vehicle.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the data includes at least the second data associated with the second sensor data captured by the remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the second sensor data includes at least segmented image data of an environment proximate to the remote autonomous vehicle.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the second sensor data further includes classification information associated with an obstacle or an event represented by the segmented image data.

13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining a reception time associated with receiving the data at the autonomous vehicle;
determining a generation time associated with a generation of the data by the remote autonomous vehicle;
determining a time difference between the reception time and the generation time; and
determining the confidence level associated with the validity of the data based at least in part on the time difference between the reception time and the generation time.

14. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining the confidence level associated with the validity of the data based at least in part on a type of the one or more sensors.

15. An autonomous vehicle comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more computer readable storage media communicatively coupled to the one or more processors and storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to:
capture first sensor data from one or more sensors installed in the autonomous vehicle;
receive data associated with a remote autonomous vehicle, the data including one or more of first data associated with a state of the remote autonomous vehicle or second data associated with second sensor data captured by the remote autonomous vehicle;
determine a confidence level associated with a validity of the data;
generate a trajectory of the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the first sensor data, the data, and the confidence level associated with the validity of the data; and
control the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the trajectory.

16. The autonomous vehicle of claim 15 , wherein the data includes at least the first data associated with the state of the remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the first data includes at least one of a position of the remote autonomous vehicle, an orientation of the remote autonomous vehicle, a velocity of the remote autonomous vehicle, or a braking status of the remote autonomous vehicle.

17. The autonomous vehicle of claim 15 , wherein the data includes at least the second data associated with the second sensor data captured by the remote autonomous vehicle, and wherein the second sensor data includes at least segmented image data of an environment proximate to the remote autonomous vehicle and classification information associated with an obstacle or an event represented by the segmented image data.

18. The autonomous vehicle of claim 15 , wherein one or more of a quality or a representati

Assignees

• Zoox Inc

Inventors

• Lin Michael
• Kentley-Klay Timothy David

Classifications

• H04W4/38 Primary

  for collecting sensor information · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• G08G1/165

  for passive traffic, e.g. including static obstacles, trees · CPC title

• G08G1/096741

  where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle · CPC title

• G08G1/096791

  where the origin of the information is another vehicle · CPC title