Vehicle roof assembly

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12005909-B2
Application number	US-202117192992-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 5, 2021
Priority date	Mar 13, 2020
Publication date	Jun 11, 2024
Grant date	Jun 11, 2024

Abstract

A system includes a shaft extendable from a vehicle roof, a sensor mount mounted to the shaft, a plurality of sensors supported by the sensor mount, and a computer communicatively coupled with one or more of the sensors to receive data from the one or more of the sensors, the computer including a processor and a memory. The memory stores instructions executable by the processor to extend the shaft to position the sensor mount to a specified height above the roof.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a shaft extendable from a vehicle roof;
a sensor mount mounted to the shaft;
one or more sensors supported by the sensor mount; and
a computer communicatively coupled with one or more of the sensors to receive data from the one or more of the sensors, and including a processor and a memory, the memory storing instructions executable by the processor to:
extend the shaft to position the sensor mount to a specified height above the roof, wherein the specified height is a height based on a geographic location.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the shaft is rotatable from a stowed position to a deployed position.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to rotate the shaft from the stowed position to the deployed position and, then, to extend the shaft to position the sensor mount to the specified height above the vehicle roof.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the memory stores a plurality of specified geographic locations including the geographic location, and wherein each of the plurality of geographic locations is assigned a respective specified height of the shaft above the vehicle roof.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to collect respective data at each of the specified geographic locations and to train the machine learning program with the data from each of the specified geographic locations.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein each of the specified geographic locations is a location of an infrastructure element, and the respective specified height is a height of an infrastructure sensor associated with the respective specified geographic location.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sensor mount is rotatable relative to the shaft.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to rotate the sensor mount to a specified angle relative to the shaft, the specified angle specified to capture data about a roadway; wherein the specified angle is in a plane that includes the shaft.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to rotate the sensor mount to a specified rotation angle about the shaft, the specified rotation angle specified to capture data about a roadway; wherein the specified angle is in a plane that does not include the shaft.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the shaft includes a base and an extension, the extension extendable from the base to the specified height.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to train a machine learning program with the received data.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the machine learning program is trained to output an identified object upon receiving data from one or more of the plurality of sensors.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further include instructions to transmit the collected data to an external server to train a machine learning program with the collected data.

14. A method, comprising:
extending a shaft extendable from a vehicle roof of a vehicle to position a sensor mount to a specified height above the vehicle roof;
collecting data with one or more sensors supported by the sensor mount, including respective data at each of a plurality of specified geographic locations; and
training a machine learning program with the collected data, including with the data from each of the specified geographic locations, wherein each of the geographic locations is assigned a respective specified height of the shaft above the vehicle roof.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising rotating the shaft from a stowed position to a deployed position and, then, extending the shaft to position the sensor mount to the specified height above the vehicle roof.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein each geographic location is a location of an infrastructure element, and the respective specified height is a height of a set of infrastructure sensors.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the machine learning program is trained to output an identified object upon receiving data from the one or more sensors.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Parchami Mostafa
• Giardinelli Stephen
• Lockwood John Anthony

Classifications

• B62D65/02

  Joining sub-units or components to, or positioning sub-units or components with respect to, body shell or other sub-units or components · CPC title

• G06N5/04

  Inference or reasoning models · CPC title

• G06N20/00

  Machine learning · CPC title

• B60R2011/004

  outside the vehicle · CPC title

• B60R11/00

  Arrangements for holding or mounting articles, not otherwise provided for · CPC title