Autonomous vehicle operations related to detection of an unsafe passenger pickup/delivery condition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2023182772-A1
Application number	US-202117550969-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 14, 2021
Priority date	Dec 14, 2021
Publication date	Jun 15, 2023
Grant date	—

Abstract

A passenger may be rather vulnerable to safety risks during pickup and/or drop-off of a passenger by a vehicle. To mitigate or eliminate such risk, the vehicle may determine an endpoint for a vehicle route to pickup or drop-off a passenger at a location. The vehicle may determine an estimated path between the endpoint and the location and may determine a safety confidence score by a machine-learned model for the estimated path and/or may predict a trajectory of a detected object to ascertain whether the estimated path is safe. The vehicle may execute any of a number of different mitigation actions to reduce or eliminate a safety risk if one is detected.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
receiving a pickup request or a delivery request associated with a passenger of a vehicle and identifying a location for the pickup or delivery of the passenger; determining, based at least in part on the location, a first endpoint for controlling the vehicle; receiving sensor data associated with operation of the vehicle; determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a safety confidence score associated with the location and the pickup or delivery of the passenger; and altering operation of the vehicle based at least in part on determining that the safety confidence score is less than a threshold confidence score, wherein altering operation of the vehicle comprises altering at least one of the first endpoint or functionality of a door of the vehicle.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising transmitting a notification to a computing device associated with the passenger indicating at least one of an unsafe condition or the alteration.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the safety confidence score comprises:
providing input data to a machine-learned model; and receiving the safety confidence score as output from the machine-learned model, wherein the input data is based at least in part on the sensor data and comprises at least one of:
a speed or acceleration of an object detected based at least in part on the sensor data;
determining that the vehicle is impeding traffic;
an average speed of traffic;
determining that an emergency vehicle or a law enforcement vehicle is moving towards the vehicle;
visibility data;
a position of the passenger;
a detected hazard;
a detected indication by an object classified an official person; or
a region that is occluded to the passenger.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the safety confidence score comprises:
determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a predicted trajectory associated with an object; and determining a path between at least one of the passenger and the location, the passenger and the vehicle, or the vehicle and the location, wherein the safety confidence score is based at least in part on the path and the predicted trajectory.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the safety confidence score is a first safety confidence score, the location is a first location, and the altering comprises one or more of:
halting or slowing a first trajectory that is based at least in part on the first endpoint until a second safety confidence score is determined that meets or exceeds the threshold confidence score; preventing the door from being opened until the second safety confidence score is determined that meets or exceeds the threshold confidence score; preventing the door from being opened until an object passes the vehicle; preventing the door from being opened until a door control is actuated more than once; determining a second location different than the first location and determining a second trajectory based at least in part on the second location; determining to pass the first location and re-route back to the first location; or emitting at least one of a sound or light via an emitter of the vehicle.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
determining the first trajectory is based at least in part on determining a first region around the location; the method further comprises increasing, as a second region, a size associated with the first region based at least in part on determining that the safety confidence score does not meet the threshold; and altering operation of the vehicle comprises determining a second trajectory to a second location within the second region.

7 . A system comprising:
one or more processors; and a memory storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving a pickup request or a delivery request associated with a passenger of a vehicle and identifying a location for the pickup or delivery of the passenger;
determining, based at least in part on the location, a first endpoint for controlling the vehicle;
receiving sensor data associated with operation of the vehicle;
determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a safety confidence score associated with the location and the pickup or delivery of the passenger; and
altering operation of the vehicle based at least in part on determining that the safety confidence score is less than a threshold confidence score, wherein altering operation of the vehicle comprises altering at least one of the first endpoint or functionality of an aperture of the vehicle.

8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the operations further comprise transmitting a notification to a computing device associated with the passenger indicating at least one of an unsafe condition or the alteration.

9 . The system of claim 7 , wherein determining the safety confidence score comprises:
providing input data to a machine-learned model; and receiving the safety confidence score as output from the machine-learned model, wherein the input data is based at least in part on the sensor data and comprises at least one of:
a speed or acceleration of an object detected based at least in part on the sensor data;
determining that the vehicle is impeding traffic;
an average speed of traffic;
determining that an emergency vehicle or a law enforcement vehicle is moving towards the vehicle;
visibility data;
a position of the passenger;
a detected hazard;
a detected indication by an object classified an official person; or
a region that is occluded to the passenger.

10 . The system of claim 7 , wherein determining the safety confidence score comprises:
determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a predicted trajectory associated with an object; and determining a path between at least one of the passenger and the location, the passenger and the vehicle, or the vehicle and the location, wherein the safety confidence score is based at least in part on the path and the predicted trajectory.

11 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the safety confidence score is a first safety confidence score, the location is a first location, and the altering comprises one or more of:
halting or slowing a first trajectory that is based at least in part on the first endpoint until a second safety confidence score is determined that meets or exceeds the threshold confidence score; preventing the door from being opened until the second safety confidence score is determined that meets or exceeds the threshold confidence score; preventing the door from being opened until an object passes the vehicle; preventing the door from being opened until a door control is actuated more than once; determining a second location different than the first location and determining a second trajectory based at least in part on the second location; determining to pass the first location and re-route back to the first location; or emitting at least one of a sound or light via an emitter of the vehicle.

12 . The system of claim 7 , wherein:
determining the first trajectory is based at least in part on determining a first region around the location; the operations further comprise increasing, as a second region, a size associated with the first region based at least in part on determining that the safety confidence score does not meet the threshold; and altering operation of the vehicle comprises determining a second trajectory to a second location within the second region.

13 . The system of claim 7 , wherein:

Assignees

• Zoox Inc

Inventors

• Funke Joseph
• Qian Steven Cheng
• Kim Genie
• Xie Zheyuan

Classifications

• B60W30/146

  Speed limiting · CPC title

• B60W60/0015

  specially adapted for safety · CPC title

• B60W2554/4041

  Position · CPC title

• B60W60/0011 Primary

  involving control alternatives for a single driving scenario, e.g. planning several paths to avoid obstacles · CPC title

• G06N20/00

  Machine learning · CPC title