735results about "Control safety arrangements" patented technology

Embodiments, systems, and techniques for vehicle operation assistance are provided herein. Vehicle operation assistance may be provided by monitoring characteristics of an occupant of a vehicle and determining an emergency status for the occupant based on characteristics of the occupant, transmitting a request for help based on the emergency status indicating the occupant of the vehicle is experiencing an emergency, receiving a “follow me” request from a potential leader vehicle, enabling follower mode such that vehicle is a follower vehicle and the potential leader vehicle is a leader vehicle, establishing a connection with the leader vehicle and receiving navigation instructions from the leader vehicle based on the vehicle being in follower mode, generating driving action commands based on navigation instructions, and executing respective driving action commands in an autonomous fashion based on the vehicle being in follower mode.

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for performing cooperative autonomous driving between a vehicle and a driver. For this, a cooperative autonomous driving apparatus according to the present invention includes a driver state determination unit for determining a state of a driver and calculating the state of the driver as a risk index. An autonomous driving control unit classifies section characteristics of respective sections included in a path to a destination corresponding to the driver based on section data stored in a database (DB), and controls autonomous driving of a vehicle in which the driver is riding, based on a driving environment recognized for the path to the destination corresponding to the driver. A driving control determination unit determines driving modes of the respective sections included in the path based on the state of the driver and the section characteristics.

A computer-implemented method of enhancing safe vehicle operation may include, one or more processors, (1) determining a preferred parking spot for an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle; (2) determining a route to the preferred parking spot from a driver drop off point; and (3) causing the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle to travel from the driver drop off point to the preferred parking spot following the route controlled by one or more autonomous operation features. The preferred parking spot may be a covered parking spot, a parking spot in a parking structure, or a parking spot in a residential garage. An autonomous vehicle owner may remotely direct the autonomous vehicle to autonomously return to the driver drop off point, such as via their mobile device. Insurance discounts may be provided to autonomous vehicle owners having the self-parking functionality that mitigates or prevents risk of damage to, or theft of, the vehicle.

The present disclosure relates to enabling an autonomous vehicle operating in a self-driving mode to communicate information about what the vehicle is about to do or is currently doing. For example, one or more processors may maneuver a vehicle in an autonomous or self-driving mode. While maneuvering the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode, a time when the vehicle will begin to accelerate may be determined. A first audible signal may be played through a speaker at a time t seconds before the time when the vehicle will begin to accelerate. While maneuvering the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode, a time when the vehicle will begin to decelerate may also be determined. A second audible signal, different from the first audible signal, may be played through the speaker at the time when the vehicle begins decelerating.

Systems, apparatus and methods may be configured to implement actively-controlled light emission from a robotic vehicle. A light emitter(s) of the robotic vehicle may be configurable to indicate a direction of travel of the robotic vehicle and/or display information (e.g., a greeting, a notice, a message, a graphic, passenger/customer/client content, vehicle livery, customized livery) using one or more colors of emitted light (e.g., orange for a first direction and purple for a second direction), one or more sequences of emitted light (e.g., a moving image/graphic), or positions of light emitter(s) on the robotic vehicle (e.g., symmetrically positioned light emitters). The robotic vehicle may not have a front or a back (e.g., a trunk/a hood) and may be configured to travel bi-directionally, in a first direction or a second direction (e.g., opposite the first direction), with the direction of travel being indicated by one or more of the light emitters.

A computer program product is provided for controlling an autonomous vehicle, where the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith and executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method. The method includes determining whether a primary user is present in an autonomous vehicle, allowing use of a plurality of functions of the autonomous vehicle in response to determining that the primary user is present in the autonomous vehicle, and receiving and storing preferences input by the primary user, wherein the preferences limit a function of the autonomous vehicle if the primary user is not present. The method further includes limiting use of the one or more of the plurality of functions of the autonomous vehicle as specified by the preferences in response to determining that the primary user is not present in the autonomous vehicle.

The invention discloses an intelligent electric quantity protection method of an electric unmanned aerial vehicle. The method comprises the following steps: obtaining a current remaining electric quantity of a battery in real time; obtaining coordinate information of a current position of an electric unmanned aerial vehicle in real time and calculating a security electric quantity needed for security protection command execution by the electric unmanned aerial vehicle at the current position according to the coordinate information of the current position of the electric unmanned aerial vehicle; determining whether the current remaining electric quantity is larger than the security electric quantity; and if not, executing a corresponding security protection command immediately. With the intelligent electric quantity protection method, the electric unmanned aerial vehicle can be protected effectively and intelligently in real time; an electric unmanned aerial vehicle accident caused by insufficient electric capacity can be avoided; and the battery utilization rate is also improved. In addition, the invention also provides an electric unmanned aerial vehicle using the intelligent electric quantity protection method.

A flight information communication system has a plurality of RF direct sequence spread spectrum ground data links that link respective aircraft-resident subsystems, in each of which a copy of its flight performance data is stored, with airport-located subsystems. The airport-located subsystems are coupled by way communication paths, such as land line telephone links, to a remote flight operations control center. At the flight operations control center, flight performance data downlinked from plural aircraft parked at different airports is analyzed. In addition, the flight control center may be employed to direct the uploading of in-flight data files, such as audio, video and navigation files from the airport-located subsystems to the aircraft.

Systems and methods are provided for navigating an autonomous vehicle. In one implementation, a system for navigating a host vehicle may include at least one processing device. The processing device may be programmed to receive a plurality of images representative of an environment of the host vehicle, analyze at least one of the plurality of images to identify at least two stationary vehicles, determine a spacing between the two stationary vehicles, and cause at least one navigational change in the host vehicle based on a magnitude of the spacing determined between the two stationary vehicles.

A driving support controller determines whether it is an opportunity to change a traveling lane based on a predetermined condition in an self-driving activated state in which an acceleration, a deceleration, and a steering of a vehicle equipped with the driving support controller can be automatically controlled, and performs a control to present a lane change proposal to an operator of the vehicle when a lane change is determined to be possible. The device performs an automatic lane change control in response to an intention of the operator agreeing to the lane change proposal. In this case, when the operator's intention is determined to be in disagreement with the lane change proposal, the control to present the lane change proposal to the operator is suspended until a predetermined cancelling condition is met.

Provided are an apparatus and method for sharing vehicle information among autonomous vehicles. According to the apparatus and method, not only current driving-related information and future driving-related information of a self vehicle but also current driving-related information and future driving-related information of another vehicle is acquired and used to control travel of the self vehicle. Accordingly, the safety of travel is improved, and efficient autonomous travel is enabled.

A vehicle safety support apparatus may include: a driver monitoring unit configured to monitor a driver; an external environment monitoring unit configured to monitor an external environment of a vehicle; and a control unit configured to determine a driving control for the vehicle based on data acquired from the driver monitoring unit and the external environment monitoring unit, and perform autonomous driving to move the vehicle to a safe area, when determining to take over the driving control from the driver.

An avionics system for a mechanically-controlled aircraft configured to provide envelope protection for deterring a pilot from flying outside of acceptable flight parameter limits for flight parameters such as banking angle, pitch attitude, g loading, proximity to terrain and/or obstacles, angle of attack, and/or airspeed. The avionics system may comprise at least one servo actuator and a computing device. The computing device may engage envelope protection by engaging the at least one servo actuator if the aircraft reaches a maximum or minimum limit for any of the flight parameters, such that the at least one servo actuator provides a force to urge a flight control device in a direction to bring the aircraft back within the acceptable flight parameter limits. The servo actuator may be disengaged when the aircraft flight parameters reach an end value corresponding to the start value that triggered envelope protection to engage.

Systems and apparatuses for using machine learning to generate a safety output are provided. In some examples, data may be received from a plurality of sources, may be analyzed and one or more machine learning datasets may be generated based on the analyzed data. In some arrangements, data may be received from one or more vehicles. The vehicles may be autonomous, semi-autonomous, or non-autonomous, and/or configured to operate in one or more of those modes. The data may be evaluated based on the one or more machine learning datasets to determine a safety output associated with the data. The safety output may then be used to classify the data and/or to generate one or more instructions for operation of an autonomous vehicle. The instruction(s) may be transmitted to the autonomous vehicle and may modify operation of the vehicle (e.g., to improve safety associated with the vehicle).

An autonomous vehicle detects a tailgating vehicle and uses various response mechanisms. For example, a vehicle is identified as a tailgater based on whether its characteristics meet a variable threshold. For example, when the autonomous vehicle is traveling at slower speeds, the threshold is defined in distance. When the autonomous vehicle is traveling at faster speeds, the threshold is defined in time. The autonomous vehicle may respond to the tailgater by modifying its driving behavior. In one example, the autonomous vehicle adjusts a headway buffer (defined in time) from another vehicle in front of the autonomous vehicle. For example, if the tailgater is T seconds too close to the autonomous vehicle, the autonomous vehicle increases the headway buffer to the vehicle in front of it by some amount relative to T.

A method and system compares combinations of vehicle or aircraft state variables against known combinations of potentially dangerous states. Alarms and error messages are selectively generated based on such comparisons. In one embodiment, pairs of aircraft state variables are selected and compared to known undesirable pairs of state combinations that indicate an error or a condition that a crew should monitor closely. The combinations and error messages are provided by the database. The comparisons are conducted on a periodic basis monitoring real time states of the parameters collected from various sensors and commands. Experts considering a matrix that provides an exhaustive pairwise comparison of potentially important state variables initially identify undesirable state combinations. Error messages and identification of potential alarms are generated based on both knowledge of actual accidents, and on use of expert knowledge to predict potentially dangerous states.

Aspects of the disclosure provide systems and methods for providing suggested locations for pick up and destination locations. Pick up locations may include locations where an autonomous vehicle can pick up a passenger, while destination locations may include locations where the vehicle can wait for an additional passenger, stop and wait for a passenger to perform some task and return to the vehicle, or for the vehicle to drop off a passenger. As such, a request for a vehicle may be received from a client computing device. The request may identify a first location. A set of one or more suggested locations may be selected by comparing the predetermined locations to the first location. The set may be provided to the client computing device.

The embodiment of the invention discloses a remote takeover method, device and equipment of driverless car, and a storage medium. The method comprises the following steps: acquiring driving state reference information according to the currently located automatic driving mode of the driverless car; if determining that the driverless car is in an abnormal driving state, generating alarm informationand sending to a remote control side; exiting the automatic driving mode according to a returned remote control request and entering a remote takeover mode; sending the remote control reference information to the remote control side; receiving and judging whether the external control instruction satisfies an instruction stabilization condition; if the external control instruction dissatisfies theinstruction stabilization condition, controlling the driverless car to decelerate to stop. Through the remote takeover method disclosed by the embodiment of the invention, the driverless car can be quickly and effectively switched to the remote takeover mode when the automatic driving mode is in abnormity; the driverless car can be controlled when the problem that the external control instructionis lost, wrong to continue or large in delay occurs, and the security of the driverless car is improved.