ADS Perception Development Using Federated Worldview Baselines

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current Automated Driving Systems (ADS) face challenges in efficient and cost-effective development and verification, particularly in managing large amounts of data and improving performance without significant impact on size, power consumption, and cost, while ensuring safety and security.

Innovation Solution

A method for performance evaluation and updating of the perception-development module in ADS-equipped vehicles, which involves storing perception data, forming a baseline worldview, matching and evaluating new data against this baseline, and updating perception model parameters using an optimization algorithm to minimize a cost function, facilitating federated learning across production vehicles.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If field tests and data collection are conducted to improve ADS performance, then system reliability and safety are improved, but development time and costs increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:
ImproveADS safetyVSAvoiddevelopment time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The ADS system performs self-testing and self-evaluation by using its own perception module to generate baseline worldviews and comparing them against ground truth data, eliminating the need for extensive external field tests and manual verification processes

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements continuous feedback loops where perception data is collected, evaluated against ground truth, and used to iteratively improve the perception model, enabling rapid development cycles without prolonged field testing

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

2Measurement precision

If more sensors and processing power are added to improve perception accuracy, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity and cost increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveperception accuracyVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system creates virtual copies of the physical environment through baseline worldviews generated by the perception module, allowing detailed analysis and model improvement without adding physical sensors or processing hardware

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

Solution Approach 2:

The system transitions from physical dimension enhancements (more sensors) to data dimension enhancements (comprehensive baseline worldviews and ground truth data), achieving improved perception accuracy through information rather than hardware

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Productivity

If extensive data is collected and processed to improve model performance, then productivity is improved, but energy consumption and computational resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemodel improvement rateVSAvoidpower consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts only the essential perception data and baseline worldviews needed for model improvement, filtering out redundant information to reduce computational load and energy consumption while maintaining productivity

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary processing to create baseline worldviews and ground truth data in advance, organizing data structures beforehand to enable efficient processing during model training without excessive real-time computational requirements

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP4047515B1Platform for perception system development for automated driving systems
Publication Date: 2023.10.11 ZENSEACT AB
  • EP4047515B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4047515B1 patent drawingFigure 2(a)~2(d)
  • EP4047515B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The present invention relates to methods and systems that utilize the production vehicles to develop new perception features related to new sensor hardware as well as new algorithms for existing sensors by using federated learning. To achieve this the production vehicle's own worldview is post-processed and used as a reference, towards which the output of the software (SW) or hardware (HW) under development is compared. Through this comparison a cost function can be calculated and an update of the SW parameters can be locally updated according to this cost function.