Agent Importance Prediction for Autonomous Driving Attention Prioritization

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing autonomous vehicle systems struggle to effectively predict the importance of agents in their environment, such as other vehicles or pedestrians, which hinders safe navigation and decision-making.

Innovation Solution

A system is developed to process input features of agents in the vehicle's surroundings to determine output features and predict their importance, enabling informed movement decisions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If complex training data and labeling processes are used to predict agent importance, then prediction accuracy is improved, but system complexity and computational requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveagent importance prediction accuracyVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system uses the autonomous vehicle's own trajectory predictions and attention mechanisms to generate importance scores for agents, eliminating the need for external ground-truth labels and complex training data collection processes

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary importance prediction model that translates complex sensor data and trajectory information into simplified importance scores, which then guide the navigation system's attention and processing priorities

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Productivity

If computational resources are allocated to all agents equally, then comprehensive monitoring is maintained, but processing efficiency decreases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprocessing efficiencyVSAvoidcomprehensive monitoring
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies different processing quality levels to different agents based on their importance scores: high-impact agents receive detailed analysis and continuous monitoring, while low-impact agents receive coarse monitoring, optimizing resource allocation across the environment

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements partial action by focusing computational resources on a subset of high-importance agents rather than processing all agents equally, achieving sufficient monitoring coverage with reduced computational expenditure

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentUS12612081B2Agent importance prediction for autonomous driving
Publication Date: 2026.04.28 MOTIONAL AD LLC
  • US12612081B2 patent drawing
  • US12612081B2 patent drawing
  • US12612081B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A method, a system, and a non-transitory storage media for determining agent importance prediction for autonomous driving. Input features associated with agents present in an environment surrounding a vehicle are processed. Output features associated with the agents are determined based on the input features. An importance of each agent is predicted using the output features. One or more movements of the vehicle are determined based on the predicted agent importance.