Autonomous Delivery Vehicle Route Re-mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional autonomous delivery vehicles lack the ability to autonomously adapt to changes in their environment, leading to frequent updates of navigation maps and increased human operator overhead due to limited decision-making and reliance on static maps.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous delivery vehicle system that re-maps safe and traversable routes by scanning the environment with sensors, allowing for minor route changes and notifying operators only when drastic alterations occur, with the option to update memory for future operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the vehicle autonomously makes minor route-change decisions, then human operator overhead is reduced, but the system complexity increases due to autonomous decision-making requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The decision-making authority is segmented between the autonomous vehicle system and human operators based on the severity of route deviations. Minor deviations are handled autonomously by the vehicle's computer system, while major deviations require human operator approval. This segmentation allows the system to operate independently for routine decisions while maintaining human oversight for significant changes, thereby reducing overall operator overhead without requiring full autonomous capability.
2Reliability
If the vehicle defers to human operators for drastic route alterations, then route safety is maintained, but communication traffic between central station and vehicle increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and handles routine communication needs locally through autonomous decision-making for minor route adjustments. By resolving common navigation decisions independently, the vehicle eliminates the need for continuous communication with the central station. Human operators are contacted only when extracted exceptional circumstances arise that require their judgment, thereby maintaining safety while minimizing communication overhead.
3Reliability
If the vehicle autonomously adapts to environmental changes, then navigation reliability improves, but the need for frequent map updates increases
Solution Approach 1:
The navigation system transitions from static pre-mapped routes to dynamic real-time adaptation. The vehicle uses onboard sensors to continuously monitor environmental conditions and autonomously adjusts its path based on current observations. This dynamic capability allows the vehicle to navigate reliably in changing environments without requiring frequent updates to the central map database, as each vehicle independently adapts to local conditions in real-time.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for manually or semi-manually re-mapping an urban environment during delivery operations by an autonomous vehicle is provided herein. In an embodiment of the invention, an autonomous delivery vehicle performs delivery operations within an urban environment. The urban environment can comprise a city or a portion of a city such as a neighborhood. The autonomous vehicle traverses along a previously mapped and scanned route that has been determined to be safe and traversable for the delivery vehicle. As it traverses the route, the delivery vehicle scans the route again using the same sensors that were used to scan the route initially. If a sensor delta is exceeded, the vehicle may execute any one or combination of notifying an operator, deciding, choosing a different route, continuing, or executing a contingency plan.