Autonomous Driving Handover Gating With Driver Task Checklists

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Solution Overview

Problem

Autonomous vehicles face challenges in safely transitioning between manual and autonomous driving modes due to environmental and system conditions, requiring comprehensive assessments and corrective actions to ensure safe operation.

Innovation Solution

A vehicle system that assesses environmental, system, and driver status using sensor data and map information to identify preventive conditions, generates tasks for the driver to correct issues, and only allows mode switching when all conditions are met, ensuring safety and reliability.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If comprehensive environmental and system assessments are conducted before mode switching, then safety and reliability of autonomous driving are improved, but system complexity and time required for mode transition increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesafety of mode transitionVSAvoidassessment system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs comprehensive environmental, system, and driver condition assessments before allowing mode transition to autonomous driving. By conducting these checks in advance, the system ensures all necessary conditions are met before switching modes, thereby improving safety and reliability of the transition process.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The assessment system is divided into multiple independent evaluation modules: environmental assessment (road conditions, weather, traffic), system assessment (sensor functionality, vehicle status), and driver assessment (readiness, task completion). This segmentation allows each aspect to be evaluated separately and systematically, managing overall system complexity through modular design.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Reliability

If comprehensive environmental and system assessments are conducted before mode switching, then safety and reliability of autonomous driving are improved, but the time required for mode transition increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesafety of mode transitionVSAvoidmode transition time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system continuously monitors and pre-assesses environmental, system, and driver conditions even before the driver requests mode switching. This allows much of the assessment work to be completed in advance, reducing the actual transition time when the driver initiates the mode change request.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system provides continuous feedback to the driver about the current readiness status for autonomous mode through checklists and status indicators. This feedback mechanism allows the driver to understand what conditions need to be met and take preparatory actions, streamlining the overall transition process.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Ease of operation

If the system provides a checklist of tasks for driver completion, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedriver interaction with mode switchingVSAvoidtask management system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system introduces a checklist interface as an intermediary between the complex assessment system and the driver. This checklist translates complex system requirements into simple, actionable tasks for the driver, making the interaction intuitive and easy to understand without exposing the underlying system complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system automatically generates, updates, and manages the task checklist based on real-time assessment of environmental, system, and driver conditions. The checklist dynamically adjusts itself without requiring manual configuration, allowing the system to serve itself in managing driver guidance while improving ease of operation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Data Source

PatentEP3187391B1Engaging and disengaging for autonomous driving
Publication Date: 2024.05.08 WAYMO LLC
  • EP3187391B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3187391B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3187391B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The invention relates to a method and a system for switching from a manual driving mode to an autonomous driving mode. In order to do so, the vehicle's computer (110), within a series of environmental, system, and driver checks to identify certain conditions, determines whether the driver's seatbelt is properly buckled. The computer may correct some of these conditions and also provide a driver with a checklist of tasks (810-850, 910-940) for completion. Once the tasks have been completed and the conditions are changed, the computer (110) may allow the driver to switch from the manual to the autonomous driving mode.