Autonomous Vehicle Visual Indicators for Rider Status Communication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles lack effective means to communicate their status to riders without human intervention, particularly in fully autonomous modes, which can lead to a lack of transparency and comfort for users during services like ridesharing or delivery.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous vehicle system that utilizes onboard computing and sensor data to control visual indicators such as lighting and displays to communicate its status to riders, including arrival, trip readiness, destination approach, and service completion, through a vehicle computing system that determines and activates appropriate indicators based on predefined rules and data structures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If autonomous vehicles operate without human intervention, then automation level increases, but communication of vehicle status to riders deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces visual indicators as an intermediary communication channel between the autonomous vehicle system and riders. These indicators (lights, displays, or projections) serve as a mediator that translates internal vehicle state data into externally visible status signals, enabling communication without human intervention in the vehicle.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces mechanical communication methods (such as hand signals or physical interaction with a human driver) with electronic visual indicator systems. The vehicle computing system processes sensor data and controls visual indicators electronically, substituting physical/mechanical status communication with electronic visual signaling.
2Loss of information
If visual indicators are added to autonomous vehicles, then rider awareness improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs the visual indicator system to serve multiple functions: indicating vehicle arrival, trip readiness, destination approach, and service completion. By consolidating these communication functions into a single integrated visual indicator system controlled by the existing vehicle computing system, the patent avoids the complexity of separate systems for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges the visual indicator control functionality into the existing vehicle computing system, combining status monitoring and visual communication functions. This integration approach reduces overall system complexity by eliminating separate control units and sharing processing resources across the vehicle's computational architecture.
3Speed
If onboard processing is used for status communication, then communication responsiveness improves, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements selective processing where the vehicle computing system processes and communicates only the most relevant vehicle status information through visual indicators. Rather than continuously processing and displaying all possible status data, the system prioritizes critical information (arrival, readiness, destination approach, service completion), reducing unnecessary computational energy consumption while maintaining responsive communication for essential status updates.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are directed to signaling status of an autonomous vehicle to a rider or potential rider. In one example, a computer-implemented method for communicating autonomous vehicle status includes obtaining, by a computing system comprising one or more computing devices, data associated with a state of an autonomous vehicle. The method further includes determining, by the computing system, one or more vehicle indications indicative of the state of the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the data associated with the state of the autonomous vehicle. The method further includes providing, by the computing system, control data for one or more visual indicators associated with the autonomous vehicle to communicate the one or more determined vehicle indications.