Autonomous Ridesharing Client Control for Safe AV Maneuvers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) face challenges in balancing control between the vehicle's AI and passengers, particularly in unfamiliar or difficult traffic conditions, where passengers may not have the best judgment and AVs may not be equipped with human driver actuators, limiting passenger control.
Innovation Solution
The AV system allows real-time feedback from passengers to control mechanical operations, determining safe and legal actions based on location, direction, and environmental data, and provides a graphical user interface for users to select or override default operations, ensuring safety and adherence to trip conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the AV system allows real-time feedback from passengers to control mechanical operations, then passenger control and responsiveness are improved, but safety and reliability may deteriorate if passengers make poor judgments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a control system that acts as an intermediary between the passenger and the vehicle's mechanical systems. The processor receives feedback from the passenger through the user interface, evaluates it against safety criteria, and only executes commands that meet predetermined safety standards. This mediator approach allows passenger control while filtering out unsafe decisions, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback loop where the processor continuously monitors passenger inputs, vehicle state, and environmental conditions. The system provides feedback to the passenger about which commands are safe to execute and which are not, guiding the passenger's control actions. This closed-loop feedback mechanism enables passenger control while maintaining safety by preventing execution of harmful commands.
2Extent of automation
If the AV operates autonomously without human driver actuators, then automation and efficiency are improved, but adaptability to difficult traffic conditions deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic control system that can switch between fully autonomous operation and passenger-assisted control modes. The system dynamically adjusts the level of automation based on traffic conditions, passenger presence, and safety requirements. In normal conditions, the AV operates autonomously with high automation. In difficult or unfamiliar traffic conditions, the system can engage the passenger for additional adaptability, thus resolving the contradiction between automation extent and adaptability.
3Ease of operation
If the AV exposes multiple mechanical operation options to the passenger, then ease of operation and control are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the control system into distinct functional modules: a user interface layer for passenger interaction, a processing layer for evaluating commands against safety criteria, and an execution layer for controlling mechanical operations. This segmentation allows the system to expose multiple control options to the passenger while managing complexity through modular architecture, where each module handles specific tasks independently.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods systems provide for client control over an Autonomous Vehicle (AV). The AV can determine sets of mechanical operations that it can take at a future time. The AV can determine a ranking for each of the sets of mechanical operations, including a first ranked set and at least one second ranked set. Client or user selection can be given a certain score, weight, or other value. The AV can apply the value to the second ranked set to determine an adjusted ranking. If the adjusted ranking outranks a ranking of the first ranked set, then the AV can expose the first ranked set and the second ranked set to a client interface. If the AV receives a selection of the second ranked set, the AV can perform that set of mechanical operations. Otherwise, the AV can perform the first ranked set of mechanical operations.