Drive Envelope Planning Around Multiple Road Agents
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional planning systems for autonomous vehicles often consider individual agents discretely, leading to less than optimal efficiency and passenger comfort due to the lack of consideration for multiple agents in the environment, resulting in segmented travel paths.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a drive envelope that accounts for various agents, including dynamic and static obstacles, by using sensor data and probabilistic information to determine safe trajectories, allowing for efficient navigation around multiple agents in real-time.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If conventional planning systems consider individual agents discretely, then the system complexity is reduced, but the navigation efficiency and passenger comfort deteriorate due to segmented travel paths
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual agent considerations into a unified drive envelope representation. Instead of processing each agent separately, the system combines their spatial and temporal constraints into a single continuous envelope that defines safe travel regions, thereby maintaining system simplicity while improving navigation efficiency and passenger comfort through non-segmented paths
2Use of energy by moving object
If conventional planning systems consider individual agents discretely, then the computational load is reduced, but the passenger comfort and satisfaction deteriorate due to segmented travel paths
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple discrete agent constraints into a unified drive envelope that provides continuous safe travel regions. This merging approach reduces computational load by processing a single envelope structure rather than multiple individual agent constraints, while simultaneously improving passenger comfort by enabling smooth, non-segmented travel paths
3Reliability
If the drive envelope considers multiple agents and their predicted actions, then the navigation safety and efficiency improve, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces the drive envelope as an intermediary representation that mediates between multiple agent constraints and the vehicle's navigation decisions. This intermediary structure simplifies the complexity by providing a unified safe travel region definition, while still incorporating predictions of multiple agents' actions to ensure navigation safety and efficiency
Data Source
AI summary
Drive envelope determination is described. In an example, a vehicle can capture sensor data while traversing an environment and can provide the sensor data to computing system(s). The sensor data can indicate agent(s) in the environment and the computing system(s) can determine, based on the sensor data, a planned path through the environment relative to the agent(s). The computing system(s) can also determine lateral distance(s) to the agent(s) from the planned path. In an example, the computing system(s) can determine modified distance(s) based at least in part on the lateral distance(s) and information about the agents. The computing system can determine a drive envelope based on the modified distance(s) and can determine a trajectory in the drive envelope.