Driver Profile-Based Autonomous Vehicle Response Configuration
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles lack guidelines for making moral or ethical decisions in unavoidable collision situations, posing challenges for manufacturers in configuring appropriate responses.
Innovation Solution
A system that simulates various driving scenarios, allowing drivers to respond as they would in real situations, and creates a driver profile based on these responses, which is used to inform the autonomous vehicle's actions in similar actual situations, including unavoidable collisions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If autonomous vehicles use standardized ethical decision-making algorithms, then manufacturing consistency is improved, but adaptability to individual driver preferences deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary profiling of driver preferences through simulations before actual autonomous operation begins. Driver profiles are created in advance by analyzing responses to simulated ethical dilemmas, allowing the vehicle to later adapt to individual preferences without requiring real-time decision-making about preference calibration.
Solution Approach 2:
The ethical decision-making system transitions from a static, manufacturer-defined algorithm to a dynamic system that continuously adapts to the specific driver's preferences. The vehicle can modify its ethical response patterns based on the stored driver profile, making the system flexible and personalized rather than fixed and uniform.
2Reliability
If autonomous vehicles are configured with fixed ethical response protocols, then system reliability is improved, but ability to handle diverse situational contexts deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The ethical decision-making system is segmented into multiple independent response patterns corresponding to different ethical frameworks (e.g., minimize harm, respect autonomy, utilitarian approaches). Rather than relying on a single fixed protocol, the vehicle maintains a library of distinct ethical response strategies that can be selected based on the driver's profile and the specific situation encountered.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes key parameters of ethical decision-making based on the driver's profile, such as weighting factors for different ethical considerations, response time thresholds, and priority assignments to various safety objectives. These parameter adjustments allow the same core system to reliably handle diverse ethical scenarios according to individual driver preferences.
3Adaptability or versatility
If comprehensive driver profiling is implemented, then personalized vehicle response is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of implementing complex real-time monitoring and analysis systems to determine driver preferences, the patent uses simplified simulations that copy essential ethical decision scenarios. These simulated environments capture key preference information without requiring sophisticated sensing, processing, or analysis infrastructure during actual autonomous operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The driver profiling system uses universal simulation scenarios that can assess multiple aspects of ethical preference simultaneously. A single simulation suite serves multiple functions: characterizing risk tolerance, determining priority of pedestrian vs. passenger safety, and assessing response time preferences, thereby reducing overall system complexity through multi-purpose assessment tools.
Data Source
AI summary
An illustrative example system for developing an autonomous vehicle response includes a simulator that provides an at least visual simulation of a plurality of different situations that may be encountered while driving, a driver input device that allows the driver to respond to the simulation of the plurality of situations in a manner consistent with the driver's driving response to the situations, respectively, and a compute device including at least one processor and data storage associated with the processor. The compute device is configured to determine a profile of the driver based on information from the driver input device regarding the driver's driving responses to the simulation of the situations. The profile is at least temporarily stored in the data storage. The profile provides information for controlling the autonomous vehicle response to an actual situation corresponding to at least one of the simulated situations.