Vehicle Guidance Authority Tracking for Conflict-Free Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face safety and efficiency compromises when receiving conflicting guidance from multiple actors, leading to potential operational disruptions.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that grants authority to a single actor to provide guidance to the autonomous vehicle, transitions authority between actors based on predefined policies, and tracks which actor has authority to prevent conflicting instructions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the autonomous vehicle receives guidance from multiple actors simultaneously, then the vehicle can access diverse information and perspectives, but conflicting guidance compromises safety and efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an authority tracker as an intermediary component that mediates between multiple guidance sources and the vehicle's control system. This tracker assigns authority levels to different actors and determines which guidance instructions are valid, preventing conflicting commands from simultaneously affecting vehicle operation while still allowing the system to receive and process information from multiple sources.
2Loss of information
If the system processes guidance from multiple actors, then more information is available for decision-making, but the computational cycles required to manage multiple inputs increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and separates the authority determination function from the main guidance processing pipeline. By isolating the authority tracker as a dedicated component that pre-evaluates and filters guidance instructions based on actor authority levels, the system removes unnecessary computational overhead from the main decision-making process, allowing efficient processing of information from multiple sources without proportionally increasing computational resource consumption.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the autonomous vehicle accepts concurrent guidance from two different actors, then the vehicle can respond to diverse situations, but the time to resolve conflicting guidance increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the authority tracker assign authority levels and validate guidance instructions before they reach the vehicle's control system. This pre-filtering mechanism resolves potential conflicts in advance by determining which actor has authority to provide guidance at any given moment, eliminating the need for time-consuming conflict resolution processes during critical vehicle operation decisions.
Data Source
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AI summary
A vehicle may include an authority tracker to grant and/or limit authority to provide guidance to the vehicle. The authority tracker may store a state in a memory identifying an actor that currently has the authority. An actor requesting to have authority to provide guidance to the vehicle may transmit a control message to the authority tracker which may, in turn, authorize or deny the request based on a policy. The authority tracker may periodically, and/or in response to a request, broadcast a state message identifying the actor that currently has authority, as recorded in the memory.