Off-Board Sensor Sequence Prediction for Road Anomaly Detection

The patent introduces an offboard infrastructure system with high-resolution sensors as an intermediary between the environment and the vehicle's navigation system. This external system captures detailed environmental data and processes it to generate change detection information, which is then provided to the vehicle. This mediator approach allows the vehicle to benefit from superior detection capabilities without carrying equally sophisticated sensors onboard.

The system performs preliminary capture of comprehensive environmental data by the offboard infrastructure before the vehicle arrives. The infrastructure system continuously monitors and records environmental states, creating a baseline database of normal conditions. When the vehicle approaches, the system can quickly compare current data against this pre-established baseline to identify rare or uncommon changes, improving both detection coverage and reliability for anomalous events.

The patent divides the complex anomaly detection task into separate functional segments: the offboard infrastructure system handles data capture, sequence to sequence neural network processing, and change detection; the vehicle's navigation system handles receiving and acting on the detection results. This segmentation allows the computationally intensive AI processing to occur offboard where resources are abundant, while the vehicle maintains a simpler, more reliable system.

The patent merges the real-time detection capability of onboard sensors with the high-precision detection capability of offboard infrastructure sensors. The system combines data from both sources, using the infrastructure system's superior resolution to detect small objects and rare events that onboard sensors might miss, while maintaining real-time responsiveness through coordinated operation. This merging creates a synergistic system that achieves both speed and precision.