Autonomous Vehicle Planner Interface for Seamless Control Handoffs

A unified interface is introduced as an intermediary component between multiple planners and the control stack. This interface receives plans from different planners (e.g., primary planner, fallback planner), standardizes their data formats, and manages transitions seamlessly. The interface acts as a mediator that handles the complexity of coordinating multiple planners, allowing each planner to focus on its specific function while the interface ensures consistent data stream delivery to the control stack.

The patent merges the transition management functionality into a unified interface that consolidates multiple planner outputs into a single standardized data stream. Instead of having separate transition management mechanisms for each planner pair, the system combines all planner communications through one interface that handles switching, validation, and data formatting. This merging approach improves reliability by ensuring consistent transition protocols while managing complexity through centralization.

The unified interface enforces homogeneity by standardizing all planner output data streams into a common format and protocol. Regardless of which planner generates the plan (primary, fallback, or other specialized planners), the interface ensures that all data received by the control stack follows the same structure, validation rules, and communication protocols. This homogenization approach guarantees data stream consistency while the interface internally manages the complexity of adapting different planner formats to the standard.