Teleoperations Guidance for Driverless Vehicle Trajectory Revisions

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Solution Overview

Problem

Autonomous vehicles face challenges in navigating unpredictable events, such as construction zones or dynamic objects, where they may require guidance to safely maneuver or change their route, and existing systems lack effective collaboration between vehicles and remote operations for real-time decision-making.

Innovation Solution

A system that enables communication between driverless vehicles and a teleoperations system, allowing vehicles to request guidance and receive altered virtual boundaries for trajectory adjustments, enabling them to autonomously navigate through or around events by selecting revised trajectories based on confidence levels and sensor data.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If autonomous vehicles operate independently without remote teleoperations system, then device complexity is reduced, but reliability deteriorates when encountering unpredictable events

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvenavigation reliabilityVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

A teleoperations system acts as an intermediary between autonomous vehicles and human operators. The system receives sensor data from vehicles, processes it through multiple modules (anomaly detection, semantic scene classification, trajectory generation), and provides guidance to vehicles when anomalies are detected, thereby improving reliability without requiring full human control

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The teleoperations system is divided into independent functional modules: sensor data receiver, anomaly detector, semantic scene classifier, trajectory generator, and guidance provider. Each module handles specific aspects of the navigation problem, allowing the system to maintain reliability while managing complexity through modular architecture

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Reliability

If autonomous vehicles request guidance from teleoperations system for every event, then navigation reliability improves, but loss of time increases due to communication delays

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvenavigation reliabilityVSAvoidresponse time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The anomaly detection module selectively triggers teleoperations guidance only when specific anomalies are detected (e.g., construction zones, dynamic objects, traffic signals) rather than for every navigation event. This partial action approach maintains reliability for critical situations while avoiding unnecessary communication delays for routine scenarios

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Solution Approach 2:

The semantic scene classification module pre-processes sensor data to identify and categorize potential anomalies before full trajectory planning occurs. By preliminarily classifying scenes and detecting anomalies early, the system prepares guidance information in advance, reducing actual response time when vehicles need assistance

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Adaptability or versatility

If teleoperations system provides detailed guidance for all scenarios, then adaptability improves, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveevent handling adaptabilityVSAvoidcontrol system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The trajectory generation module provides different types of guidance tailored to specific anomaly types: semantic scene classification identifies construction zones, dynamic objects, and traffic signals, with each triggering customized trajectory adjustments. This local quality approach ensures adaptability for diverse events while keeping control logic localized to specific anomaly handlers rather than requiring a single complex control system

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Data Source

PatentEP3649525B1Interactions between vehicle and teleoperations system
Publication Date: 2021.09.22 ZOOX INC
  • EP3649525B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3649525B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3649525B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A method for operating a driverless vehicle may include receiving, at the driverless vehicle, sensor signals related to operation of the driverless vehicle, and road network data from a road network data store. The method may also include determining a driving corridor within which the driverless vehicle travels according to a trajectory, and causing the driverless vehicle to traverse a road network autonomously according to a path from a first geographic location to a second geographic location. The method may also include determining that an event associated with the path has occurred, and sending communication signals to a teleoperations system including a request for guidance and one or more of sensor data and the road network data. The method may include receiving, at the driverless vehicle, teleoperations signals from the teleoperations system, such that the vehicle controller determines a revised trajectory based at least in part on the teleoperations signals.