Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

Among other things, we describe techniques for redundancy in autonomous vehicles. For example, an autonomous vehicle can include two or more redundant autonomous vehicle operations subsystems.

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

An autonomous vehicle operating in an environment, comprising a control circuit for operating the vehicle; a processor in communication with the control circuit configured to determine a first set of instructions for operating the vehicle, the first set of instructions comprising: determining that a specified condition is satisfied; and if so, obtaining a second set of instructions from an external processor (for example, a teleoperator) and operating the vehicle based on the second set of instructions. The specified condition may be an emergency condition, environmental conditions, or a failure of the control processor. The specified condition may be detected from input received from an occupant of the vehicle, which may be from a notification interface within an interior of the vehicle. The external processor may receive the second set of instructions based on inputs made by a teleoperator.

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

A method comprising obtaining (6501), by a processor of an autonomous vehicle, a scene description which includes an object detected by a sensor of the vehicle; determining (6502) if the scene description falls within an operational domain of the vehicle; generating first (6504) and second (6505) trajectories of the vehicle using at least in part the scene description and the vehicle position; evaluating the first (6506) and second (6507) trajectories to determine if they collide with the object in the scene description; and if so, causing the vehicle to perform a safe stop manoeuvre (6510) or emergency braking (6512).

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

The disclosure relates to a system comprising at least two autonomous vehicle subsystems wherein, each of the at least two autonomous vehicle subsystems is redundant with another of the at least two autonomous vehicle subsystems; wherein each subsystem of the at least two autonomous vehicle subsystems comprises: a solution proposer configured to propose solutions for autonomous vehicle operation based on current input data, and a solution scorer configured to evaluate the proposed solutions for autonomous vehicle operation based on at least one cost assessment; wherein the solution scorer of at least one of the two or more autonomous vehicle operations subsystems is configured to evaluate both the proposed solutions from the solution proposer of the autonomous vehicle operations subsystems; and an output mediator coupled with the at least two autonomous vehicle operations subsystems and configured to manage autonomous vehicle operation outputs from the at least two autonomous vehicle operations ...

Sampling-based maneuver realizer

A method for realising a manoeuvre comprises: obtaining 1301, using at least one processor, a manoeuvre description for a vehicle, the manoeuvre description describing a union of dynamic station-time constraints (which are parameterized in time) and station-spatial-time constraints (are parameterized in station and time) on the vehicle; sampling 1302, using the at least one processor, the dynamic station-time constraints and dynamic station-spatial-time constraints; solving 1303, using the at least one processor, an optimization problem using a cost function of the sampled dynamic station-time constraints, the sampled dynamic station-spatial-time constraints and a motion model; and generating 1304, using the at least one processor, a trajectory based on the solved optimization problem, wherein the trajectory fulfils the dynamic station-time constraints and the dynamic station-spatial-time constraints imposed by the manoeuvre description. The solving may be continuous and iterative, the ...

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

Sampling-based maneuver realizer

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles

A system with two or more different autonomous vehicle (100) operations subsystems, each of them being redundant with another of the subsystems; and an output mediator coupled with the subsystems and configured to manage autonomous vehicle operation outputs from the subsystems; wherein the mediator is configured to selectively promote different subsystems to a prioritised status based on current input data compared with historical performance data for the subsystems. Also provided is a second invention relating to selecting which of two mutually redundant control signals to use based on first and second control cost functions.

Redundancy in autonomous vehicles