In particular embodiments, a computing system may determine a predicted amount of ride requests for a plurality of collectively-managed vehicles and determine an availability of the collectively-managed vehicles to satisfy the predicted amount of ride requests. Subsequent to determining that the availability fails to satisfy one or more predetermined criteria for servicing the predicted amount of ride requests, the system may determine status information associated with the collectively-managed vehicles and determine, based on at least the status information, one or more minimum services for servicing one or more vehicles among the plurality of collectively-managed vehicles at one or more service centers such that the availability satisfies the one or more predetermined criteria. The system may instruct the one or more vehicles that are to receive the one or more minimum services to travel to the one or more service centers to be serviced.

Disclosed is a method of controlling a robot system, including receiving user input including a request for a predetermined service, by a first robot, transmitting information based on the user input to a server, by the first robot, identifying a support robot for supporting a task corresponding to the service request, by the server, making a request to the second robot identified to be the support robot for the task, by the server, and performing the task, by the second robot, wherein the first robot is different from the second robot.

An autonomous vehicle, system and method of operating an autonomous vehicle. The system includes a communication module and a processor. The communication module sends a first set of Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) data over a first communication channel and a second set of GPS data over a second communication channel. The second set of GPS data is an authenticated data set. The processor operates the autonomous vehicle using the first set of GPS data, and compares the first set of GPS data to the second set of GPS data to verify the integrity of the first set of GPS data. A first value for a vehicle parameter based on the first set of GPS data is compared to a second value for the vehicle parameter based on data from a vehicle-based sensor. The first set of GPS data is rational when the difference is less than a selected threshold.

An autonomous vehicle, system and method of operating an autonomous vehicle. The system includes a communication module and a processor. The communication module sends a first set of Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) data over a first communication channel and a second set of GPS data over a second communication channel. The second set of GPS data is an authenticated data set. The processor operates the autonomous vehicle using the first set of GPS data, and compares the first set of GPS data to the second set of GPS data to verify the integrity of the first set of GPS data. A first value for a vehicle parameter based on the first set of GPS data is compared to a second value for the vehicle parameter based on data from a vehicle-based sensor. The first set of GPS data is rational when the difference is less than a selected threshold.

According to an exemplary method, a smoothing module can be used in an ADV to iteratively perform a smoothing operation on a raw reference segment using an ordered list of sets of smoothing parameters, starting from the set of strictest parameters, until the smoothing operation is successful. The method includes the operations of generating multiple sets of smoothing parameters, including a first set of smoothing parameters, a second set of smoothing parameters, and at least one set of smoothing parameters interpolated in between; for each set of smoothing parameters, performing a quadratic programming (QP) smoothing operation on the raw reference line segment until the QP smoothing operation is successful; and controlling the ADV according to a smoothed reference line segment generated by the successful QP smoothing operation.

In one embodiment, a method for generating a message to a friend of a user is provided, comprising: processing activity data of a first user measured by an activity monitoring device to update a value of an activity metric for the first user; identifying a change in an inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and a value of the activity metric for a second user; in response to identifying the change in the inequality relationship, prompting the first user to generate a message to the second user.

Systems and methods for coordinating and controlling vehicles, for example heavy trucks, to follow closely behind each other, or linking to form a platoon. In one aspect, on-board controllers in each vehicle interact with vehicular sensors to monitor and control, for example, gear ratios on vehicles. A front vehicle can shift a gear which, via a vehicle-to-vehicle communication link, can cause a rear vehicle to shift gears. To maintain a gap, vehicles may shift gears at various relative positions based on a grade of a road.

Systems and methods for coordinating and controlling vehicles, for example heavy trucks, to follow closely behind each other, or linking to form a platoon. In one aspect, on-board controllers in each vehicle interact with vehicular sensors to monitor and control, for example, gear ratios on vehicles. A front vehicle can shift a gear which, via a vehicle-to-vehicle communication link, can cause a rear vehicle to shift gears. To maintain a gap, vehicles may shift gears at various relative positions based on a grade of a road.

Described herein is an energy harvesting system comprising a transducer and a processor. The transducer generates an electric signal from ambient energy. The processor is configured to process the electric signal to perform pattern recognition of the electric signal so as to determine and output a characteristic of a source of the ambient energy. The pattern recognition comprises statistical analysis and frequency domain analysis.

A mechanism is described for facilitating smart collection of data and smart management of autonomous machines. A method of embodiments, as described herein, includes detecting one or more sets of data from one or more sources over one or more networks, and combining a first computation directed to be performed locally at a local computing device with a second computation directed to be performed remotely at a remote computing device in communication with the local computing device over the one or more networks, where the first computation consumes low power, wherein the second computation consumes high power.