The disclosure provides an early notification system to alert a driver of an approaching unsafe autonomous or semi-autonomous driving zone so that a driver may switch vehicle to a non-autonomous driving mode and navigate safely through the identified location. In response, to a determination of an upcoming unsafe autonomous or semi-autonomous driving zone, the driver or system may take appropriate actions in response to the early notification.

Among other things, a vehicle having autonomous driving capabilities is operated in a mixed driving mode.

A system includes an autonomous vehicle (AV) comprising a sensor, a control subsystem, and an operation server. The control subsystem receives sensor data comprising location coordinates of the AV from the sensor. The operation server detects an unexpected event from the sensor data, comprising at least one of an accident, an inspection, and a report request. The operation server receives a message from a user comprising a request to access particular information regarding the AV and location data. The operation server associates the AV with the user if the location coordinates of the AV match location data of the user. The operation server establishes a communication path between the user and a remote operator for further communications.

Methods and apparatus for making autonomous vehicle handover decisions are described. A handover decision involves deciding if an autonomous vehicle should be handed off from one worker to another worker. The methods allow for decisions to be made in real or near real time shortly before an autonomous vehicle changes location. Worker time, if a handover is not implemented, is considered including the amount of worker time involved with the worker moving with the autonomous vehicle to the new location as compared to a new worker meeting the autonomous vehicle at the new location or on the way to the new location. Handover decisions can consider worker distribution and/or order priority. Such factors can be used to weight one or more time based cost values with a cost value representation of the cost if a handover is not implemented vs implementing a handover being compared to make the handover decision.

An operation device including: an operation section configured to receive operation by a remote operator conferred with operation authority to operate a vehicle capable of autonomous driving; a communication section configured to transmit, to the vehicle, operation information for remote driving based on the operation received by the operation section; a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor being configured to: acquire biometric information regarding the remote operator, determine whether or not a compromised state, in which operation of the vehicle by the remote operator is compromised, has arisen based on the acquired biometric information, and transfer operation authority of the vehicle to another remote operator in a case in which the compromised state has been determined to have arisen.

A vehicle driving system that controls switching between automatic driving by a vehicle and manual driving by a driver of the vehicle includes a temperature sensor configured to monitor a temperature of an automatic driving ECU which controls the automatic driving; and a microcontroller configured to: (i) set a threshold temperature based on an estimated gradient of increase in the temperature of the automatic driving ECU, the estimated gradient of increase being estimated based on a drive state of an equipment installed on the vehicle, and (ii) in a case where the temperature of the automatic driving ECU that is sensed by the temperature sensor becomes equal to or greater than the threshold temperature, perform an operation for prompting the driver to switch to the manual driving during the automatic driving.

Aspects of the disclosure relate to controlling a vehicle having an autonomous driving mode. This may include receiving, by one or more processors of the vehicle, first information identifying a current relative humidity measurement within a sensor housing of a vehicle having an autonomous driving mode. The relative humidity measurement and pre-stored environmental map information may be used by the one or more processors to estimate a condition of a sensor within the sensor housing at a future time. This estimated condition may be used by the one or more processors to control the vehicle.

A travel processing unit causes a work vehicle to travel manually on the basis of an operator's manual travel operation. A route-generation processing unit generates a target route, which is a route for the work vehicle to travel automatically, when the operator's route-generation instruction operation to the operation unit is accepted while the work vehicle is traveling manually. A travel processing unit causes the work vehicle to travel automatically along the target route when the operator's automatic-travel start operation to the operation unit is accepted after the route-generation instruction operation.

A device may receive machine data indicating a pose of one or more components of a machine. The machine data may be generated based on first data from one or more first sensor devices associated with the machine. The device may generate validation data to validate the machine data. The validation data may be generated based on second data from a second set of sensor devices. The device may perform a comparison of the machine data and the validation data and determine, based the comparison, whether the machine data is validated or not validated. The device may selectively control an operation of the machine based on the machine data. Based on determining that the machine data is validated, the operation may be controlled based on the machine data. The operation may be controlled without the machine data based on determining that the machine data is not validated.

In accordance with an embodiment, a method of operating an aircraft includes operating the aircraft in a first mode including determining an attitude based on a pilot stick signal, where a translational speed or an attitude of the aircraft is proportional to an amplitude of the pilot stick signal in the first mode; transitioning from the first mode to a second mode when a velocity of the aircraft exceeds a first velocity threshold; and operating the aircraft in the second mode where the output of the rate controller is proportional to the amplitude of the pilot stick signal.