A system for interactive hypothesis estimation of multi-vehicle traffic for autonomous driving is provided. The system includes a sensor upon a host vehicle providing data regarding an operating environment of the host vehicle and a computerized device. The computerized device is operable to monitor the data from the sensor, identify a road surface based upon the data, and identify a neighborhood object based upon the data. The computerized device is further operable to determine a pressure score for the neighborhood object based upon a likelihood that the neighborhood object will conflict with the host vehicle based upon the road surface and the neighborhood object, selectively track the neighborhood object based upon the pressure score, and navigate the host vehicle based upon the tracking of the neighborhood object.

A vehicle drivable area detection system includes a vehicle, at least one 3D sensor and an electronic controller. The at least one 3D sensor is installed to the vehicle and is configured to scan and capture data using laser imaging, detection and distance ranging relative to the vehicle. The data collected represents ground surface features including vertical obstacles, non-vertical obstacles and a drivable area proximate the vehicle within a line-of-sight of the 3D sensor. The electronic controller is installed within the vehicle and is electronically connected to the 3D sensor and at least one driver assist component. The electronic controller conducts the following: a vertical obstacle extraction from the data; terrain estimating from the data; curb detection from the data; and generating a plurality of data elements identifying vertical obstacles including curbs and the drivable area to the at least one driver assist component.

A navigation system for a host vehicle is provided. The system may comprise at least one processing device programmed to receive, from a camera, a plurality of images representative of an environment of the host vehicle; analyze the plurality of images to identify at least one vehicle-induced occlusion zone in an environment of the host vehicle; and cause a navigational change for the host vehicle based, at least in part, on a size of a target vehicle that induces the identified occlusion zone.

A collision avoidance method for a vehicle includes monitoring a lateral distance between the vehicle and a target vehicle while the vehicle is travelling within a first lane and the target vehicle is travelling within an adjacent second lane, activating a warning on the vehicle and automatically adjusting operation of the vehicle to increase the distance between the vehicle and the target vehicle when the lateral distance between the vehicle and the target vehicle is less than the threshold distance while the vehicle is travelling within the first lane. Automatically adjusting operation of the vehicle may include one or both of steering the vehicle laterally away from the target vehicle and adjusting a longitudinal velocity of the vehicle. A related collision avoidance system is also provided.

A controller detects partitioning lines OL and BL of a road and a road edge E based on an image taken by a camera, generates a pair of left and right virtual lines IL.sub.L and IL.sub.R that extend from the side to the front of a vehicle along the partitioning lines OL and BL, controls the steering so the vehicle travels between the left and right virtual lines IL.sub.L and IL.sub.R, moves the left virtual line IL.sub.L to a position in proximity to the road edge E and fixes the left virtual line IL.sub.L to this position, and then, moves the right virtual line IL.sub.R to a position separated from the left virtual line IL.sub.L by the width of the vehicle and fixes the right virtual line IL.sub.R to this position, and controls brakes to stop the vehicle after fixing the left and right virtual lines IL.sub.L and IL.sub.R.

There has been a problem that because in a section where a road forks from a main lane or merges the main lane, the number of lanes increases or decreases, breakage of a lane line and existence of other vehicles hinder the lane line from being read and hence generation of a target course becomes unstable. A course generation apparatus according to the present disclosure is provided with a prohibition-section determination unit that determines, in the case of forking from a main lane or merging with the main lane, that a present section is an environmental-information-course usage prohibition section, until a time when a vehicle position passes through a forking completion point or a merging completion point, and with a course selection unit that selects an environmental information course or a route-information course in a normal time and selects the route-information course in the environmental-information-course usage prohibition section.

Systems and methods for managing environmental conditions for an autonomous vehicle are disclosed. In one aspect, an autonomous vehicle includes a perception sensor configured to generate perception data indicative of a condition of the environment, a network communication transceiver configured to communicate with an oversight system and an external weather condition source, a non-transitory computer readable medium, and a processor. The processor is configured to: receive the perception data from the at least one perception sensor, receive an indication of current weather conditions from the external weather condition source, determine a current environmental condition severity level from a plurality of severity levels based on the perception data and the indication of current weather conditions, modify one or more driving parameters that that govern a range of actions that can be autonomously executed by the autonomous vehicle, and navigate the autonomous vehicle based on the modified driving parameters.

A driving assistance method includes: detecting a first other vehicle entering an intersection on a first route where a host vehicle is traveling from a second route; predicting whether or not the first other vehicle will stop in the intersection, and predicting a stop position of the first other vehicle; calculating a minimum distance of a first gap between a vehicle body of the first other vehicle and a surrounding object around the first other vehicle or between the vehicle body of the first other vehicle and a road edge of a travel lane of the first other vehicle when the first other vehicle stops at the predicted stop position; and predicting according to the calculated minimum distance whether or not a second other vehicle, which is a following vehicle behind the first other vehicle, may slip through the first gap from behind the first other vehicle.

Systems and methods for operating a vehicle are disclosed. The methods comprise: generating, by a computing device, a vehicle trajectory for the vehicle while the vehicle is in motion; detecting an object within a given distance from the vehicle; generating at least one possible object trajectory for the object which was detected; performing a collision check to determine whether a collision between the vehicle and the object can be avoided based on the vehicle trajectory and the at least one possible object trajectory; performing a plausibility check to determine whether the collision is plausible based on content of a map, when a determination is made in the collision check that a collision between the vehicle and the object cannot be avoided; and performing operations to selectively cause the vehicle to perform an emergency maneuver based on results of the plausibility check.

There is disclosed a control system and a method for a host vehicle operable in an autonomous mode. The control system comprises one or more controllers. The speed and/or path of the vehicle in the autonomous mode is appropriate to a driving context.