A number of illustrative variations may include a method or product for monitoring and responding to component, system, or module failure in an autonomous driving system.

Embodiments described herein provide a method for using one or more audio signals from one or more sensors to establish the presence and severity of precipitation at a particular location. Methods may include: receiving at least one first audio signal from a first audio sensor of a vehicle; extracting acoustical features including frequency and amplitude from the at least one first audio signal; receiving at least one second audio signal from a second audio sensor of the vehicle; extracting acoustical features including frequency and amplitude from the at least one second audio signal; processing the frequency and amplitude from the at least one first audio signal and the frequency and amplitude from the at least one second audio signal as inputs to an algorithm to generate an output from the algorithm; and determining, from the output of the algorithm, a precipitation condition and a confidence measure of the precipitation condition.

Systems and methods for determining whether a vehicle is driving in an unsafe or unsatisfactory manner are disclosed. In some implementations, a system may determine one or more driving scores for a vehicle based on observations of a driving behavior of the vehicle during a time period. The system may generate an indication of unsatisfactory driving based on at least one of the one or more driving scores exceeding a threshold value. The system may provide the indication of unsatisfactory driving to one or more entities. In some aspects, the system may identify one or more dangerous driving attributes exhibited by the vehicle during the time period based on the observations received from the one or more devices. The system may also generate the indication of unsatisfactory driving based at least in part on the identified dangerous driving attributes.

An information presentation device, mounted on a vehicle for which automatic evacuation control functions when it is difficult for a driver to continue driving the vehicle, and presenting information to an occupant of the vehicle except the driver by a display in a display area that is visually recognizable by the occupant, includes: an operation information acquisition unit that acquires operation information of the automatic evacuation control; and a display generation unit that generates an occupant notification display that is displayed in the display area to notify information relating to the automatic evacuation control when the automatic evacuation control is in operation. The occupant notification display includes: an explanatory image that shows an explanation of a process executed currently; and a progress image that indicates a degree of progress in the automatic evacuation control.

Techniques for detecting and responding to an emergency vehicle are discussed. A vehicle computing system may determine that an emergency vehicle based on sensor data, such as audio and visual data. In some examples, the vehicle computing system may determine aggregate actions of objects (e.g., other vehicles yielding) proximate the vehicle based on the sensor data. In such examples, a determination that the emergency vehicle is operating may be based on the actions of the objects. The vehicle computing system may, in turn, identify a location to move out of a path of the emergency vehicle (e.g., yield) and may control the vehicle to the location. The vehicle computing system may determine that the emergency vehicle is no longer relevant to the vehicle and may control the vehicle along a route to a destination. Determining to yield and/or returning to a mission may be confirmed by a remote operator.

This disclosure relates to systems and techniques for identifying collisions, such as relatively low energy impact collisions involving an autonomous vehicle. Sensor data from a first sensor modality in a first array may be used to determine a first estimated location of impact and second sensor data from a second sensor modality in a second array may be used to determine a second estimated location of impact. A low energy impact event may be configured when the first estimated location of impact corresponds to the second estimated location of impact.

A system comprises an autonomous vehicle (AV) and an operation server operably coupled with the AV. The operation server accesses environmental data associated with a road traveled by the AV. The environmental data is associated with a time window during which the AV is traveling along the road. The operation server compares the environmental data with map data that comprises expected road conditions ahead of the AV. The operation server determines whether the environmental data comprises an unexpected road condition that is not included in the map data. In response to determining that the environmental data comprises the unexpected road condition that is not included in the map data, the operation server determines a location coordinate of the unexpected road condition, and communicates a command to the AV to maneuver to avoid the unexpected road condition.

A system configured to, and method of, generating and providing a data product using data supplied by a multitude of vehicles that includes receiving a plurality of geographical locations; carrying out a geographical location obfuscation process in order to obtain processed connected vehicle data, wherein the geographical location obfuscation process includes: (i) identifying a road segment based on the received geographical location; (ii) determining an associated road type of the road segment; (iii) determining whether to obfuscate the received geographical location based at least in part on the associated road type; and (iv) when it is determined to obfuscate the received geographical location, obfuscating the received geographical location so as to obtain an obfuscated geographical location, wherein the obfuscated geographical location is included in the processed connected vehicle data; generating the data product using the processed connected vehicle data; and providing the data product to a third party.

A vehicle includes a navigation configured to output navigation information; and a controller configured to receive a requested stopping location of the vehicle for a passenger to get on or off, to determine a stopping location of the vehicle based on the navigation information and information on a designated no-stopping zone, in response to the receiving of the requested stopping location, and to control the vehicle to head to the determined stopping location.

A system comprising a computer including instructions to collect object data about each of a plurality of objects within a zone from sensors on a roadside infrastructure unit. The zone includes a road intersection. The object data includes an object type, an object location, an object speed and an object direction of travel for each object. The computer further includes instructions to determine, based on the object data, an availability level for execution of one or more paths through the road intersection by a vehicle wherein the availability level for each of the one or more paths is based on a likelihood of interference between any of the objects and the vehicle as the vehicle traverses the respective path. The computer further includes instructions to transmit an availability message to the vehicle including the availability level for each of the one or more paths.