An apparatus for controlling a vehicle, comprising: an upper level controller connected to a vehicle CAN (Controller Area Network) bus communication network by using a CAN bus communication mode, configured: to control a first control element connected to a vehicle CAN bus via the CAN bus communication network; and to control a second control element connected to a non-vehicle CAN bus via a hardwired connection.

Method for monitoring the operation of a power steering system including a steering wheel, a servo motor and a monitoring module, characterized in that said method involves a step of determining at least one temporary limit value of a parameter, a step of estimating an additional value which an assistance functionality contributes to a setpoint value of the parameter, and a step of correcting the at least one temporary limit value by the additional value.

A method for regulating a kinematic variable of a motor vehicle. The method includes: receiving actual value signals, which represent an actual value of a kinematic variable of a motor vehicle; receiving setpoint signals, which represent a setpoint value of the kinematic variable; ascertaining an actuating variable to be implemented by one or multiple actuating element(s) of the motor vehicle, based on the actual value, the setpoint value and a variation of the setpoint value over time in such a way that a deviation between the actual value and the setpoint value becomes smaller when the actuating variable is implemented with the aid of the one or multiple actuating element(s); and outputting actuating variable signals, which represent the ascertained actuating variable. A device, a computer program, and a machine-readable memory medium are also described.

The manual drive changing notification apparatus for a vehicle includes a communication unit configured to receive transmission data from a neighboring vehicle, a communication packet analyzer configured to analyze a communication packet of the transmission data to set a data format change level, a manual drive mode determination unit configured to analyze an autonomous driving environment of the neighboring vehicle based on the data format change level to determine a manual drive mode of a subject vehicle, a driver alarm strength setting unit configured to set a driver alarm strength for changing to the manual drive mode according to determination of the manual drive mode, and an alarm output unit configured to output an alarm according to the driver alarm strength.

A throttle control signal processing method includes receiving, by an electronic speed regulator from a controller, a first throttle control signal via a throttle signal interface and a second throttle control signal via a communication interface simultaneously and separately in parallel. The method further includes monitoring, in a real time, a signal transmission state of the throttle signal interface. The method also includes controlling, in response to determining that the signal transmission state of the throttle signal interface is abnormal, rotation of a motor according to the second throttle control signal.

A method for determining kinematics of a target includes generating a measured trace of a target position, speed, and angle of a target relative to an ego vehicle. The radius of the curve that the target is taking is calculated, using the generated trace. A number of paths possible to be followed by the target are projected, expressed as abstract movement functions of a polynomial degree and using as input the calculated radius. At each further cycle, higher probabilities are added to the paths projected in a previous measuring cycle which are equal with the newly projected ones. The projected paths are kept if the radius remains the same as in the previous measuring cycle. The current kinematics values are computed by smoothing filtering as predicted kinematics values, which are compared with the kinematics values resulted from the projected paths, to determine the final kinematics values.

A method for autonomously operating a vehicle includes capturing environmental data of a front area by a front sensor mounted to the vehicle, capturing environmental data of a rear area by a rear sensor, capturing a position of the vehicle by a position sensor, assigning the position of the vehicle to a location in an topographic map containing slope information, retrieving slope information from the topographic map for a predetermined range in front of and behind of the location of the vehicle, determining a maximum detection distance of the front and rear sensors for detecting an object having a specific vertical height based on the slope information, front and rear sensor positions, and a vertical opening angle of a field of view of the front sensors, determining a minimum detection distance of the front and the rear sensor required for a planned driving maneuver or a current driving state of the vehicle, and actuating the vehicle such that the required minimum detection distance is equal or smaller than the maximum detection distance of the front and rear sensors.

A vehicle (2) comprising at least one working unit (4) and a vehicle control system (6) comprising control units for controlling the vehicle to work in accordance with one or many working procedures. The vehicle is provided with a plurality of sensor units (12) configured to generate a sensor signal (14). Each control unit (8) is configured to determine control signals (18) to control its working unit (4), and the control unit designated to the vehicle is configured to determine control signals to control the vehicle, and also to determine control signals (18) for controlling at least one of the other working units (4) or the vehicle, and specifically to determine control signals (18) capable of controlling steps of a working procedure. At each point in time one of the control units is a master control unit being the control unit that is responsible for controlling its own working unit (4) and also at least one other working unit (4), and that at least two control units (8) are configured to be a master control unit. A determination procedure is provided to continuously determine if handover to another control unit, then being the new master control unit, should be made, and enabling the new master control unit to take control in accordance with the current working procedure if handover has been determined.

Methods and systems are disclosed for cross-validating a second sensor with a first sensor. Cross-validating the second sensor may include obtaining sensor readings from the first sensor and comparing the sensor readings from the first sensor with sensor readings obtained from the second sensor. In particular, the comparison of the sensor readings may include comparing state information about a vehicle detected by the first sensor and the second sensor. In addition, comparing the sensor readings may include obtaining a first image from the first sensor, obtaining a second image from the second sensor, and then comparing various characteristics of the images. One characteristic that may be compared are object labels applied to the vehicle detected by the first and second sensor. The first and second sensors may be different types of sensors.

A method for processing a throttle control signal includes monitoring a signal transmission state of a throttle signal interface of an electronic speed regulator, determining that the signal transmission state is abnormal, and receiving the throttle control signal via a communication interface of the electronic speed regulator if the signal transmission state is determined to be abnormal.