An autonomous vehicle (AV) includes features that allows the AV to comply with applicable regulations and statutes for performing safe driving operation. Example embodiments relate to an autonomous vehicle having a trailer coupled to a rear thereof. An example method includes continuously predicting a trailer trajectory that is distinct from a planned trajectory of the autonomous vehicle. The method further includes determining that the predicted trailer trajectory is within a minimum avoidance distance away from a stationary vehicle located on a roadway on which the autonomous vehicle is located. The method further includes modifying the planned trajectory of the autonomous vehicle such that the predicted trailer trajectory satisfies the minimum avoidance distance. The method further includes causing the autonomous vehicle to navigate along the modified trajectory based on transmitting instructions to one or more subsystems of the autonomous vehicle.

Vehicle alert and control systems and methods taking into account a detected road friction at a following vehicle and a predicted road friction by the following vehicle. The detected road friction between the following vehicle tires and the road surface may be assessed using a variety of methodologies and is used to compute a critical safety distance between the following vehicle and the preceding vehicle and a critical safety speed of the following vehicle. The predicted road friction ahead of the following vehicle may also be assessed using a variety of methodologies (lidar, camera, and cloud-based examples are provided) and is used to compute a warning safety distance between the following vehicle and the preceding vehicle and a warning safety speed of the following vehicle. These functionalities may be applied to vehicle/stationary object warning and response scenarios as well.

An autonomous driving system according to the present disclosure is an autonomous driving system that causes a vehicle to autonomously travel along a path plan, and includes a memory and a processor. The processor is configured to execute a determination process of determining whether offset processing is necessary, the offset processing offsetting the path plan in a lane width direction with respect to a reference traveling position in a changed lane after a lane change when the lane change is performed in response to that a preceding vehicle is present, and a process of generating the path plan related to the lane change so as to connect to the path plan that is offset in the changed lane after the lane change when the offset processing is necessary.

A vehicular control system includes a plurality of electronic control units (ECUs), each providing a respective quantity of computational units representative of an amount of processing power of the respective ECU. The ECUs operate a vehicle in a nominal autonomous operational mode when a sum of the quantity of computational units exceeds a threshold. The system, while the ECUs operate the vehicle in the nominal autonomous operational mode, and responsive to detecting a failure of one of the ECUs, determines whether a sum of the quantity of computational units of the remaining ECUs that do not have a failure exceeds the threshold. The ECUs, responsive to the system determining that the sum of the quantity of computational units of the remaining ECUs fails to exceed the threshold, switches from operating the vehicle in the nominal autonomous operational mode to operating the vehicle in a degraded autonomous operational mode.

An autonomous vehicle uses probabilistic neural networks to predict hidden context attributes associated with traffic entities. The hidden context represents behavior of the traffic entities in the traffic. The probabilistic neural network is configured to receive an image of traffic as input and generate output representing hidden context for a traffic entity displayed in the image. The system executes the probabilistic neural network to generate output representing hidden context for traffic entities encountered while navigating through traffic. The system determines a measure of uncertainty for the output values. The autonomous vehicle uses the measure of uncertainty generated by the probabilistic neural network during navigation.

Among other things, we describe techniques for operation of a vehicle based on measured load characteristics and/or passenger comfort. One or more sensors of the vehicle can measure passenger data and/or load data of the vehicle. The passenger data and/or load data of the vehicle can be used by the vehicle to determine how to navigate within the surrounding environment.

A method of operating an autonomous vehicle includes detecting, based on an input received from a sensor of an autonomous vehicle that is being navigated by an on-board computer system, an occurrence of a driving event, making a determination by the on-board computer system, upon the detecting the occurrence of the driving event, whether or how to alter the path planned by the on-board computer system according to a set of rules, and performing further navigation of the autonomous vehicle based on the determination until the driving event is resolved. The driving event may include a presence of an object in a shoulder area of the road. The driving event may include accumulation of more than a certain number of vehicles behind the autonomous vehicle. The driving event may include a slow vehicle ahead of the autonomous vehicle. The driving event may include a do-not-change-lane zone is within a threshold.

This document describes road modeling with ensemble Gaussian processes. A road is modeled at a first time using at least one Gaussian process regression (GPR). A kernel function is determined based on a sample set of detections received from one or more vehicle systems. Based on the kernel function, a respective mean lateral position associated with a particular longitudinal position is determined for each GPR of the at least one GPR. The respective mean lateral position for each of the at least one GPR is aggregated to determine a combined lateral position associated with the particular longitudinal position. A road model is then output including the combined lateral position associated with the particular longitudinal position. In this way, a robust and computationally efficient road model may be determined to aid in vehicle safety and performance.

Provided are methods for motion planner constraint generation based on road surface hazards, which can include receiving information about an object, identifying the object as a particular road hazard, generating one or more motion constraints based on the road hazard, and controlling a vehicle based on the motion constraints. Systems and computer program products are also provided.

An autonomous system may selectively displace human driver control of a host vehicle. The system may receive an image representative of an environment of the host vehicle and detect an obstacle in the environment of the host vehicle based on analysis of the image. The system may monitor a driver input to a throttle, brake, and/or steering control associated with the host vehicle. The system may determine whether the driver input would result in the host vehicle navigating within a proximity buffer relative to the obstacle. If the driver input would not result in the host vehicle navigating within the proximity buffer, the system may allow the driver input to cause a corresponding change in one or more host vehicle motion control systems. If the driver input would result in the host vehicle navigating within the proximity buffer, the system may prevent the driver input from causing the corresponding change.