An autonomous vehicle safety system may activate to prevent collisions by detecting that a planned trajectory may result in a collision. If the safety system is overly sensitive, it may cause false positive activations, and if the system isn't sensitive enough the collision avoidance system may not activate and prevent a collision, which is unacceptable. It may be impossible or prohibitively difficult to detect false positive activations of a safety system and it is unacceptable to risk a false negative, so tuning the safety system is notoriously difficult. Tuning the safety system may include detecting near-miss events using surrogate metrics, and tuning the safety system to increase or decrease a rate of near-miss events as a stand-in for false positives.

A vehicle includes a detection system configured to acquire data regarding operation of the vehicle, and a robotic driving device configured to provide robotic control of the vehicle. The vehicle also includes a control system configured to determine whether the robotic driving device is activated, such that the vehicle is in robotic driving mode; receive a request by a prospective operator of the vehicle to deactivate the robotic driving device to initiate a manual driving mode; determine whether the prospective operator is impaired based on the data; and selectively grant or refuse the request based on the determination.

An autonomous guidance system that operates a vehicle in an autonomous mode includes a camera module, a radar module, and a controller. The camera module outputs an image signal indicative of an image of an object in an area about a vehicle. The radar module outputs a reflection signal indicative of a reflected signal reflected by the object. The controller determines an object-location of the object on a map of the area based on a vehicle-location of the vehicle on the map, the image signal, and the reflection signal. The controller classifies the object as small when a magnitude of the reflection signal associated with the object is less than a signal-threshold.

An autonomous guidance system that operates an automated vehicle in an autonomous mode includes a camera module, a radar module, and a controller. The camera module outputs an image signal indicative of an image of an object in an area about a vehicle. The radar module outputs a reflection signal indicative of a reflected signal reflected by the object. The controller generates a map of the area based on a vehicle-location of the vehicle, the image signal, and the reflection signal, wherein the controller classifies the object as small when a magnitude of the reflection signal associated with the object is less than a signal-threshold.

Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to controlling an autonomous vehicle in a variety of unique circumstances. These include adapting control strategies of the vehicle based on discrepancies between map data and sensor data obtained by the vehicle. These further include adapting position and routing strategies for the vehicle based on changes in the environment and traffic conditions. Other aspects of the disclosure relate to using vehicular sensor data to update hazard information on a centralized map database. Other aspects of the disclosure relate to using sensors independent of the vehicle to compensate for blind spots in the field of view of the vehicular sensors. Other aspects of the disclosure involve communication with other vehicles to indicate that the autonomous vehicle is not under human control, or to give signals to other vehicles about the intended behavior of the autonomous vehicle.

Disclosed are embodiments of environmental sensing devices and information acquiring methods applied to environmental sensing devices. In some embodiments, an environmental sensing device includes a camera sensor, a laser radar sensor that are integrated, and a control unit. The control unit is connected simultaneously to the camera sensor and the laser radar sensor. The control unit is used for simultaneously entering a trigger signal to the camera sensor and the laser radar sensor. The design of integrating the camera sensor and the laser radar sensor avoids the problems such as poor contact and noise generation that easily occur in a high-vibration and high-interference vehicle environment, and can precisely trigger the camera sensor and the laser radar sensor simultaneously, so as to obtain high-quality fused data, thereby improving the accuracy of environmental sensing. As a result, the camera sensor and the laser radar sensor have a consistent overlapping field of view.

A motor vehicle has a control device, a first sensor and a global positioning device. The control device has a control unit and a data memory. At least one item of information about an arrangement of an overhead line is stored on the data memory. The control unit is connected to the first sensor and to the global positioning device. The first sensor determines a position of the overhead line relative to the motor vehicle and provides the control unit with the relative position. The global positioning device determines a global position of the motor vehicle and provides the control unit with it. The control unit, on the basis of the established relative position, the established global position and the information about the arrangement of the overhead line, calculates a position of the motor vehicle.

A control device of a vehicle comprises: a driving plan generating part 90 configured to generate a driving plan in automated driving of the host vehicle; a package extracting part 91 configured to extract driving assistance packages packaging permissions for a plurality of driving assistance operations based on at least one of the surrounding environment information, the vehicle information, and the driver information; a package proposing part 92 configured to propose driving assistance packages to the driver of the host vehicle based on the driving assistance packages extracted by the package extracting part and the driving plan; and an automated driving executing part 93 configured to perform driving assistance operations permitted in a driving assistance package proposed by the package proposing part and approved by the driver of the host vehicle.

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to using audible cues to guide a passenger to a vehicle having an autonomous driving mode. For instance, one or more processors of the vehicle may receive, from a server computing device, instructions to pick up the passenger at a pickup location. The one or more processors may maneuver the vehicle towards the pickup location in the autonomous driving mode. The one or more processors may receive a signal indicating that the passenger requests assistance locating the vehicle. The one or more processors may use the signal to generate the audible cues. The audible cues may be played by the one or more processors through a speaker of the vehicle in order to guide the passenger towards the vehicle.

A method for the optimized use of a parking area. Vehicles which are to be parked on the parking area are each assigned a parking space, the vehicles navigating to the respective assigned parking space, in particular autonomously. Furthermore, vehicles may carry out a change of the parking space in order to enable an improved use of the available parking area or a faster availability of the vehicle, whereby overall an optimized use of the parking area is achieved. Initially, an available range of the respective vehicles is ascertained, and the assignment of the respective parking space and/or a possible change of the parking space are made dependent on the available range of the individual vehicles. The available range of a vehicle is in particular described by a residual fuel amount or a charge state of the vehicle.