An electronic control unit for a vehicle including a nonvolatile memory capable of erasing and writing data electrically and two buffers to acquire, by communication, divided data obtained by dividing a program by predetermined size. Then, in parallel with using the two buffers alternately to receive divided data, the electronic control unit for a vehicle uses one buffer that is not used to receive divided data to write the received divided data into the nonvolatile memory.

Methods and apparatus to extricate a vehicle from a stuck condition, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example apparatus includes: a user interface to receive a command to place a vehicle in an autonomous control mode of the vehicle; and a stuck mode controller to autonomously shift a transmission of the vehicle alternately between a reverse gear and a forward gear of the vehicle when in the autonomous control mode to autonomously rock the vehicle back and forth. A timing of the shifting of the transmission is based on a ratio of a velocity of the vehicle to an acceleration of the vehicle.

Embodiments herein relate to an autonomous vehicle or self-driving vehicle. The level of comfort with autonomous driving offered to the user and the parameters of operation of the autonomous vehicle might increase or decrease a driver's comfort (anxiety) with the vehicle. Sensors in the vehicle can detect a user's driving style, comfort level and may propose an autonomy level to the user and/or parameters of operation.

Methods and apparatus to extricate a vehicle from a stuck condition, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example method includes receiving a command to place a vehicle in a stuck mode. The stuck mode corresponds to an autonomous control mode of the vehicle. The method further includes autonomously controlling the vehicle in the stuck mode to attempt to extricate the vehicle from a stuck condition.

A master control device is communicatively coupled to a first slave control device and a second slave control device via a first network and a second network, respectively. The master control device provides output data to the first slave control device based on input data received from the second slave control device. A monitoring apparatus which monitors an operation of the master control device stores determination data indicating a correspondence relationship between the input data and the output data, obtains the input data provided to the second network by the second slave control device and the output data provided to the first slave control device via the first network, and determines a presence or an absence of an anomaly in the operation of the master control device by determining whether the input data and the output data correspond to the determination data.

An electronic control unit for a vehicle including a nonvolatile memory capable of erasing and writing data electrically and two buffers to acquire, by communication, divided data obtained by dividing a program by predetermined size. Then, in parallel with using the two buffers alternately to receive divided data, the electronic control unit for a vehicle uses one buffer that is not used to receive divided data to write the received divided data into the nonvolatile memory.

A vehicle drive system includes a slip acquisition unit that acquires occurrence of excessive slip, an addition slip point calculating unit that calculates addition slip points in a time-discrete manner, based on having acquired that the excessive slip has occurred, a cumulative slip point calculating unit that accumulates the addition slip points and calculates a cumulative slip point over time, a drive state switching unit that switches between 2WD and AWD based on cumulative slip points and a drive state switching threshold value, and a cumulative slip point resetting unit triggered by a lateral acceleration correlation value of the vehicle reaching a lateral acceleration threshold value or higher, or a drive force correlation value of the drive wheels reaching a drive force correlation threshold value or higher, to reset the cumulative slip point to a value smaller than the drive state switching threshold value.

Embodiments herein relate to an autonomous vehicle or self-driving vehicle with a vehicle control system. The vehicle control system can determine, prior to and/or during a collision, whether an escape path exits. If an escape path exists, the brakes are disengaged such that at least some of the energy and/or momentum from a colliding vehicle is transferred and a jolt or shock experienced by an occupant is reduced.

A vehicle system includes: a reprogramming slave device that is an electronic control unit (hereinafter, referred to as ECU) to be a target of updating an update file of a program stored among a plurality of the ECUs; a reprogramming master device that transmits the update file to the reprogramming slave device in response to a request from a terminal operable by a vehicle user to control updating of the program stored in the reprogramming slave device; and a determination unit that determines traveling propriety of a vehicle when the update file is rewritten in the reprogramming slave device. The vehicle device functions as the reprogramming master device, and includes: an obtaining unit that obtains the traveling propriety determined by the determination unit; and a notification command unit that commands a notification medium to notify information of the traveling propriety obtained by the obtaining unit.

A method for determining avoidance trajectories for a collision-free avoidance maneuver of transportation vehicles, wherein trajectory data describing a collection of possible driving trajectories is received from at least one trajectory generator for each transportation vehicle in real time, and a respective avoidance trajectory is determined in real time for each transportation vehicle based on the collection of possible driving trajectories for that transportation vehicle. For each transportation vehicle, the driving trajectories are divided into groups, and each group is represented by a single respective group trajectory. In at least one combination operation, each of the group trajectories of each transportation vehicle is selected and a resulting driving maneuver is checked based on the selected group trajectories to determine if the driving maneuver fulfils a predetermined optimization criterion, and the avoidance trajectories are determined based on the group trajectories of a combination operation with a fulfilled optimization criterion.