A method for the automatic execution of at least one driving function of a motor vehicle, in which it is checked whether the driver uses an unapproved electronic device. In the event that the driver is using an unapproved electronic device, a warning is output to the driver.

To prompt smooth takeover of driving behavior of a driver, a vehicle control system includes a driving state information acquisition unit that acquires driving state information indicating a state of automatic driving regarding at least one of steering and acceleration/deceleration when a transition from automatic driving to manual driving occurs, a requested operation information generation unit that generates requested operation information indicating operation information that is requested to a vehicle occupant when the transition from automatic driving to manual driving occurs on the basis of the driving state information acquired by the driving state information acquisition unit, and a requested operation information notification unit that issues a notification to the vehicle occupant on the basis of the requested operation information generated by the requested operation information generation unit.

The present invention provides an automatic driving system capable of clearly identifying the factors responsible for causing an abnormality such as an accident or malfunction of a vehicle during automatic driving after the fact. The automatic driving system automatically selects, from each automatic driving function provided in the vehicle or each level of driving automation into which each automatic driving function is classified, an automatic driving function or a level of driving automation according to the circumstances surrounding the vehicle or the driving state of the vehicle, automatically performs a part of or the entirety of a vehicle driving operation to automatically drive the vehicle, and, remembers the time of automatic driving and information indicating the selected automatic driving function or level of driving automation at that time.

The present disclosure provides a method and an apparatus for vehicle control. The method includes: obtaining (101) manual operation information of a vehicle; determining (102) an intervention intention of a driver based on the manual operation information; and controlling (103), when the vehicle is currently in an automated driving mode and the intervention intention is determined to be a slow intervention, the vehicle to reach a predetermined safe state and handing corresponding control of the vehicle over to the driver. The method and apparatus can solve potential safety problems in vehicle control and improve safety of the vehicle control.

A drive assist apparatus includes an arrival window time calculation unit configured to calculate an arrival window time before the vehicle arrives at a switching completion point, a driving concentration degree estimation unit configured to estimate a driving concentration degree of a driver based on a state of the driver when the arrival window time is equal to or shorter than a predetermined time, and a stimulation providing unit configured to provide a stimulus to the driver according to the driving concentration degree. In a case where the driving concentration degree is equal to or less than a threshold value set in advance, the stimulation providing unit provides a stimulus to the driver, which is stronger than that in a case where the driving concentration degree is greater than the threshold value, or provides a stronger stimulus to the driver in accordance with reduction in the driving concentration degree.

A drive assistance system includes an onboard device that is mounted on a vehicle performing automatic driving based on sensing information detected by a sensor of the vehicle, and a center that communicates with the onboard device. The onboard device includes a sensing information acquisition portion that acquires the sensing information. Either the onboard device or the center includes an evaluation portion that evaluates a detection performance of the sensor based on the sensing information. The center includes a region specification portion that specifies a decrease region where the detection performance of the sensor decreases, the decrease region specified by the detection performance, based on the sensing information, and the decrease region specified by a position at which the sensing information has been detected. The onboard device stops the automatic driving when the vehicle is located in the decrease region.

An autonomous driving control system is configured to perform autonomous driving of a vehicle. The autonomous driving control system includes: an electric power supply circuit including a plurality of electric power supplies, electric power supply lines respectively belonging to a plurality of systems and a relay device; a fault detector configured to detect a fault state of the relay device; an electric power supply controller configured to control the electric power supply circuit; and an autonomous driving control unit provided to control the autonomous driving of the vehicle. The autonomous driving control unit is configured to perform, upon detection by the fault detector of occurrence of a fault corresponding to a specific fault pattern in the relay device, a restricted autonomous driving control in which part of a control function of the autonomous driving is restricted compared to when no fault corresponding to the specific fault pattern is detected.

A system, including: a non-transitory memory; and one or more hardware processors coupled to the non-transitory memory and configured to read instructions from the non-transitory memory to cause the system to perform operations including: detecting a first automobile; determining that the first automobile is a self-driving automobile; and in response to determining that the first automobile is a self-driving automobile, causing a second automobile to emulate a motion of the first automobile.

A method of assessing a gaze of an occupant is provided. The method includes: determining a direction of a gaze of an occupant based on gaze information detected by a first sensor; determining a position of a feature of road based on one or more from among mapping information or vehicle environment information provided by a second sensor; comparing the direction of the gaze to the position of the feature of the road; and performing a corrective action in response to determining that the direction of the gaze does not correspond to the position of the feature of the road.

An auto driving control system includes: a situation determining unit which recognizes a situation around the vehicle and determines whether automatic traveling is possible; a drive control unit which performs traveling control when the automatic traveling is possible; a state determining unit which determines whether an occupant is able to drive; and an estimation drive control unit configured such that when the automatic traveling is difficult and it is difficult for the occupant to take over the driving, and when it is determined that execution of a function of the automatic traveling is difficult due to a first sensor, the estimation drive control unit executes the function by using information of a second sensor, and performs traveling control of the vehicle, wherein the automatic traveling is continued based on a control instruction of the estimation drive control unit until the occupant becomes able to take over the driving.