A control apparatus includes a controller configured to, upon determining, based on behavior classification, that a behavior of a passenger detected from a captured image or a sound of inside of a vehicle is threatening, transmit a first instruction to increase tension of a seat belt worn by the passenger.

The technology relates to articulated autonomous vehicles that can potentially jackknife. To avoid or mitigate such hazardous conditions, the current state of the vehicle is evaluated against the vehicle's planned trajectory, for instance as it drives along a freeway or surface streets. When the evaluation indicates a likelihood of jackknifing, an automated braking approach is implemented using elective braking to stabilize the vehicle. The braking approach can depend on whether the situation involves tractor jackknifing or trailer jackknifing, and one or more different braking mechanisms can be employed for a selective modulation of the braking profile to address actual jackknifing or to prevent the vehicle from entering a jackknifing situation.

A system and method for providing a situational awareness based adaptive driver vehicle interface that include receiving data associated with a driving scene of an ego vehicle and eye gaze data and analyzing the driving scene and the eye gaze data and performing real time fixation detection pertaining to the driver's eye gaze behavior to determine a level of situational awareness with respect to objects that are located within the driving scene. The system and method also include determining at least one level of importance associated with each of the objects and communicating control signals to control at least one component based on at least one of: the at least one level of importance associated with each of the objects that are located within the driving scene and the level of situational awareness with respect to each of the objects that are located within the driving scene.

An autonomous driving assistance device includes: a determination unit for determining whether or not a driver of a vehicle needs a rest on the basis of detection information of a state of the driver; and a control unit for causing an output device of the vehicle to output a pattern that prompts the driver to sleep through at least one of sight, hearing, or touch during a period in which the vehicle has started moving to a parking area and is parked at the parking area in a case where the determination unit has determined that the driver needs a rest.

A method for detecting boundaries of lanes on a road is presented. The method comprises receiving, by one or more processors from an imaging system, a set of pixels associated with lane markings. The method further includes partitioning, by the one or more processors, the set of pixels into a plurality of groups. Each of the plurality of groups is associated with one or more control points. The method further includes generating, by the one or more processors, a spline that traverses the control points of the plurality of groups. The spline traversing the control points describes a boundary of a lane.

The disclosed technology provides solutions for generating synthetic 3D environments, In some aspects, the disclosed technology includes a process of collecting sensor data corresponding with a three-dimensional (3D) space; identifying objects in the sensor data; filtering objects for inclusion in the synthetic map based on (1) a corresponding influence score for each of the one or more of the objects and (2) a corresponding duration of presence of each of the objects in the sensor data; selecting one or more of the objects based on the filtering, wherein the corresponding influence score of each of the one or more of the objects is greater than a first threshold and the corresponding duration of presence of each of the one or more of the objects is greater than a second threshold; and generating the synthetic map including a 3D rendering of the one or more of the objects selected.

Systems and methods are provided for navigating a host vehicle. In an embodiment, a processing device may be configured to receive a captured image acquired by a camera onboard the host vehicle; provide the captured image to an analysis module configured to generate an output including an indicator of a contact position of the occluded pedestrian with the ground surface, the analysis module including a trained model trained based a plurality of training images having been modified to occlude a region where a training pedestrian contacts a training ground surface; receive from the analysis module the generated output, including the indicator of the contact position of the occluded pedestrian with the ground surface; and cause at least one navigational action by the host vehicle based on the indicator of the contact position of the occluded pedestrian with the ground surface.

Systems and methods for an autonomous vehicle are provided. In one aspect, an autonomous vehicle includes a perception sensor and a processor configured to: receive detected roadway conditions data including roadway grade data from the perception sensor, retrieve mapped data having grade data, and determine that the roadway has a grade based on the detected roadway grade data and the retrieved roadway grade data. The processor can be further configured to, in response to determining that the roadway has a grade, determine that the grade of the roadway is greater than or equal to a predetermined high grade value and less than a predetermined grade limit, and in response to determining that the grade of the roadway is greater than or equal to the predetermined high grade value and less than the predetermined grade limit, operate the autonomous vehicle to change lane to a right-most lane.

Aspects of the disclosure relate to determining whether a feature of map information. For example, data identifying an object detected in a vehicle's environment and including location coordinates is received. This information is used to identify a corresponding feature from pre-stored map information based on a map location of the corresponding feature. The corresponding feature is defined as a curve and associated with a tag identifying a type of the corresponding feature. A tolerance constraint is identified based on the tag. The curve is divided into two or more line segments. Each line segment has a first position. The first position of a line segment is changed in order to determine a second position based on the location coordinates and the tolerance constraint. A value is determined based on a comparison of the first position to the second position. This value indicates a likelihood that the corresponding feature has changed.

A method is described and includes subsequent to an autonomous vehicle becoming immobilized, initiating a local assistance request; subsequent to the initiating, receiving local assistance input from a passenger of the autonomous vehicle; and using the local assistance input to determine an action to be taken by the autonomous vehicle to mobilize the autonomous vehicle.