Autonomous driving system methods and devices which trigger vehicular actions based on the monitoring of one or more occupants of a vehicle are presented. The methods, and corresponding devices, may include identifying a plurality of features in a plurality of subsets of image data detailing the one or more occupants; tracking changes over time of the plurality of features over the plurality of subsets of image data; determining a state, from a plurality of states, of the one or more occupants based on the tracked changes; and triggering the vehicular action based on the determined state.

A method for controlling a subject vehicle with a braking system, a drive system and a distance control system, wherein the distance control system is configured to control an actual following distance between the subject vehicle and a vehicle ahead to a predetermined target following distance, wherein the target following distance is predetermined as a function of an activated operating mode of the distance control system, including performing a plausibility check by checking whether V2X data is exchanged or can be exchanged between the vehicle ahead and the subject vehicle over a V2X connection, and activating, if no V2X data is exchanged or can be exchanged between the vehicle ahead and the subject vehicle over the V2X connection, a first operating mode in which a first target following distance is predetermined as a function of a reaction time of a driver of the subject vehicle.

The present disclosure provides a vehicle control device and method. The vehicle control device includes: a vehicle detection part that detects vehicles existing around the driver's vehicle and outputs a detection result; and a control part coupled to the vehicle detection part. The control part includes: a vehicle control part that controls a vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle based on the detection result; and an adaptive part that uses an adaptation algorithm to accelerate/decelerate the driver's vehicle according to the acceleration/deceleration instruction from the driver when the vehicle control part is executing control of the vehicle distance. The adaptive part changes the vehicle acceleration/deceleration characteristic of the driver's vehicle in the control of the vehicle distance based on the history of the acceleration/deceleration instruction.

Autonomous driving system methods and devices which trigger vehicular actions based on the monitoring of one or more occupants of a vehicle are presented. The methods, and corresponding devices, may include identifying a plurality of features in a plurality of subsets of image data detailing the one or more occupants; tracking changes over time of the plurality of features over the plurality of subsets of image data; determining a state, from a plurality of states, of the one or more occupants based on the tracked changes; and triggering the vehicular action based on the determined state.

The invention relates to a lane change assistant for a vehicle comprising a sensor arrangement for calculating information relating to lanes and other road users. Provided is an arithmetic and logic unit for calculating movement paths for a first lane change and a subsequent second lane change to the original lane. The vehicle driver can accept or initiate the calculated lane changes. An actuator unit can then execute the lane changes calculated by the arithmetic and logic unit and initiated by the vehicle driver upon receipt of a signal from the arithmetic and logic unit.

A method for operating a control device for the autonomous guidance of a motor vehicle, wherein a nominal speed is predetermined as a driving speed to be set by the control device and another vehicle driving in front more slowly than the nominal speed is detected by a detection device of the control device, wherein a speed difference of a driving speed of the other vehicle with respect to the nominal speed is greater than zero but smaller than a predetermined maximum value. In this case, an accumulator value is set to a starting value and a current speed value of the speed difference is detected and depending on the speed value, an advantage value is formed and the advantage value is added to the accumulator value. If the accumulator value meets a predetermined overtaking criterion, an overtaking signal is generated for allowing an overtaking maneuver.

A vehicle control apparatus is mounted to an own vehicle and controls the own vehicle such that an inter-vehicle distance between a preceding vehicle and the own vehicle becomes a reference distance. The vehicle control apparatus acquires passing suitability information indicating whether or not the own vehicle is able to pass the preceding vehicle. When the own vehicle is not able to pass the preceding vehicle, the vehicle control apparatus corrects the inter-vehicle distance by adding a correction distance to a reference distance.

The present disclosure relates to a computer implemented method for operating an autonomous vehicle based on sensor data representative of an area in a driving direction of and in the vicinity of the vehicle. The vehicle is equipped with a control unit adapted to determine if a plurality of detailed actions to be performed by the vehicle successfully may be used for fulfilling a desired general action plan for the vehicle. The present disclosure also relates to a corresponding control system and to a computer program product.

A driving assistance device includes one or more processors configured to control operation of a host vehicle. The one or more processors are configured to perform first following control controlling acceleration and deceleration of the host vehicle so that the host vehicle follows a first preceding vehicle running in front of the host vehicle in the same lane as the host vehicle, and perform second following control prohibiting the first following control while a lane change is being performed and controlling acceleration and deceleration of the host vehicle so that the host vehicle follows a second preceding vehicle running in front of the host vehicle in a destination lane, if the lane change of the host vehicle is started during the first following control.

An automatic driving system includes: an information acquiring device configured to acquire driving environment information indicating a driving environment of the vehicle; a running control device configured to execute lane change control from a first lane to a second lane during automatic driving of the vehicle based on the driving environment information; and a display device configured to display an upper limit value of a running speed of the vehicle which is set by a driver of the vehicle during automatic driving. The display device is configured to display a deviation value which is calculated based on a target value of the running speed and the upper limit value along with the upper limit value during a speed-deviation running in which the running speed is higher than the upper limit value.