Route planning is provided to a vehicle (or vehicle driver) based at least in part on the type of vehicle and the terrain conditions between the originating location and destination. The vehicle may employ a terrain monitoring system including a surface-penetrating radar (SPR) system for obtaining SPR signals as the vehicle travels along a route; the obtained SPR signals may be used for navigation against reference images associated with the route. In some embodiments, a navigation server bases route selection in part on the terrain associated with various routes and characteristics of the vehicle.

A method is disclosed for analyzing historical accident information to adjust driving actions of an autonomous vehicle over a travel route in order to avoid accidents which have occurred over the travel route. Historical accident information for the travel route can be analyzed to, for example, determine accident types which occurred over the travel route and determine causes and/or probable causes of the accident types. In response to determining accident types and causes/probable causes of the accident types over the travel route, adjustments can be made to the driving actions planned for the autonomous vehicle over the travel route. In addition, in an embodiment, historical accident information can be used to analyze available travel routes and select a route which presents less risk of accident than others.

A driving assist method minimizes an incidence of lane changing within a circulatory roadway. In this driving assist method, a recognition assessment processor assesses the travel of a host vehicle, calculates a travel route over which the host vehicle is to travel, and executes a driving assist control based on the travel route. The recognition assessment processor further assesses whether the host vehicle has arrived at a roundabout having a circulatory roadway to which three or more radial roadways are connected. When an assessment has been made that the host vehicle has arrived at the roundabout, a position of a host vehicle entrance and a position of a host vehicle exit are specified. Furthermore, an entrance position is set based on a positional relationship between the host vehicle entrance and the host vehicle exit.

A control device is provided, which includes: a destination determining unit configured to determine a destination of a hybrid vehicle that includes an engine, a motor and a battery and is able to supply waste heat from the engine to the battery; a arrival judging unit configured to judge whether the hybrid vehicle can arrive at the destination with a remaining capacity of the battery based on the remaining capacity and a temperature of the battery; and a vehicle control unit configured to control the hybrid vehicle to start the engine and supply the waste heat from the engine to the battery when the arrival judging unit judges that the hybrid vehicle cannot arrive at the destination.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for monitoring a dedicated roadway the runs in parallel to a railroad. In some implementations, a system includes a central server, an interface, and sensors. The interface receives data from a railroad system that manages the railroad parallel to the dedicated roadway. The sensors are positioned in a fixed location relative to the dedicated roadway. Each sensor can detect vehicles in a first field of view on the dedicated roadway. For each detected vehicle, each sensor can generate sensor data based on the detected vehicle in the dedicated roadway and the data received at the interface. Each sensor can generate observational data and instruct the detected vehicle to switch to an enhanced processing mode. Each sensor can determine an action for the detected vehicle to take based on the generated observational data.

The present disclosure relates to a method for the fully automated guidance of a motor vehicle by a vehicle system in a driving situation of at least one driving situation class, wherein the vehicle system has a control device and accesses position data of a position sensor. The method starts with providing a traffic rule database in which traffic rule sets for a plurality of geographic regions are stored in a machine-readable formal language and which can be accessed by the control device, and determining a geographical region currently traveled by the motor vehicle based on the current position data and retrieving a traffic rule set for the currently traveled geographical region from the traffic rule database via the control device. After or upon determination of a trajectory currently to be traveled by the control device, the vehicle system will verify the trajectory for compliance with traffic rules using the retrieved traffic rule set for the geographic region currently traveled by the control device, wherein the trajectory currently to be traveled is adjusted in the event of non-compliance, and guide the motor vehicle based on the trajectory currently to be traveled.

A driver assistance system for automated longitudinal guidance of a motor vehicle configured to detect at least one turning opportunity for the motor vehicle, and to reduce the speed of the motor vehicle in accordance with the at least one detected turning opportunity.

A method and an apparatus for setting a driving mode of a vehicle are disclosed. The method performed by an in-vehicle apparatus for setting a driving mode includes: determining a state of an occupant, determining a type of road on which the vehicle is traveling, and setting the driving mode of the vehicle based on the state of the occupant and the type of the road.

According to one embodiment, a system receives a captured image perceiving an environment of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) from an image capturing device of the ADV capturing a plurality of obstacles near the ADV. The system generates a first tunnel based on a width of a road lane for the ADV, where the first tunnel represents a passable lane for the ADV to travel through. The system generates one or more additional tunnels based on locations of the obstacles, where the one or more additional tunnels modify a width of the passable lane according to a level of invasiveness of the obstacles. The system generates a trajectory of the ADV based on the first and the additional tunnels to control the ADV according to the trajectory to navigate around the obstacles without collision.

Location polygons are defined along traffic lanes and parking spaces to facilitate determination of the location of a vehicle relative to features associated with the location polygons. The location polygons are used, in one application, to identity entrance and exit of a special toll lane along a roadway, and to ensure that the vehicle properly enters and exits the tolling lane.