Patents Examined by Marthe Y. Marc-Coleman
  • Patent number: 11186283
    Abstract: Provided is control apparatus for an electric vehicle, which is capable of suppressing simultaneous slip of front and rear wheels. The control apparatus for an electric vehicle controls a front electric motor and a rear electric motor so that a difference between a torque command value of the front electric motor and a torque command value of the rear electric motor is larger than a predetermined value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2021
    Assignee: Hitachi Astemo, Ltd.
    Inventors: Keisuke Suzuki, Hitoshi Kobayashi, Kazuya Takahashi
  • Patent number: 11188090
    Abstract: A vehicle includes a first image obtainer configured to obtain an external image; a second image obtainer configured to obtain an internal image; an obstacle detector configured to detect obstacles; a controller configured to control autonomous driving based on obstacle detection information detected by the obstacle detector and image data obtained by the first image obtainer and encrypt brightness data among the image data obtained by the first and second image obtainers during the control of the autonomous driving; and a storage configured to store the encrypted brightness data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2021
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors Corporation, Hyundai Autron Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Changwoo Ha, Bong Ju Kim, Ho-Jun Kim, Hochoul Jung
  • Patent number: 11183053
    Abstract: A vehicle may include a speaker; a display; a plurality of microphones configured to receive sound waves outside the vehicle; and a controller connected to the speaker, the display, and the plurality of microphones, and configured to determine sound wave characteristics of a terrain around a road on which the vehicle travels, based on map information, to determine a direct wave and a reflected wave of the received sound waves based on the terrain, the determined sound wave characteristics of the terrain, and the received sound waves, to determine a position and a velocity of an object that has generated the received sound waves based on the direct wave and the reflected wave, and to control at least one of the speaker and the display to output information on the position and the velocity of the object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors Corporation
    Inventor: Yonghwan Hwang
  • Patent number: 11180134
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media are provided for implementing a preemptive suspension control for an autonomous vehicle to improve ride quality. Data from one or more sensors onboard the autonomous vehicle can be acquired. A surface imperfection of a road can be identified from the data. A next action for the autonomous vehicle can be determined based on the road condition. A signal can be outputted that causes the autonomous vehicle to act in accordance with the next action after adjusting the suspension preemptively.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignee: Pony AI Inc.
    Inventors: Xiang Yu, Tiancheng Lou, Jun Peng
  • Patent number: 11180157
    Abstract: A monitoring apparatus used in a vehicle is provided to communicate with an electronic control apparatus that controls a driving force of the vehicle by executing any one of a plurality of predetermined different controls. The monitoring apparatus receives a vehicle specification from the electronic control apparatus, and determines whether the received vehicle specification is appropriate, to provide a determination result. The monitoring apparatus further sets whether at least one of the predetermined different controls is permitted or not permitted to be executed by the electronic control apparatus in response to the determination result.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignee: DENSO CORPORATION
    Inventors: Shingo Takinai, Yutaka Koyama, Yu Kimoto, Kotaro Yasui
  • Patent number: 11173912
    Abstract: An apparatus for providing a safety strategy in a vehicle is provided. The apparatus includes a sensor configured to sense information about an external object and a control circuit configured to be electrically connected with the sensor. The control circuit is configured to initiate a minimum risk strategy (MRM), when a predetermined condition is met, to determine a lateral location of the vehicle based on information obtained by the sensor and a location of a driving lane of the vehicle on a road, and to move the vehicle to the determined lateral location while executing the MRM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2021
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, KIA Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Su Jung Yoo, Jun Soo Kim, Dong Hwi Lee, Jin Su Jeong
  • Patent number: 11161514
    Abstract: Methods and system are described for controlling wheel slip of a four wheel drive vehicle. The methods and system may be applied to an electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle. The method and system provide for operating vehicle propulsion sources in speed and torque control modes to manage wheel slip.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2021
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Jose Velazquez Alcantar, Joe Jay Torres, Lucian Lippok
  • Patent number: 11161524
    Abstract: Disclosed is a vehicle acceleration compensation system, including an accelerator pedal, throttle, and a transmission configured to shift between two or more fixed gears, wherein each gear relates the motor power to a vehicle torque. The system also includes a control unit configured to receive data from one or more sensors. The control unit includes a real-time throttle map relating the accelerator pedal position to the throttle position, such that a given accelerator pedal position directs a corresponding target throttle position, and a real-time shift map relating a desired transmission gear to a current transmission gear, current vehicle speed, and current throttle position, such that a given vehicle speed, given throttle position, and given transmission gear directs a corresponding target transmission gear. In response to sensor data, the control unit updates the throttle map and shift map such that the vehicle torque is altered to produce a desired acceleration value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2021
    Assignee: TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, INC.
    Inventors: Sandeep Kumar Reddy Janampally, Alejandro M. Sanchez, Christian Tjia
  • Patent number: 11162798
    Abstract: The present technology provides a system that can update aspects of an authoritative map portion stored on an autonomous vehicle using low-resolution data from the at least one sensor of the autonomous vehicle, and therefore avoids the need for dispatching the special purpose mapping vehicle for these updates. The captured low-resolution data can be compared with the high-resolution map portion to determine that the sensor data reflects a feature in a way that is inconsistent with how that feature is represented in the authoritative map portion. The sensor data can then be used to relabel the authoritative map portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 13, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 2, 2021
    Assignee: GM Cruise Holdings, LLC
    Inventors: Michael Rusignola, Brian Donohue, Alexander Sennikov, Irfan Lone, Steve Xie, Juan Fasola
  • Patent number: 11156466
    Abstract: A lane determination device includes a processor configured to: store map information including information on division lines defining two lanes on a road; calculate a first angle and a second angle based on the map information, the first angle being a bending angle of a first division line at a junction where the two lanes merge together, the second angle being a bending angle of a second division line at the junction, the first division line being one of two outermost division lines in the division lines defining the two lanes, the second division line being the other one of the two outermost division lines; and determine, as a merging lane, a lane defined by the second division line out of the two lanes when the first angle is larger than the second angle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Shuichi Morimoto
  • Patent number: 11157004
    Abstract: A real-time control system for a vehicle, and a method of executing control of the vehicle via the real-time control system includes at least one primary controller that is configured to control slave controllers. The primary controller is configured to queue a task requested by respective vehicle systems, and determine which of the slave controllers is available to execute the task. The primary controller is configured to assign the task to a selected one of the slave controllers to execute the task. The primary controller is configured to re-queue the assigned task if the selected one of the slave controllers does not completely execute the assigned task. The primary controller is configured to assign that re-queued task to another one of the slave controllers to execute the re-queued task. The respective vehicle systems perform the requested task when the selected one of the slave controllers completely executes the assigned task.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC
    Inventors: Anand Bhat, Soheil Samii
  • Patent number: 11155255
    Abstract: A drive system includes: a drive device including an electric motor; and a torque controller that controls operations of the electric motor to control torque output from the electric motor. The torque controller includes a target-motor-torque determiner that determines target motor torque based on a sum of motor requested torque and a value obtained by multiplying a gain by sprung-portion-vibration-control torque. The target motor torque is a target value of the torque output from the electric motor. The motor requested torque is determined based on vehicle requested torque requested for driving of the vehicle. The torque controller includes a gain determiner that determines the gain to a value that is less when an absolute value of the motor requested torque is small with respect to the sprung-portion-vibration-control torque than when the absolute value is large with respect to the sprung-portion-vibration-control torque.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Hirofumi Momose
  • Patent number: 11158139
    Abstract: A method including determining a status of a power supply of a first telematics control unit (TCU) as one of active or inactive, the first TCU programmed to communicate with a server via a network, determining a status of a second TCU in communication with the first TCU via a vehicle network, the second TCU is programmed to communicate with the server via the network, and determining a risk condition based on the statuses of the power supply and the second TCU. The risk condition is a measure of severity of an inactive status.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Michael Awad Alla, Ray C. Siciak, Tsung-Han Tsai, Dhanunjay Vejalla, Bo Wu
  • Patent number: 11157000
    Abstract: A computer-implemented control system for generating control signals for controlling one or more remotely-located interaction units via a wide-area communications network is described. The control system comprises: a request interface processor for receiving a request for a control signal of a requested control parameter (RCP) relating to a specified environmental requirement (SER) from one of the one or more remotely-located interaction units; the request including: a current value of the RCP, a specified value of the SER; and current values of one or more local environmental parameters (local CERs) related to the SER.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: FARFETCH UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Meilene Lam, Paolo Zoccante, Abie Cohen
  • Patent number: 11158140
    Abstract: A turbomachine control system that includes signal monitoring features is provided. Particularly, the control system proactively isolates or discards unresponsive sensed signals to prevent them from being used to control the turbomachine. The control system can detect and discard unresponsive signals and can utilize a healthier signal or a model of the expected sensor response instead to avert undesirable events, such as e.g., a loss of thrust control event. In one example aspect, the control system includes one or more computing devices that receive a sensed signal. The variance of the sensed signal is determined and then compared to an expected variance of the signal. The expected variance can be output by a sensor model of the one or more computing devices. A variance ratio is determined and the output is compared to a predefined threshold. If the output of the variance threshold exceeds the predefined threshold, then the signal is classified as unresponsive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Mustapha Ismail, John Lewis Moulton, Jeremy David Seager, Jose Ruben Ramirez, Gerardo Perez, Rogelio Guzman-Sauceda, Bernardo Ivan Pozos Badillo
  • Patent number: 11150089
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for an unmanned aerial vehicle control point selection system. A first unmanned aerial vehicle can navigate about a geographic area while a second unmanned aerial vehicle can capture images of the first unmanned aerial vehicle. Location information of the first unmanned aerial vehicle can be recorded, and a system can identify the first unmanned aerial vehicle in the captured images. Utilizing the recorded location information, the system can identify landmarks proximate to the first unmanned aerial vehicle identified in the images, and determine location information of the landmarks. The landmarks can be assigned as ground control points for subsequent flight plans.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 19, 2021
    Assignee: Skydio, Inc.
    Inventors: Bernard J. Michini, Brett Michael Bethke, Hui Li
  • Patent number: 11150657
    Abstract: A lossy data compressor for physical measurement data, comprising a parametrized mapping network hat, when applied to a measurement data point x in a space X, produces a point z in a lower-dimensional manifold Z, and configured to provide a point z on manifold Z as output in response to receiving a data point x as input, wherein the manifold Z is a continuous hypersurface that only admits fully continuous paths between any two points on the hypersurface; and the parameters ? of the mapping network are trainable or trained towards an objective that comprises minimizing, on the manifold Z, a distance between a given prior distribution PZ and a distribution PQ induced on manifold Z by mapping a given set PD of physical measurement data from X onto Z using the mapping network, according to a given distance measure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 19, 2021
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Marcello Carioni, Giorgio Patrini, Max Welling, Patrick Forré, Tim Genewein
  • Patent number: 11142212
    Abstract: A method, system and device are disclosed for determining safety conflicts in redundant subsystems of autonomous vehicles. Each redundant subsystem calculates a world model or path plan, including locations, dimensions, and orientations of moving and stationary objects, as well as projected travel paths for moving objects in the future. The travel paths and projected future world models are subsequently compared using a geometric overlay operation. If at future time moments the projected world models match within predefined margins, the comparison results in a match. In case of a mismatch at a given future moment between projected world models, a determination is made as to whether the autonomous vehicle and all road users in this future moment are safe from collision or driving off the drivable space or road based on a geometric overlay operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: NXP B.V.
    Inventors: Andrei Sergeevich Terechko, Ali Osman Örs
  • Patent number: 11142181
    Abstract: A control device of a hybrid vehicle, the hybrid vehicle including an engine, a motor as a traveling power source, and a battery in which electric power to be supplied to the motor is charged, includes: a transient operation controller performing, when absolute values of an outputtable electric power and a chargeable electric power of the battery are small at a time of a transient operation of the engine, a transient operation of controlling an operating point of the engine within a wide range from low output to high output, at a position where a thermal efficiency is lower than the thermal efficiency at a time of a steady operation, and of controlling the engine to be in a combustion state where a margin to a combustion limit is greater than the margin in the steady operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 21, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Kaoru Ohtsuka
  • Patent number: 11143518
    Abstract: To estimate a more useful destination for users. A destination estimation apparatus 1 comprises a travel route history registration unit 13 storing a positional information history as a history of positional information of a user, a positional information acquisition unit 10 acquiring the positional information of the user, and a destination estimation unit 15 estimating a destination of the user by taking a location indicated by the acquired positional information as a start point based on the stored positional information history. The destination estimation unit 15 calculates a reaching level as a degree the user is reaching the estimated destination based on the stored positional information history, and re-estimates a new destination by taking the estimated destination as a start point when the calculated reaching level is equal to or more than a prescribed threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: NTT DOCOMO, INC.
    Inventors: Naoharu Yamada, Masahiro Inoue