Patents Examined by Jingli Wang
  • Patent number: 11675041
    Abstract: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for detecting, identifying, and locating a source emitting an interfering signal is described herein. The UAV can detect wireless network site interference within a given frequency spectrum band and locate the source of the interference based on one or more signals received by one or more antennas, such as directional antennas. The one or more antennas are located on or within a main body or one or more booms of the UAV. The UAV can be flown manually (e.g., by an operator) or automatically (e.g., by a processor or preset routine).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2023
    Assignee: T-MOBILE USA, INC.
    Inventor: Wei-Ming Lan
  • Patent number: 11662720
    Abstract: A method, a computer program, an apparatus, a transportation vehicle, and a network component for determining a speed limit for a tele-operated transportation vehicle. The method for determining a speed limit for a tele-operated transportation vehicle includes obtaining information related to an environment of the tele-operated transportation vehicle; obtaining information related to a predictive quality of service (pQoS) of a communication link between the tele-operated transportation vehicle and a tele-operator of the transportation vehicle; and determining the speed limit based on the information related to the environment of the tele-operated transportation vehicle and the information related to the pQoS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2023
    Inventors: Andreas Pfadler, Guillaume Jornod, Israel Gonzalez Vazquez
  • Patent number: 11609564
    Abstract: A system, device and method of managing autonomous vehicles are provided. The system may include a server, a feedback device, a control device for controlling a vehicle. A server may include a communication interface configured to communicate with a control device of each of a plurality of vehicles and a feedback device; a memory storing instructions; and at least one processor. The at least one processor is configured to receive control data from the control device of each of the plurality of vehicles; determine an operation status of each of the plurality of vehicles based on the control data; generate a feedback interface based on the operation status of each of the plurality of vehicles; and transmit the feedback interface to the feedback device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2023
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
    Inventor: Akshay Bhagat
  • Patent number: 11586197
    Abstract: A method and device for interactive autonomous driving. A vehicle guidance controller is configured to detect, during operation of a vehicle in an autonomous operating mode, an order for intervention by a driver in a driving event on an input device, in particular a joystick. And, on denial of the order, the vehicle guidance controller is configured to determine at least one setpoint for the autonomous operating mode. The setpoint may influence a longitudinal guidance of the vehicle and/or a transverse guidance of the vehicle in the autonomous operating mode. The vehicle guidance controller is configured to control the vehicle autonomously in the autonomous operating mode depending on the setpoint.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2023
    Inventor: Georg Tardy-Tuch
  • Patent number: 11586198
    Abstract: A charging system includes a charging station having: a base underwater; a pole extending in an upper-lower direction; and a power supplying portion. An AUV includes: an underwater main body; a power receiving portion; a holding device including a pair of guide and holding portions, the pair of guide portions guides the pole to a holding position after the pole contacts the guide portions from a proceeding-direction, the holding portion holds the pole to be rotatable relative to the pole; a thrust generating apparatus generates in a horizontal direction; and a control device controls the thrust generating apparatus. A light emitter at one of the base and the underwater main body, and a light receiver is provided at the other. The control device controls the thrust so the underwater main body reaches a rotational position where the light receiver receives light emitted, the rotational position set relative to the pole.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2023
    Assignee: KAWASAKI JUKOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Minehiko Mukaida, Noriyuki Okaya, Manabu Matsui, Toshiya Hayashi, Kosuke Masuda, Seiji Kashiwagi, Takashi Okada, Fumitaka Tachinami
  • Patent number: 11577558
    Abstract: A one-touch control system for operating the controls of a towed vehicle using a towing vehicle. The system includes an electronic control unit integrated into the towed vehicle and configured to receive a selection signal from the towing vehicle and simultaneously control a number of different components based on the selection signal. The components including a switch configured to turn on and off the towed vehicle, a sensor configured to detect whether a passenger is present in the towed vehicle, and an odometer configured to be deactivated when the switch indicates that the towed vehicle is off and the sensor indicates that there are no passengers in the towed vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, INC.
    Inventor: Stephen L. Robertson
  • Patent number: 11573563
    Abstract: Robotic platform for tele-presence applications has gained paramount importance, such as for remote meetings, group discussions, and the like and has sought much attention. There exist some robotic platforms for such tele-presence applications, these lack efficacy in communication and interaction between remote person and avatar robot deployed in another geographic location thus adding network overhead. Embodiments of the present disclosure for edge centric communication protocol for remotely maneuvering tele-presence robot in geographically distributed environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2023
    Assignee: TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LIMITED
    Inventors: Abhijan Bhattacharyya, Ashis Sau, Ruddra Dev Roychoudhury, Hrishav Bakul Barua, Chayan Sarkar, Sayan Paul, Brojeshwar Bhowmick, Arpan Pal, Balamuralidhar Purushothaman
  • Patent number: 11555706
    Abstract: A graph representation of a tactical map representing a plurality of static components of an environment of a vehicle is generated. Nodes of the graph represent static components, and edges represent relationships between multiple static components. Different edge types are used to indicate respective relationship semantics among the static components. Individual nodes are represented as having the same number and types of edges in the graph. Using the graph as input to a neural network based model, a set of results is obtained. A motion control directive based at least in part on the results is transmitted to a motion-control subsystem of the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Martin Levihn, Jürgen Wiest, Pekka Tapani Raiko, Anayo Kenechukwu Akametalu
  • Patent number: 11537122
    Abstract: A method for controlling a motor vehicle remotely. The method includes: receiving safety condition signals, which represent at least one safety condition that must be satisfied, so that the motor vehicle may be controlled remotely; checking if the at least one safety condition is satisfied; generating remote control signals for controlling the motor vehicle remotely, based on a result of the check as to whether the at least one safety condition is satisfied; and outputting the remote control signals generated. A device, a computer program and a machine-readable storage medium, are also described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2022
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventor: Stefan Nordbruch
  • Patent number: 11529971
    Abstract: The present application discloses a method and an apparatus for autonomous driving control, an electronic device, and a storage medium; the application relates to the technical field of autonomous driving. A specific implementation solution is: obtaining movement data of a pedestrian, where the movement data includes a velocity component of the pedestrian along a width direction of a lane and a time of duration that the pedestrian cuts into a driving path of the autonomous vehicle from one side; determining a movement direction of the pedestrian according to the movement data and the movement information of the pedestrian; and generating a driving strategy for the autonomous vehicle according to the movement direction of the pedestrian. Therefore, the movement direction of the pedestrian can be accurately predicted, which facilitates the autonomous vehicle to avoid the pedestrian and insures driving safety.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Inventors: Dongchun Yao, Leibing Lv, Jingjing Xue, Fan Zhu
  • Patent number: 11526174
    Abstract: The disclosure herein generally relates to the field of autonomous navigation, and, more particularly, to a diverse trajectory proposal for autonomous navigation. The embodiment discloses a hierarchical network based diverse trajectory proposal for autonomous navigation. The hierarchical 2-stage neural network architecture maps the perceived surroundings to diverse trajectories in the form of trajectory waypoints, that an autonomous navigation system can choose to navigate/traverse. The first stage of the disclosed hierarchical 2-stage Neural Network architecture is a Trajectory Proposal Network which generates a set of diverse traversable regions in an environment which can be occupied by the autonomous navigation system in the future. The second stage is a Trajectory Sampling network which predicts a fine-grained trajectory/trajectory waypoint over the diverse traversable regions proposed by Trajectory Proposal Network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LIMITED
    Inventors: Brojeshwar Bhowmick, Krishnam Madhava Krishna, Sriram Nochur Narayanan, Gourav Kumar, Abhay Singh, Siva Karthik Mustikovela, Saket Saurav
  • Patent number: 11523038
    Abstract: An aerial vehicle system, such as an unmanned aerial vehicle, that includes a camera system with replaceable camera modules that have different spectral, optical and/or sensing characteristics from one another. By replacing one camera module with another camera module, different information can be gathered and analyzed by the camera system of the aerial vehicle system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2022
    Assignee: Sentera, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Nelson, Alex Stephens
  • Patent number: 11519743
    Abstract: Aspects of the present invention disclose a method for assisting a stalled autonomous vehicle in an incommunicable area. The method includes one or more processors determining a route of an autonomous vehicle. The method further includes identifying an area of the route of the autonomous vehicle that includes a communication outage. The method further includes determining a driving difficulty of one or more segments of the route of the autonomous vehicle within the area. The method further includes determining a location of the autonomous vehicle within a segment of the one or more segments of the route based at least in part on the driving difficulty of the segment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2022
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Yuka Sasaki, Reiya Takemura, Kenji Uchida, Sanehiro Furuichi
  • Patent number: 11486720
    Abstract: A method for improving the ride comfort of a transportation vehicle including planning a first driving route by a navigation system; automatically detecting at least one road parameter of the first driving route by a sensor system of the transportation vehicle; automatically evaluating the first driving route in view of the ride comfort of the first driving route by taking into account the road parameter; and in response thereto using the first driving route or planning an alternative driving route.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Inventors: Marc Blumentritt, Frank Bärecke, Stefan Kukla
  • Patent number: 11485384
    Abstract: The techniques discussed herein may comprise an autonomous vehicle guidance system that generates a path for controlling an autonomous vehicle based at least in part on a static object map and/or one or more dynamic object maps. The guidance system may identify a path based at least in part on determining set of nodes and a cost map associated with the static and/or dynamic object, among other costs, pruning the set of nodes, and creating further nodes from the remaining nodes until a computational or other limit is reached. The path output by the techniques may be associated with a cheapest node of the sets of nodes that were generated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: Zhenqi Huang, Janek Hudecek, Dhanushka Nirmevan Kularatne, Mark Jonathon McClelland, Marin Kobilarov
  • Patent number: 11479948
    Abstract: A remote control console or operator's station includes a proportional travel control joystick that effects continuous changes in machine travel speed through movement of the joystick away from a central-biased position, a sensor that measures progressively changing positions of the joystick, and an electronic controller communicatively coupled to the sensor and the joystick. The electronic controller is programmed to perform a closed loop control including mapping the progressively changing positions of the joystick to corresponding desired machine travel speeds, and adjusting the speeds of an engine used to propel the machine and the amounts of service braking used to slow the machine to achieve desired machine travel speeds.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2022
    Assignee: Caterpillar Inc.
    Inventors: Randall Todd Anderson, Michael William Bridenbaugh
  • Patent number: 11480960
    Abstract: The disclosure describes systems and methods including for monitoring and remotely controlling a fleet of autonomous vehicles. The remote vehicle control system determines a control input to control a vehicle based on an action performed on or with a controller bot. The controller bot is configured for use on a horizontal display that displays a map and a vehicle graphic at a location on the map.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2022
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Pietro Buttolo, John Vincent, Yifan Chen
  • Patent number: 11479172
    Abstract: An unattended occupant alarm assembly includes a plurality of passenger pressure pads that is each integrated into a respective passenger seat in a vehicle to detect the weight of a passenger sitting in any other the passenger seats. A driver pressure pad is integrated into a driver's seat of the vehicle to detect the weight of a driver sitting in the driver's seat. A control unit is coupled to the vehicle. The control unit is actuated into an alert condition when the driver pressure pad does not detect the weight of the driver and any of the passenger pressure pads detects the weight of the passenger after a pre-determined duration of time. Additionally, the vehicle horn is actuated to emit an audible alarm and the electric window system is actuated to roll down windows of the vehicle when the control unit is actuated into the alert condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2022
    Inventor: Adriano De La Cruz
  • Patent number: 11480957
    Abstract: A vehicle control system includes: a control device mounted on a vehicle and configured to execute remote automatic moving processing; an operation terminal configured to be carried by a user and to transmit a control signal to the control device based on an input by the user; and a position determination unit mounted on the vehicle and/or the operation terminal and configured to measure a distance between the operation terminal and the vehicle. When the control device determines that the distance exceeds a first threshold based on a signal from the position determination unit, the control device stops the vehicle and transmits an output signal to the operation terminal, the output signal being a signal to cause the operation terminal to output a fact that the distance exceeds the first threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2022
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Gaku Shimamoto, Junpei Noguchi
  • Patent number: 11433922
    Abstract: Techniques for determining an uncertainty metric associated with an object in an environment can include determining the object in the environment and a set of candidate trajectories associated with the object. Further, a vehicle, such as an autonomous vehicle, can be controlled based at least in part on the uncertainty metric. The vehicle can determine a traversed trajectory associated with the object and determine a difference between the traversed trajectory and the set of candidate trajectories. Based on the difference, the vehicle can determine an uncertainty metric associated with the object. In some instances, the vehicle can input the traversed trajectory and the set of candidate trajectories to a machine-learned model that can output the uncertainty metric.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2022
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: Matthew Van Heukelom, Tencia Lee, Kai Zhenyu Wang