Patents Examined by Katherine Marie Fitzharris
  • Patent number: 11964644
    Abstract: A method for operating a motor vehicle brake system having hydraulic wheel brakes; an atmospheric pressure pressure medium reservoir; a pressure modulation unit setting wheel-specific brake pressures, an electrohydraulic pressure provision device connected to the pressure modulation unit and the pressure medium reservoir which outputs brake system pressure to the pressure modulation unit and draws in pressure medium from the reservoir; a first and second pressure activation valve connecting the pressure provision device to the pressure modulation device. A piston of the piston-cylinder arrangement separates two pressure spaces from one another. A pressure build-up occurs in the first pressure space during a backward movement of the piston and in the second pressure space during a forward movement of the piston. During a brake pressure build-up by a forward stroke of the piston, the activation valve is opened and the first pressure space is hydraulically separated from the pressure medium reservoir.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2017
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2024
    Assignee: Continental Teves AG & Co. OHG
    Inventors: Marco Besier, Stefan Drumm, Jürgen Böhm
  • Patent number: 11951966
    Abstract: A steering control system for a commercial vehicle having a braking system to brake dissymmetrically wheels. The steering control system, including a sensor unit and a control module, is configured to detect a braking request or deceleration of the vehicle and/or to detect a lateral offset and to generate a brake indication signal and/or steering demand. The control module is configured to receive the brake indication signal and/or steering demand. If the steering demand is below a predetermined threshold value, the control module is configured to generate the steering signal only if the brake indication signal indicates a braking request. If the steering demand exceeds the predetermined threshold value, the control module is configured to generate the steering signal even if the brake indication signal indicates no braking request. The control module provides the steering signal to the braking system to brake the vehicle dissymmetrically to steer the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 2017
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2024
    Assignee: KNORR-BREMSE SYSTEME FUER NUTZFAHRZEUGE GMBH
    Inventors: Levente Balogh, Markus Klein, Tamas Rozsa
  • Patent number: 11952014
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, that obtain scene features in an environment that includes an autonomous vehicle and a target agent at a current time point; determine whether the target agent is an emergency vehicle that is active at the current time point; generate from the scene features, an input (i) that includes the scene features and (ii) that indicates whether the target vehicle is an emergency vehicle that is active at the current time point; and process the input using a machine learning model that is configured to generate a behavior prediction output for the target agent that characterizes predicted future behavior of the target agent after the current time point.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2024
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Aishwarya Parasuram, Alisha Saxena, Kai Ding, Stéphane Ross, Xin Liu, Anoosha Sagar
  • Patent number: 11927103
    Abstract: A method of mitigating thermal rotor bow in a rotor assembly of a turbine engine may include performing a plurality of motoring cycles. The plurality of motoring cycles may include receiving feedback on a temperature within a turbine engine in a post-shutdown state, actuating a starter motor when the temperature is greater than a predetermined threshold, operating the starter motor for a motoring time to exhaust some residual heat from the turbine engine, and shutting down the starter motor after the motoring time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 12, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2024
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Robert Charles Hon, Amid Ansari, Michael Scott McCambridge, Thomas Earl Gillingham
  • Patent number: 11904828
    Abstract: A stability control system of a vehicle utilizing an electronic control unit that minimizes rollback of a vehicle as a result of wheel slip immediately following a hill start assist operation. The electronic braking control module controls actuation and de-actuation of vehicle brakes on an inclined surface. Immediately following a hill start assist operation on the inclined surface after each wheel brake is de-actuated for allowing forward movement of the vehicle up the hill, a split-mu road surface condition is detected in response to sensing wheel slip for each of the wheels. The electronic control unit determines a respective undriven, or non-dominant driven, wheel having the highest coefficient of friction among the undriven, or less dominant driven wheels, as determined by the wheel speeds.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2024
    Assignee: ZF Active Safety US Inc.
    Inventor: Shawn Hawley
  • Patent number: 11908332
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. In some systems, a user equipment (UE) (e.g., an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)) may receive an approved flight plan including approved flight plan sectors. The UE may also receive a query from a network node, the query including an indication of a subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors and a request for a plurality of waypoints of the UE within the indicated subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors. The UE may further determine, in response to receiving the query from the network node, a flight path including the plurality of waypoints of the UE for the indicated subset of the plurality of approved flight plan sectors based on the received approved flight plan, and the UE may transmit, to the network node, a flight declaration message including the waypoints of the UE.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2024
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Stefano Faccin
  • Patent number: 11899447
    Abstract: An aerial vehicle comprises one or more sensors to environmental data, a communication system to receive control inputs from a user, two or more actuators, with each actuator coupled to a rotary wing. The aerial vehicle also comprises a controller to determine a mode of the aerial vehicle based on the environmental data and the control inputs, each mode indicating a set of flight characteristics for the aerial vehicle, generate a gain value based on the mode, the gain value, when used to modify power signals transmitted to actuators of the aerial vehicle, causes the aerial vehicle to conform within the indicated flight characteristics of the determined mode, generate an output signal modified by the gain value based on the input signal, and transmit a power signal based on the output signal to each actuator of the aerial vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 8, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2024
    Assignee: GoPro, Inc.
    Inventors: Benjamin Tankersley, Joseph Anthony Enke, Donald Allen Severns
  • Patent number: 11891053
    Abstract: A methodology, including: receiving first input related to expected states of a vehicle and another vehicle or object at impact event initiation with positions, orientations, and velocities as parameters used for impact event evaluation; receiving second input related to expected vehicle occupant position and position transfer during a pre-impact event maneuver; and simulating an impact event involving the vehicle and the another vehicle or object using both the first input and the second input to quantify the performance of a safety system of the vehicle with a combined effect from a collision avoidance feature and an injury prevention feature. The method further includes filtering out a case where a vehicle occupant pre-crash position excursion is expected to exceed a predetermined threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2024
    Assignee: Volvo Car Corporation
    Inventors: Linus Wågström, Alexandros Leledakis, Jonas Östh, Magdalena Lindman, Lotta Jakobsson
  • Patent number: 11734562
    Abstract: An image captured using a sensor on a vehicle is received and decomposed into a plurality of component images. Each component image of the plurality of component images is provided as a different input to a different layer of a plurality of layers of an artificial neural network to determine a result. The result of the artificial neural network is used to at least in part autonomously operate the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2023
    Assignee: Tesla, Inc.
    Inventors: Timofey Uvarov, Brijesh Tripathi, Evgene Fainstain
  • Patent number: 11733050
    Abstract: An approach is provided for providing an isoline map of a time to park at a destination. A routing platform computes the time to park at a destination of a navigation route, wherein the time to park represents an estimated time that is needed for a vehicle to park within a geographic area surrounding the destination. The routing platform further determines an isoline that delineates a boundary of the geographic area, wherein the isoline indicates an extent of the geographic area in which the time to park applies. The routing platform further provide data to generate a user interface depicting a representation of the isoline in the time to park isoline map.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 21, 2019
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2023
    Assignee: HERE Global B.V.
    Inventors: Jerome Beaurepaire, Jens Unger
  • Patent number: 11708175
    Abstract: A method of monitoring the health of an aircraft propeller whilst the propeller is in operation, the propeller having a plurality of blades extending radially outwardly from hub arms of a propeller hub, which in turn extend radially outwardly from a central axis extending through the propeller and a propeller drive shaft, is provided. The method comprises obtaining measurements representative of the strain in each of at least some of the hub arms using strain sensors, each of the strain sensors being provided on a respective hub arm. A corresponding propeller health monitoring system, an aircraft propeller comprising the system and an aircraft comprising the propeller are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 25, 2023
    Assignee: RATIER-FIGEAC SAS
    Inventors: Brian P. Huth, Abdellah El Haloui
  • Patent number: 11691509
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to an integrated control apparatus for an autonomous driving vehicle, in which operation for accelerating, braking, and steering of a vehicle is implemented through one integrated lever and buttons for starting and shifting of a vehicle are disposed on one case together with the integrated lever. Accordingly, the integrated control apparatus can be easily used for an autonomous driving vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2023
    Assignees: HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, KIA MOTORS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Eun Sik Kim
  • Patent number: 11587304
    Abstract: A system and method for occluding contour detection using a fully convolutional neural network is disclosed. A particular embodiment includes: receiving an input image; producing a feature map from the input image by semantic segmentation; learning an array of upscaling filters to upscale the feature map into a final dense feature map of a desired size; applying the array of upscaling filters to the feature map to produce contour information of objects and object instances detected in the input image; and applying the contour information onto the input image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2023
    Assignee: TUSIMPLE, INC.
    Inventors: Panqu Wang, Pengfei Chen, Zehua Huang
  • Patent number: 11428725
    Abstract: A wireless power initiated test system can use an aircraft controller to automatically initiate a test sequence to determine status of systems of the aircraft, based on the detection of receipt of the wireless power at the aircraft. The detection of receipt of the wireless power at the aircraft can be based on the detection at a voltage regulator of the aircraft which is receiving the wireless power from a wireless power receiver of the aircraft. The system may also power the aircraft controller during the test sequence using the wireless power received. Such a system may quickly and efficiently initiate, power and perform a pre-flight test sequence to determine statuses of systems of the aircraft, such as during a competition or race of the aircraft. The system may apply to drones, as well as of other types of aircraft.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2022
    Assignee: Performance Drone Works LLC
    Inventors: Phil Herlihy, Nate Ferris, Trevor Smith, Ryan Gury, Nicholas Horbaczewski
  • Patent number: 11420694
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a robot gait planning method and a robot with the same. The method includes: obtaining, through the sensor set, force information of feet of the robot under a force applied by a target object; calculating coordinates of zero moment points of the feet of the robot with respect to a centroid of a body of the robot based on the force information; and determining a gait planning result for the robot based on the coordinates of the zero moment points with respect to the centroid of the body. The present disclosure is capable of converting the force of the target object to the zero moment points, and using the zero moment points to perform the gait planning, so that the robot follows the target object in the case that the robot is subjected to a force of the target object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2019
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2022
    Assignee: UBTECH ROBOTICS CORP LTD
    Inventors: Youjun Xiong, Chunyu Chen, Yizhang Liu, Ligang Ge, Jianxin Pang
  • Patent number: 11383707
    Abstract: A vehicle includes an inertial sensor configured to measure a speed, a steering angle, and a yaw rate, a camera configured to acquire image data, a radar configured to acquire a radar data, and a safety device including an air bag and a seat belt pretensioner. A controller is configured to predict a collision with a first object located at the outside of the vehicle based on the image data or the radar data, predict a collision with a second object that is likely to occur after the collision with the first object based on an angle of reflection predicted at a time of the collision with the first object, and lower a deployment threshold that is compared with a collision severity such that the safety device is deployed before the collision with the second object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2022
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors Corporation
    Inventor: NamGyun Kim
  • Patent number: 11260901
    Abstract: A four wheel steering vehicle (1), in which front wheels (2f) and rear wheels (2r) can be steered in response to a steering input from a steering wheel (11), includes a rear wheel steering control unit (50) that variably controls a rear wheel steering device such that the rear wheels are steered in a prescribed relation to a steered angle of the front wheels. When the steering input is determined while the front wheel brake and the rear wheel brake are engaged, the rear wheel steering control unit disengages the rear wheel brake and steers the rear wheels. When the fore and aft inclination angle detected by an inclination sensor (40) provided on the vehicle is greater than a threshold value, the rear wheel steering control unit prohibits a steering of the rear wheels and keeps the rear wheel brake engaged even if the steering input is determined.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Ryosuke Yamazaki, Takumi Inagaki
  • Patent number: 11237562
    Abstract: A control system for preventing vehicle collisions may include a vehicle location determination module, a terrain determination module, a terrain surface coefficient of friction estimation module, and a sensing system configured to generate signals indicative of vehicle speed, vehicle pose, vehicle size, vehicle weight, vehicle tire type, vehicle load, vehicle gear ratio, weather characteristics, and road conditions for a vehicle operating at a job site. A manned vehicle trajectory determination module may receive location information and plot a first travel path for a manned vehicle based at least in part on a location, heading, and speed of the manned vehicle and a desired destination for the manned vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 1, 2022
    Assignee: Caterpillar Inc.
    Inventors: Eric John Schultz, Karl Arthur Kirsch, Philip Carl Wallstedt
  • Patent number: 11215999
    Abstract: An image captured using a sensor on a vehicle is received and decomposed into a plurality of component images. Each component image of the plurality of component images is provided as a different input to a different layer of a plurality of layers of an artificial neural network to determine a result. The result of the artificial neural network is used to at least in part autonomously operate the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2022
    Assignee: Tesla, Inc.
    Inventors: Timofey Uvarov, Brijesh Tripathi, Evgene Fainstain
  • Patent number: 11169516
    Abstract: An aerial vehicle comprises one or more sensors to environmental data, a communication system to receive control inputs from a user, two or more actuators, with each actuator coupled to a rotary wing. The aerial vehicle also comprises a controller to determine a mode of the aerial vehicle based on the environmental data and the control inputs, each mode indicating a set of flight characteristics for the aerial vehicle, generate a gain value based on the mode, the gain value, when used to modify power signals transmitted to actuators of the aerial vehicle, causing the aerial vehicle to conform within the indicated flight characteristics of the determined mode, generate an output signal modified by the gain value based on the input signal, and transmit a power signal based on the output signal to each actuator of the aerial vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2021
    Assignee: GoPro, Inc.
    Inventors: Benjamin Tankersley, Joseph Anthony Enke, Donald Allen Severns