Patents Examined by Rodney A. Butler
  • Patent number: 11681041
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a navigation system which, on the one hand, is arranged on sides of the underwater vehicle/AUV and, on the other hand, includes a surface transmitter as a counterpart. The two units communicate with each other such that the surface transmitter emits its signal directed to the position of the underwater vehicle and/or that the surface transmitter follows the underwater vehicle to improve the position determination capability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2023
    Assignee: FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.
    Inventors: Gunnar Brink, Edwin Devassykutty, Christian Langen
  • Patent number: 11679803
    Abstract: A data transmission apparatus is applied to a LiDAR. The data transmission apparatus includes a first optical module, a second optical module, and a coupling optical system. The coupling optical system is arranged between the first optical module and the second optical module. The first optical module is communicatively connected to a LiDAR front-end apparatus, and the second optical module is communicatively connected to an upper application apparatus. The first optical module is configured to receive a first digital signal output by the LiDAR front-end apparatus and convert the first digital signal into an optical signal. The coupling optical system is configured to transmit the optical signal output by the first optical module to the second optical module. The second optical module is configured to convert the optical signal into the first digital signal and output the first digital signal to the upper application apparatus for processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2023
    Inventor: Dinglong Ma
  • Patent number: 11669099
    Abstract: A time management system includes a terminal, a server, and a calculation unit. The terminal moves with the vehicle using the berth. The server connects the terminal via a network. The calculation unit calculates an estimated arrival time when the vehicle moving arrives at the berth based on position information. The server allocates a usage time of using the berth by the vehicle arriving at the berth at the estimated arrival time based on the estimated arrival time calculated by the calculation unit and a vacancy situation of the berth, and notifies the terminal moving together with the vehicle of the usage time allocated by the allocation unit. The terminal includes an output unit that the usage time notified from the server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2023
    Assignee: TOSHIBA TEC KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Takashi Ichikawa
  • Patent number: 11669095
    Abstract: When a vehicle performing driverless operation of encounters a blockade situation, a probable blockade time duration of the blockade situation is predicted based on a situational analysis. Support by a teleoperator is requested when the predicted blockade time duration of the blockade situation is greater than a predetermined time duration or when the vehicle has waited longer than the predicted blockade time duration for a resolution of the blockade situation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2023
    Assignee: MERCEDES-BENZ GROUP AG
    Inventors: Bernd Woltermann, Fabian Andreas Rainer Ventzke, Clemens Severin Tiedeken, Pascal Dauer, Frieder Sönning, Louisa Koch
  • Patent number: 11661084
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus according to an aspect of the present technology includes an estimation unit, a generation unit, and a frequency control unit. The estimation unit estimates at least one of a location or a posture of a mobile object. The generation unit generates a movement plan for moving the mobile object. The frequency control unit controls frequency of update of the movement plan to be performed by the generation unit, on the basis of load index information serving as an index of a load on the estimation unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2023
    Assignee: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Ryo Watanabe, Masataka Toyoura, Takamori Yamaguchi, Ryo Takahashi, Keisuke Maeda
  • Patent number: 11661071
    Abstract: A method and control system for updating functionality of a vehicle are presented. The vehicle includes at least one vehicle internal system, at least one add-on system arranged in the vehicle after the vehicle is produced by a manufacturer, and at least one internal communication unit arranged for communication with at least one vehicle external communication unit. The method includes: receiving, using the at least one internal communication unit, information related to at least one functionality of the vehicle from the at least one vehicle external communication unit; and updating, based on the information related to at least one functionality of the vehicle, at least one functionality defined in an add-on interface, the add-on interface being arranged in the vehicle as an interface between the at least one vehicle internal system and the at least one add-on system, whereby updating of said at least one functionality is parameter-based.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2023
    Assignee: Scania CV AB
    Inventors: Alexander Saers, Johan Aneros, Henrik Felixson
  • Patent number: 11656624
    Abstract: Techniques and examples for servicing a horticultural operation are described. A method may involve autonomously identifying the horticultural operation or a target located within the horticultural operation and an action to be performed with respect to the horticultural operation or target. The operation or target comprises at least one plant or a group of plants. Based on the identifying, a local area of the horticultural field is determined. The target is located within the local area. The target is associated to at least one autonomous vehicle. The target is located within the local area by the at least one autonomous vehicle. The action with respect to the target is performed by the at least one autonomous vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2023
    Assignee: iUNU, Inc.
    Inventors: Matthew Charles King, Ethan Victor Takla, Adam Phillip Takla Greenberg
  • Patent number: 11656627
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method determines a route from a first location of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) to a second location within an open space, the first location being a current location of the ADV. The method determines an objective function based on the route, the objective function having a set of costs for maneuvering the ADV from the first location to the second location. The method determines environmental conditions of the open space and uses the environmental conditions to determine a set of weights, each weight to be applied to a corresponding cost of the objective function. The method optimizes the objective function in view of one or more constraints, such that an output of the objective function reaches minimum while the one or more constraints are satisfied and generates a path trajectory with the optimized objective function to control the ADV autonomously according to the path trajectory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2023
    Assignee: BAIDU USA LLC
    Inventors: Jinyun Zhou, Qi Luo, Shu Jiang, Jiaming Tao, Yu Wang, Jiaxuan Xu, Kecheng Xu, Jinghao Miao, Jiangtao Hu
  • Patent number: 11650588
    Abstract: When a vehicle control interface receives information indicating “Standstill” from a VP, the vehicle control interface sets a value 2 in a signal indicating an actual moving direction. When the number of wheels rotating in a forward rotation direction is larger than two, the vehicle control interface sets a value 0 in the signal indicating the actual moving direction. When the number of wheels rotating in a reverse rotation direction is larger than two, the vehicle control interface sets a value 1 in the signal indicating the actual moving direction. When the number of wheels rotating in the forward rotation direction is equal to the number of wheels rotating in the reverse rotation direction, the vehicle control interface sets a value 3 in the signal indicating the actual moving direction. The vehicle control interface provides the signal indicating the actual moving direction to an ADK.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Ikuma Suzuki, Yuta Ohashi
  • Patent number: 11639127
    Abstract: A vehicle seat arrangement, a control device in the seat arrangement, and a method for activating a plurality of massage units integrated in a vehicle seat, including the following steps: playing back an acoustic entertainment signal by means of a playback device of a vehicle; and controlling the plurality of massage units based on the acoustic entertainment signal by means of the control device; in which at least one of the plurality of massage units is activated so as to vibrate in a frequency range, in which the at least one of the plurality of massage units only brings about noise emission which is externally imperceptible to a person other than a person sitting on the vehicle seat.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 2, 2023
    Assignee: Brose Fahrzeugteile SE & Co. KG (Coburg)
    Inventors: Christian Mergl, Wojciech Falinski, Christian Karl, Martin Juergenliemk, Wolfgang Uebel, Christian Herrmann, Florian Pohl
  • Patent number: 11634176
    Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide a traveling route generation device and a vehicle control device. A traveling route generation device according to the present invention includes: a travel region information acquisition unit acquiring travel region information; and a traveling route generation unit generating information of a curved line expressing a route along which the vehicle should proceed based on the travel region information, wherein an output of the traveling route generation unit is supplied to a vehicle controller performing steering control of the vehicle, and the traveling route generation unit increases weight of the travel region information in a range used for the steering control in the travel region information to be larger than weight of the travel region information in a range which is not used for the steering control to generate information of the curved line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION
    Inventor: Hiroaki Kitano
  • Patent number: 11634149
    Abstract: In a self-driving autonomous vehicle, a controller architecture includes multiple processors within the same box. Each processor monitors the others and takes appropriate safe action when needed. Some processors may run dormant or low priority redundant functions that become active when another processor is detected to have failed. The processors are independently powered and independently execute redundant algorithms from sensor data processing to actuation commands using different hardware capabilities (GPUs, processing cores, different input signals, etc.). Intentional hardware and software diversity improves fault tolerance. The resulting fault-tolerant/fail-operational system meets ISO26262 ASIL-D specifications based on a single electronic controller unit platform that can be used for self-driving vehicles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Mohammed Abdulla Yousuf, T. Y. Chan, Ram Ganapathi, Ashok Srinivasan, Mike Truog
  • Patent number: 11634163
    Abstract: Candidate routes, from an origination to a destination, can be produced. Information can be obtained. The information can be of likelihoods of encounters, along the candidate routes, with types of driving situations demonstrated to cause changes in a degree of confidence, of an occupant of an autonomous vehicle, that a controller of the autonomous vehicle will be able to control the autonomous vehicle so that a result of the encounters is not a collision. Take-over probabilities can be obtained. The take-over probabilities can be of likelihoods that the occupant, in response to the encounters, will cause control of the autonomous vehicle to be transferred to the occupant. Based on the information and take-over probabilities, a route from the origination to the destination can be selected from the candidate routes. The autonomous vehicle can be caused to be configured to commence to move in a direction in accordance with the route.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
    Inventors: Ziran Wang, Kyungtae Han, Prashant Tiwari
  • Patent number: 11628112
    Abstract: Provided is an autonomous hospital bed including: a frame; wheels; motors to drive the wheels; a controller in communication with the motors; sensors; a processor; a tangible, non-transitory, machine readable medium storing instructions that when executed by the processor effectuate operations including: capturing, with the sensors, depth data indicating distances to objects within an environment of the hospital bed and directions of the distances; capturing, with the sensors, movement data indicating movement distance and direction of the hospital bed; generating, with the processor, a map of the environment using the depth and movement data; generating, with the processor, a movement path to a first location; instructing, with the processor, motor drivers of the wheels to move the hospital bed along the movement path; and, inferring, with the processor, a location of the hospital bed within the environment as the hospital bed navigates along the movement path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 18, 2023
    Inventors: Ali Ebrahimi Afrouzi, Lukas Fath, Chen Zhang
  • Patent number: 11620906
    Abstract: One variation of a method for accessing supplemental data from other vehicles includes, at an autonomous vehicle: recording a scan image of a scene around the autonomous vehicle at a first time; detecting insufficient perception data in a region of the scan image; in response to detecting insufficient perception data in the region, defining a ground area of interest containing the region and wirelessly broadcasting a query for perception data representing objects within the ground area of interest; in response to receiving supplemental perception data—representing objects within the ground area of interest detected by the second vehicle at approximately the first time—from a second vehicle proximal the scene, incorporating the supplemental perception data into the scan image to form a composite scan image; selecting a navigational action based on objects in the scene represented by the composite scan image; and autonomously executing the navigational action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2023
    Inventor: Chih Hu
  • Patent number: 11615703
    Abstract: Technologies for managing interoperable high definition (HD) maps for autonomous vehicles includes a HD map server to distribute interoperable HD map tiles to various autonomous vehicles, each of which may be configured to utilize proprietary HD map tiles of different propriety formats. As such, each of the autonomous vehicles is configured to translate the interoperable HD map tile to the proprietary format used by that particular vehicle. Additionally, each autonomous vehicle may submit crowd-sourced sensor data to the interoperable HD map server using a universal data set by converting the sensor data to a universal data structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2023
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Hassnaa Moustafa, Subramanian Anandaraj, Srivathsan Soundararajan, Ana Lucia A. Pinheiro, Jithin Sankar Sankaran Kutty
  • Patent number: 11605301
    Abstract: Various avionics systems may benefit from repeaters. For example, an ADS-B In traffic display repeater system may be useful for, for example, retrofit aircraft. A system, according to certain embodiments, can include a traffic awareness computer of an aircraft. The system can also include an aircraft interface device. The system can further include a data bus configured to convey data from the traffic awareness computer to the aircraft interface device. The data conveyed can be configured to permit repetition of one or more displays of a cockpit of the aircraft on a tablet computer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 7, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: AVIATION COMMUNICATION & SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS, LLC
    Inventor: Charles Castel Manberg
  • Patent number: 11599122
    Abstract: A vehicle control method and device are disclosed. An embodiment of the method includes: receiving an assistance driving instruction associated with a vehicle; and sending an assistance control instruction to the vehicle, to cause the vehicle to execute the assistance control instruction to control the vehicle, the assistance control instruction being generated through a simulation driving operation performed by an assistance driving user based on travelling environment information of the vehicle presented to the assistance driving user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2023
    Assignee: BEIJING BAIDU NETCOM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Jinyang Gu
  • Patent number: 11592832
    Abstract: Disclosed are methods, systems, and non-transitory computer readable media that control an autonomous vehicle via at least two sensors. One aspect includes capturing an image of a scene ahead of the vehicle with a first sensor, identifying an object in the scene at a confidence level based on the image, determining the confidence level of the identifying is below a threshold, in response to the confidence level being below the threshold, directing a second sensor having a field of view smaller than the first sensor to generate a second image including a location of the identified object, further identifying the object in the scene based on the second image, controlling the vehicle based on the further identification of the object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2023
    Assignee: UATC, LLC
    Inventor: Mark Calleija
  • Patent number: 11590971
    Abstract: In an apparatus for determining a traveling position of an own vehicle that is an autonomous driving vehicle equipped with the apparatus, a judgment section is configured to judge presence or absence of at least one of a travel history of other vehicles regarding the lane in which the own vehicle is traveling and an object that is located in the vicinity of the own vehicle within the lane in which the own vehicle is traveling and should be avoided coming into contact with. The traveling position is a widthwise position of the own vehicle within a lane in which the own vehicle is traveling. A determination section is configured to determine the traveling position using the travel history in response to the judgment section judging that the travel history exists and using position information of the object in response to the judgment section judging that the object exists.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2023
    Assignee: DENSO CORPORATION
    Inventor: Tasuku Hayakawa