Patents by Inventor John Bryan Carter

John Bryan Carter has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 12497077
    Abstract: A modified Kalman filter may include one or more neural networks to augment or replace components of the Kalman filter in such a way that the human interpretability of the filter's inner functions is preserved. The neural networks may include a neural network to account for bias in measurement data, a neural network to account for unknown controls in predicting a state of an object, a neural network ensemble that is trained differently based on different sensor data, a neural network for determining the Kalman gain, and/or a set of Kalman filters including various neural networks that determine independent estimated states, which may be fused using Bayesian fusion to determine a final estimated state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 16, 2025
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: John Bryan Carter, Francesco Papi, Qian Song, Zachary Sun
  • Patent number: 12434740
    Abstract: Systems and techniques for determining more accurate object parameter values, such as orientation values (e.g., yaw, location, position, etc.), for objects detected in an environment are disclosed. A vehicle computing system may receive sensor data from multiple sensor systems that indicates a parameter value determined at the individual sensor systems. The vehicle computing system may determine values and probabilities for particular parameters modes based on the sensor data parameter values and may further filter these values using a mixture model to determine probability distributions for the modes and associated values. These filtered values and modes may then be used to determine predicted object trajectories that can be used to control a vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2025
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Carsten Bosse, John Bryan Carter, Shuangting Liu, Francesco Papi, Nicholas George Dilip Roy, Zachary Sun
  • Patent number: 12416730
    Abstract: Object detection and tracking systems may use machine-learned transformer models with self-attention for detecting, classifying, and/or tracking objects in an environment. Techniques described herein may include receiving sensor data generated by different sensor modalities of a vehicle, determining different bounding shapes based on the different sensor modalities, and using a machine-learned transformer model to determine associated and/or combined bounding shapes. The machine-learned transformer model may receive a variable number of input bounding shapes representing any number of objects and various sensor modalities. Multiple stages of the transformer may be used to determine associated bounding shapes and to assign attributes for the associated bounding shapes, based on the individual bounding shapes of the different sensor modalities and/or previous bounding shapes for objects detected and tracked in a previous scene in the environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2023
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2025
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: Francesco Papi, John Bryan Carter, Yunming Shao, Qian Song
  • Patent number: 12409852
    Abstract: Techniques for performing object detection in a vehicle environment using sensor data captured by one or more sensors of the vehicle are described herein. In some cases, an object in a vehicle environment can be detected based on at least one of (i) a first similarity matrix that represents a first similarity value for two sensor observations associated with the vehicle environment, or (ii) a second similarity matrix that represents a second similarity value for a sensor observation and a track associated with the vehicle environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2023
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2025
    Assignee: Zoox, Inc.
    Inventors: Francesco Papi, Qian Song, John Bryan Carter, Shuangting Liu, Zachary Sun, Cong Ding, Murat Gevrekci
  • Publication number: 20240253659
    Abstract: Techniques for performing object detection in a vehicle environment using sensor data captured by one or more sensors of the vehicle are described herein. In some cases, an object in a vehicle environment can be detected based on at least one of (i) a first similarity matrix that represents a first similarity value for two sensor observations associated with the vehicle environment, or (ii) a second similarity matrix that represents a second similarity value for a sensor observation and a track associated with the vehicle environment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 31, 2023
    Publication date: August 1, 2024
    Inventors: Francesco Papi, Qian Song, John Bryan Carter, Shuangting Liu, Zachary Sun, Cong Ding, Murat Gevrekci
  • Publication number: 20240092397
    Abstract: A modified Kalman filter may include one or more neural networks to augment or replace components of the Kalman filter in such a way that the human interpretability of the filter's inner functions is preserved. The neural networks may include a neural network to account for bias in measurement data, a neural network to account for unknown controls in predicting a state of an object, a neural network ensemble that is trained differently based on different sensor data, a neural network for determining the Kalman gain, and/or a set of Kalman filters including various neural networks that determine independent estimated states, which may be fused using Bayesian fusion to determine a final estimated state.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 26, 2022
    Publication date: March 21, 2024
    Inventors: John Bryan Carter, Francesco Papi, Qian Song, Zachary Sun