Abstract: The invention provides a computer-implemented method of planning a path for a mobile robot such as an autonomous vehicle in the presence of K obstacles. The method uses, for each of the K obstacles, a shape Bk and a density function pk(x) representing the probabilistic position of the obstacle. The method repeats the following steps for at least two different paths A: —choosing a path A, where A is the swept area of the robot within a given time interval; and—calculating based on the density function of each obstacle and the swept path an upper bound on the total probability of at least one collision FD between the robot and the K obstacles. This allows a number of candidate paths to be ranked for safety. By precomputing factors of the computational steps over K obstacles, the computation per path is O(N), and not O(NK). A safety threshold can be used to filter out paths below that threshold.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of evaluating the performance of a target planner for an ego robot in a real or simulated scenario, the method comprising: receiving evaluation data for evaluating the performance of the target planner in the scenario, the evaluation data generated by applying the target planner at incrementing planning steps, in order to compute a series of ego plans that respond to changes in the scenario, the series of ego plans being implemented in the scenario to cause changes in an ego state the evaluation data comprising: the ego plan computed by the target planner at one of the planning steps, and a scenario state at a time instant of the scenario, wherein the evaluation data is used to evaluate the target planner by: computing a reference plan for said time instant based on the scenario state, the scenario state including the ego state at that time instant as caused by implementing one or more preceding ego plans of the series of ego plans computed by the target planner, and computing at

Abstract: A computer system for planning mobile robot trajectories, the computer system comprising: an input configured to receive a set of scenario description parameters describing a scenario and a desired goal for the mobile robot therein; a runtime optimizer configured to compute a final mobile robot trajectory that substantially optimizes a cost function for the scenario, subject to a set of hard constraints that the final mobile robot trajectory is guaranteed to satisfy; and a trained function approximator configured to compute, from the set of scenario description parameters, initialization data defining an initial mobile robot trajectory.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of determining control actions for controlling a mobile robot comprises: receiving a set of scenario description parameters describing a scenario and a desired goal for the mobile robot therein; in a first constrained optimization stage, applying a first optimizer to determine a first series of control actions that substantially globally optimizes a preliminary cost function for the scenario, the preliminary cost function based on a first computed trajectory of the mobile robot, as computed by applying a preliminary robot dynamics model to the first series of control actions, and in a second constrained optimization stage, applying a second optimizer to determine a second series of control actions that substantially globally optimizes a full cost function for the scenario, the full cost function based on a second computed trajectory of the mobile robot, as computed by applying a full robot dynamics model to the second series of control actions; wherein initialization data of at l

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of determining a series of control signals for controlling an autonomous vehicle to implement a planned speed change maneuver comprises: receiving from a maneuver planner a position target for the planned speed change maneuver; selecting, from a predetermined family of kinematic functions, a kinematic function for carrying out the planned speed change maneuver, each kinematic function being a first or higher order derivative of acceleration with respect to time; and using the selected kinematic function to determine a series of control signals for implementing the planned speed change maneuver; wherein the kinematic function is selected in a constrained optimization process as substantially optimizing a cost function defined for the speed change maneuver, subject to a set of hard constraints that: (i) require a final acceleration, speed and position corresponding to the selected kinematic function to satisfy, respectively, an acceleration target, a speed target and the position t

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of planning a path for a mobile robot in the presence of a set of obstacles comprises: computing for each obstacle a probabilistic obstacle position distribution; computing at least one path-independent function as a combination of the probabilistic obstacle position distributions; and for at least one candidate path, determining an upper bound on the total probability of obstacle collision along that path, by aggregating the path-independent function based on an area defined by the candidate path and a mobile robot shape, wherein the path-independent function is independent of the candidate path.

Abstract: One aspect herein provides a method of analysing driving behaviour in a data processing computer system, the method comprising: receiving at the data processing computer system driving behaviour data to be analysed, wherein the driving behaviour data records vehicle movements within a monitored driving area; analysing the driving behaviour data to determine a normal driving behaviour model for the monitored driving area; using object tracking to determine driving trajectories of vehicles driving in the monitored driving area; comparing the driving trajectories with the normal driving behaviour model to identify at least one abnormal driving trajectory; and extracting a portion of the driving behaviour data corresponding to a time interval associated with the abnormal driving trajectory.

Abstract: The invention provides a computer-implemented method of planning a path for a mobile robot such as an autonomous vehicle in the presence of K obstacles. The method uses, for each of the K obstacles, a shape Bk and a density function pk(x) representing the probabilistic position of the obstacle. The method repeats the following steps for at least two different paths A:—choosing a path A, where A is the swept area of the robot within a given time interval; and—calculating based on the density function of each obstacle and the swept path an upper bound on the total probability of at least one collision FD between the robot and the K obstacles. This allows a number of candidate paths to be ranked for safety. By precomputing factors of the computational steps over K obstacles, the computation per path is O(N), and not O(NK). A safety threshold can be used to filter out paths below that threshold.