Patents by Inventor Nichola Abdo

Nichola Abdo 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).

  • Publication number: 20250244448
    Abstract: The described aspects and implementations enable fast and accurate verification of radar detection of objects in autonomous vehicle (AV) applications using combined processing of radar data and camera images. In one implementation, disclosed is a method and a system to perform the method that includes obtaining a radar data characterizing intensity of radar reflections from an environment of the AV, identifying, based on the radar data, a candidate object, obtaining a camera image depicting a region where the candidate object is located, and processing the radar data and the camera image using one or more machine-learning models to obtain a classification measure representing a likelihood that the candidate object is a real object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2025
    Publication date: July 31, 2025
    Inventors: Xu Chen, Nichola Abdo, Ruichi Ru, Chang Gao
  • Patent number: 12276752
    Abstract: The described aspects and implementations enable fast and accurate verification of radar detection of objects in autonomous vehicle (AV) applications using combined processing of radar data and camera images. In one implementation, disclosed is a method and a system to perform the method that includes obtaining a radar data characterizing intensity of radar reflections from an environment of the AV, identifying, based on the radar data, a candidate object, obtaining a camera image depicting a region where the candidate object is located, and processing the radar data and the camera image using one or more machine-learning models to obtain a classification measure representing a likelihood that the candidate object is a real object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2025
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Xu Chen, Nichola Abdo, Ruichi Yu, Chang Gao
  • Patent number: 12106528
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for predicting scene flow. One of the methods includes obtaining a current point cloud representing an observed scene at a current time point; obtaining object label data that identifies a first three-dimensional region in the observed scene; determining, for each current three-dimensional point that is within the first three-dimensional region and using the object label data, a respective preceding position of the current three-dimensional point at a preceding time point in a reference frame of the sensor at the current time point; and generating, using the preceding positions, a scene flow label for the current point cloud that comprises a respective ground truth motion vector for each of a plurality of the current three-dimensional points.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2024
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Nichola Abdo, Jonathon Shlens, Zhifeng Chen, Christopher John Sweeney, Philipp Florian Jund
  • Patent number: 11861481
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for searching an autonomous vehicle sensor data repository. One of the methods includes maintaining a collection of sensor samples and, for each sensor sample, an embedding of the sensor sample; receiving a request specifying a query sensor sample, wherein the query sensor sample characterizes a query environment region; and identifying, from the collection of sensor samples, a plurality of relevant sensor samples that characterize similar environment regions to the query environment region, comprising: processing the query sensor sample through the embedding neural network to generate a query embedding; and identifying, from sensor samples in a subset of the sensor samples in the collection, a plurality of sensor samples that have embeddings that are closest to the query embedding.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Zijian Guo, Nichola Abdo, Junhua Mao, Congcong Li, Edward Stephen Walker, Jr.
  • Patent number: 11782158
    Abstract: Systems, methods, devices, and techniques for generating object-heading estimations. In one example, methods include actions of receiving sensor data representing measurements of an object that was detected within a proximity of a vehicle; processing the sensor data with one or more preliminary heading estimation subsystems to respectively generate one or more preliminary heading estimations for the object; processing two or more inputs with a second heading estimation subsystem to generate a refined heading estimation for the object, the two or more inputs including the one or more preliminary heading estimations for the object; and providing the refined heading estimation for the object to an external processing system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2023
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: David Lee, Xiaohan Jin, Congcong Li, Nichola Abdo
  • Patent number: 11669980
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating motion detection based on optical flow. One of the methods includes obtaining a first image of a scene in an environment taken by an agent at a first time point and a second image of the scene at a second later time point. A point cloud characterizing the scene in the environment is obtained. A predicted optical flow is determined between the first image and the second image. A respective initial flow prediction for the point that represents motion of the point between the two time points is determined. A respective ego motion flow estimate for the point that represents a motion of the point induced by ego motion of the agent is determined. A respective motion prediction that indicates whether the point was static or in motion between the two time points is determined.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2023
    Assignee: Waymo LLC
    Inventors: Daniel Rudolf Maurer, Alper Ayvaci, Nichola Abdo, Christopher John Sweeney, Robert William Anderson
  • Publication number: 20230046274
    Abstract: The described aspects and implementations enable fast and accurate verification of radar detection of objects in autonomous vehicle (AV) applications using combined processing of radar data and camera images. In one implementation, disclosed is a method and a system to perform the method that includes obtaining a radar data characterizing intensity of radar reflections from an environment of the AV, identifying, based on the radar data, a candidate object, obtaining a camera image depicting a region where the candidate object is located, and processing the radar data and the camera image using one or more machine-learning models to obtain a classification measure representing a likelihood that the candidate object is a real object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2021
    Publication date: February 16, 2023
    Inventors: Xu Chen, Nichola Abdo, Ruichi Yu, Chang Gao
  • Publication number: 20230033989
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating motion detection based on optical flow. One of the methods includes obtaining a first image of a scene in an environment taken by an agent at a first time point and a second image of the scene at a second later time point. A point cloud characterizing the scene in the environment is obtained. A predicted optical flow is determined between the first image and the second image. A respective initial flow prediction for the point that represents motion of the point between the two time points is determined. A respective ego motion flow estimate for the point that represents a motion of the point induced by ego motion of the agent is determined. A respective motion prediction that indicates whether the point was static or in motion between the two time points is determined.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 23, 2021
    Publication date: February 2, 2023
    Inventors: Daniel Rudolf Maurer, Alper Ayvaci, Nichola Abdo, Christopher John Sweeney, Robert William Anderson
  • Publication number: 20230035454
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating an optical flow label from a lidar point cloud. One of the methods includes obtaining data specifying a training example, including a first image of a scene in an environment captured at a first time point and a second image of the scene in the environment captured at a second time point. For each of a plurality of lidar points, a respective second corresponding pixel in the second image is obtained and a respective velocity estimate for the lidar point at the second time point is obtained. A respective first corresponding pixel in the first image is determined using the velocity estimate for the lidar point. A proxy optical flow ground truth for the training example is generated based on an estimate of optical flow of the pixel between the first and second images.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 23, 2021
    Publication date: February 2, 2023
    Inventors: Daniel Rudolf Maurer, Alper Ayvaci, Robert William Anderson, Rico Jonschkowski, Austin Charles Stone, Anelia Angelova, Nichola Abdo, Christopher John Sweeney
  • Publication number: 20220319054
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for predicting scene flow. One of the methods includes obtaining a current point cloud representing an observed scene at a current time point; obtaining object label data that identifies a first three-dimensional region in the observed scene; determining, for each current three-dimensional point that is within the first three-dimensional region and using the object label data, a respective preceding position of the current three-dimensional point at a preceding time point in a reference frame of the sensor at the current time point; and generating, using the preceding positions, a scene flow label for the current point cloud that comprises a respective ground truth motion vector for each of a plurality of the current three-dimensional points.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 1, 2022
    Publication date: October 6, 2022
    Inventors: Nichola Abdo, Jonathon Shlens, Zhifeng Chen, Christopher John Sweeney, Philipp Florian Jund
  • Publication number: 20200200905
    Abstract: Systems, methods, devices, and techniques for generating object-heading estimations. In one example, methods include actions of receiving sensor data representing measurements of an object that was detected within a proximity of a vehicle; processing the sensor data with one or more preliminary heading estimation subsystems to respectively generate one or more preliminary heading estimations for the object; processing two or more inputs with a second heading estimation subsystem to generate a refined heading estimation for the object, the two or more inputs including the one or more preliminary heading estimations for the object; and providing the refined heading estimation for the object to an external processing system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2018
    Publication date: June 25, 2020
    Inventors: David Lee, Xiaohan Jin, Congcong Li, Nichola Abdo
  • Publication number: 20200202196
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for searching an autonomous vehicle sensor data repository. One of the methods includes maintaining a collection of sensor samples and, for each sensor sample, an embedding of the sensor sample; receiving a request specifying a query sensor sample, wherein the query sensor sample characterizes a query environment region; and identifying, from the collection of sensor samples, a plurality of relevant sensor samples that characterize similar environment regions to the query environment region, comprising: processing the query sensor sample through the embedding neural network to generate a query embedding; and identifying, from sensor samples in a subset of the sensor samples in the collection, a plurality of sensor samples that have embeddings that are closest to the query embedding.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 23, 2019
    Publication date: June 25, 2020
    Inventors: Zijian Guo, Nichola Abdo, Junhua Mao, Congcong Li, Edward Stephen Walker, JR.