Locating entities in a mapped environment
AssigneeZoox, Inc.
InventorsLichao Ma, Joona Markus Petteri Kiiski
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
This application describes locating objects in an environment, such as a mapped region. In an example, a location of an entity on a drivable surface can include querying an axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) tree to determine a segment of the drivable surface including the location. In some examples, the location can be further determined within the segment of the drivable surface. For instance, the segment of the drivable surface may be partitioned into a plurality of polygons, and the polygons can be searched to determine a lane segment in the road segment associated with the entity.
Claims20
A vehicle comprising:
- at least one sensor configured to generate sensor data of an environment of the vehicle;
- one or more processors;
- and
- memory storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the autonomous vehicle to perform acts comprising:
- determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a location of an entity in the environment, the location comprising a coordinate in a global coordinate system;
- determining, based at least in part on an axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) tree and the location, a road segment associated with the location, the AABB tree describing relationships between a plurality of AABBs representative of a plurality of road segments in the environment;
- determining, based at least in part on the road segment, a segment-centric location of the entity in a segment-centric coordinate system;
- generating, based at least in part on the segment-centric location of the entity in the road segment, one or more controls to control the vehicle relative to the entity;
- and
- controlling the vehicle according to the one or more controls.
A method of locating an entity in a mapped region, the method comprising:
- receiving an axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) tree representative of a plurality of road segments;
- receiving sensor data from a sensor on a vehicle;
- determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a relative location of an entity proximate the sensor;
- determining, based at least in part on the relative location and a global position of the sensor, a global position of the entity in an environment;
- and
- determining, based at least in part on the AABB tree and the global position of the entity, a road segment of the plurality of road segments associated with the entity.
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- receiving sensor data from a sensor on a vehicle;
- determining, based at least in part on the sensor data, a relative location of an entity proximate the sensor;
- determining, based at least in part on the relative location and a global position of the sensor, a global position of the entity in an environment;
- determining, based at least in part on an axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) tree representative of a plurality of road segments and the global position of the entity, a road segment of the plurality of road segments associated with the entity;
- and
- determining a lane segment within the road segment corresponding to the global position of the entity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.