Autonomous vehicle panel and post detection
AssigneeRenu Robotics Corp.
InventorsMichael Odell Blanton, Kristopher Charles Kozak, Marc Christopher Alban
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Disclosed are solutions for an autonomous vehicle to real-time detect and determine dynamic and/or obscured obstacles to support navigation and services to within a desired proximity of said obstacles. Certain such implementations are specifically directed to autonomous mowers, for example, capable of real-time object detection to determine location and orientation of solar panels in a solar farm, for example, and based on the location and orientation of such solar panels further determine the location of their corresponding posts that may be otherwise obstructed from direct detection by the autonomous mower's other sensing systems possibly due to vegetation growth around the posts or other reasons.
Claims18
A method for an autonomous vehicle to locate obstacles in an environment local to said autonomous vehicle, the method comprising:
- directly sensing, by the autonomous vehicle, the environment local to said autonomous vehicle to produce direct sensing data;
- determining a dynamic location and dynamic orientation of a dynamic object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the direct sensing data;
- determining a stationary location for a stationary object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the dynamic location and dynamic orientation of the dynamic object;
- and
- navigating the autonomous vehicle to within a desired proximity of the stationary object;
- wherein the dynamic object is fixedly coupled to the stationary object.
A sensing and navigation (S&N) system for an autonomous vehicle, comprising a memory and a processor, and capable of locating obstacles in an environment local to said autonomous vehicle, the system comprising at least one subsystem for:
- directly sensing, by the autonomous vehicle, the environment local to said autonomous vehicle to produce direct sensing data;
- determining a dynamic location and dynamic orientation of a dynamic object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the direct sensing data;
- determining a stationary location for a stationary object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the dynamic location and dynamic orientation of the dynamic object;
- and
- navigating the autonomous vehicle to within a desired proximity of the stationary object;
- wherein the dynamic object is fixedly coupled to the stationary object.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computing system logically coupled to an autonomous vehicle, cause the computing system to:
- directly sense the environment local to said autonomous vehicle to produce direct sensing data;
- determine a dynamic location and dynamic orientation of a dynamic object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the direct sensing data;
- determine a stationary location for a stationary object in the environment local to said autonomous vehicle based on the dynamic location and dynamic orientation of the dynamic object;
- and
- navigate the autonomous vehicle to within a desired proximity of the stationary object;
- wherein the dynamic object is fixedly coupled to the stationary object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.