Semantic object clustering for autonomous vehicle decision making
AssigneeWaymo LLC
InventorsJared Stephen Russell, Fang Da
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The technology relates to controlling a vehicle in an autonomous driving mode. For example, sensor data identifying a plurality of objects may be received. Pairs of objects of the plurality of objects may be identified. For each identified pair of objects of the plurality of objects, a similarity value which indicates whether the objects of that identified pair of objects can be responded to by the vehicle as a group may be determined. The objects of one of the identified pairs of objects may be clustered together based on the similarity score. The vehicle may be controlled in the autonomous mode by responding to each object in the cluster in a same way.
Claims20
A method of controlling a vehicle in an autonomous driving mode, the method comprising:
- receiving, by one or more processors, sensor data identifying a plurality of objects;
- determining, by the one or more processors based on the sensor data, whether a pair of objects of the plurality of objects is located within a predetermined distance of a feature in an environment of the vehicle;
- determining, by the one or more processors, a similarity measure for the pair of objects based, at least in part, on the determination of whether the pair of objects is located within the predetermined distance of the feature;
- and
- controlling, by the one or more processors, the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode based on the similarity measure.
A vehicle comprising:
- a perception system;
- and
- one or more computing devices including one or more processors configured to:
- receive, from the perception system, sensor data identifying a plurality of objects;
- determine, based on the sensor data, whether a pair of objects of the plurality of objects is located within a predetermined distance of a feature in an environment of the vehicle;
- determine a similarity measure for the pair of objects based, at least in part, on the determination of whether the pair of objects is located within the predetermined distance of the feature;
- and
- control the vehicle in an autonomous driving mode based on the similarity measure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.