Selection of environment sensors for autonomous vehicle maneuvering

A vehicle comprising:

• a first set of one or more environment sensors mounted on a first portion of the vehicle;
• a second set of one or more environment sensors mounted on a second portion of the vehicle that differs from the first portion of the vehicle, the second set of one or more environment sensors being mounted lower on the vehicle and oriented at an upward angle relative to an orientation of the first set of one or more environment sensors;
• a braking control module for electronically controlling a brake system;
• a steering control module for electronically controlling a steering system;
• a torque request module for electronically causing the vehicle to produce a requested amount of torque;
• and
• an electronic control unit (ECU) configured to:
• calculate first coordinate data based on information received from the first set of one or more environment sensors,
• determine, based at least in part on the first coordinate data, a first target at a first location;
• determine a path to maneuver the vehicle to the first location;
• determine first commands to autonomously control the vehicle to maneuver along the determined path to the first location;
• transmit the first commands to one or more of the braking control module, the steering control module, and the torque request module;
• after arriving at the first location, calculate second coordinate data based on information received from the second set of one or more environment sensors instead of the first set of one or more environment sensors to obtain distance values to objects sensed by the second set of one or more environment sensors;
• determine based at least in part on the second coordinate data, a second target at a second location, the second target comprising a kingpin positioned on a bottom surface of a trailer, the kingpin being a protrusion detected based on a difference in distance from the second set of one or more environment sensors and the kingpin relative to distances from the second set of one or more environment sensors to the bottom surface of the trailer that lies coplanar with the kingpin, the protrusion being identified as a kingpin based on comparison of the protrusion to models of one or more kingpins at the autonomous driving module;
• determine a path to maneuver the vehicle from the first location to the second location;
• determine second commands to autonomously control the vehicle to maneuver along the determined path from the first location to the second location;
• and
• transmitting the second commands to one or more of the braking control module, the steering control module, and the torque request module.