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US 12,759,565 B2Granted
Sensor aggregation in autonomous vehicles
AssigneeEmbark Trucks Inc.
InventorsKwabena Agyeman, Igor Prilepov
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and methods for a computer system to operate an autonomous vehicle via a safety gateway which aggregates the input data streams from the variety of sensors over different communication protocols and provides an abstracted mechanism to issue torque, brake, steering and any other vehicle specific commands.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- a control system comprising one or more actuators to operate an autonomous vehicle;
- a computer system configured to control and monitor operation of the autonomous vehicle, the computer system including a memory storing a first configuration file;
- and
- a safety gateway including (i) a memory storing a second configuration file and (ii) a processor configured to;
- determine a status of the second configuration file;
- request, based on the status, configuration content from the computer system;
- update the second configuration file with the configuration content such that the second configuration file has substantially identical configuration content as the first configuration file, the configuration content defining one or more data structures to configure the safety gateway to receive sensor data from a plurality of sensors installed on the autonomous vehicle;
- route all the sensor data from the plurality of sensors through the safety gateway to the computer system over a network interface;
- and
- route all control signals to operate the autonomous vehicle from the computer system through the safety gateway to the actuators of the control system of the autonomous vehicle, the control signals being generated by the computer system based on the sensor data,
- wherein the first configuration file and the second configuration file each comprise a list of channels between the safety gateway and the computer system,
- and each further comprise configuration information for each channel.
9 more elements
A method performed by a safety gateway installed in an autonomous vehicle, comprising:
- determining a status of a first configuration file stored in a memory of the safety gateway;
- based on the status of the first configuration file, requesting a second configuration file stored in a memory of a computer system installed in the autonomous vehicle;
- updating the first configuration file to be the same as the second configuration file resulting in an updated first configuration file, the updated first configuration file defining a plurality of data structures to configure the safety gateway to receive sensor data from a plurality of sensors installed on the autonomous vehicle, the updated first configuration file further defining, for each of the plurality of sensors, a sensor name, a data port, and a payload format;
- route all the sensor data from the plurality of sensors through the safety gateway to the computer system over a network interface;
- and
- route all control signals to operate the autonomous vehicle from the computer system through the safety gateway to actuators of control systems of the autonomous vehicle, the control signals being generated by the computer system based on the sensor data,
- wherein the updated first configuration file comprises a list of channels between the safety gateway and the computer system and further comprises configuration information for each channel.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.