Autonomous driving vehicles with redundant ultrasonic radar

Abstract

In one embodiment, an ADV includes a sensor system having a number of sensors mounted at various locations of the ADV. The sensors include a LIDAR unit, an IMU unit, a RADAR unit, and an array of ultrasonic sensors. The array of ultrasonic sensors are disposed on a frontend of the ADV and configured in various sensing directions. The ADV further includes a perception and planning system coupled to the sensor system. The perception and planning system includes a perception module and a planning module. The perception module is configured to perceive a driving environment surrounding the ADV based on sensor data received from the sensors of the sensor system. The sensor data includes ultrasonic sensor data obtained from the ultrasonic sensors. The planning module is configured to plan a trajectory to drive the ADV based on perception data perceiving the driving environment from the perception module.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.