Operator brake detection for autonomous vehicles

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• determining a brake pedal travel value based on a brake pedal travel sensor of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV);
• determining a brake actuation position based on an actuation sensor of the ADV;
• determining that a deviation of the brake pedal travel value from the brake actuation position is above a first threshold value;
• and
• detecting an intention of an operator to apply a brake control in response to determining that the deviation is above the first threshold value.

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• determining a first and a second brake pedal travel values of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) corresponding to a first and a second planning cycles respectively;
• determining a difference value between the first and second brake pedal travel values;
• and
• detecting an intention of an operator to apply a brake control in response to determining that the difference value between the first and second brake pedal travel values is above a predetermined threshold.