Method and apparatus for controlling maneuvers of a vehicle
AssigneePhilips Electronics North America Corporation
InventorsKaren I. Trovato, Leendert Dorst
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Maneuvers of a vehicle, in the presence of obstacles, are planned using a three-dimensional configuration space. Axes of the configuration space correspond to x and y coordinate locations of the rear differential of the vehicle and angle of the vehicle. The configuration space is filled with cost to goal and direction arrows values using an exhaustive search strategy. The direction arrows values point to a least cost path to a goal for the vehicle. The exhaustive search strategy involves searching a bow-tie shaped neighborhood of a goal state, and then a bow-tie shaped neighborhood of each state in the first neighborhood, iterating until all reachable states are searched. A precedence order is established so that states which are blocked are not searched.
Claims22
Apparatus for maneuvering a vehicle comprising
- means for storing a configuration space representation of a task space for the vehicle, which representation is referred to herein as a "configuration space";
- means for propagating cost waves in the configuration space;
- means for determining a maneuver path from a start state to a goal state in the configuration space based on the cost waves;
- and
- means for controlling the vehicle to follow the maneuver path;
- wherein the representation of the configuration space includes an array of states, each state having cost to goal and direction arrows fields.
A device for maneuvering a vehicle comprising
- a) means for storing an internal representation of objects surrounding the vehicle, which objects are relevant to a desired maneuver;
- b) means for selecting a movement trajectory based on the internal representation;
- and
- c) means for controlling the vehicle to follow the trajectory;
- wherein the internal representation includes a set of possible configurations of the vehicle and the selecting step includes selecting a sequence of configurations from the set of configurations.
A method for planning a path for an object to follow and for controlling the object to follow the path in a task space comprising the steps of:
- a) propagating cost waves in a configuration space representation of the task space, which propagating step comprises the steps of:
- i) exploring all neighbors of a state in the configuration space using a precedence in which if a first neighbor state is blocked by an obstacle, no second neighbor state beyond the first neighbor state is searched;
- ii) improving neighbors of the state by assigning appropriate values of cost to goal and direction arrows fields to the state;
- iii) adding improved neighbors to a storage data structure;
- and
- iv) causing iteration through steps 13a)i)-13a)iii) for all states in the storing means;
- and
- b) controlling the object to follow a path indicated by the direction arrows fields.
A method for planning a path for an object to follow in a task space and for controlling the object to follow the path comprising the steps of:
- a) propagating cost waves in a configuration space representation of the task space, which propagating step comprises the steps of:
- i) exploring all neighbors of a state in the configuration space, wherein neighbors are defined according to a neighborhood which varies from state to state;
- ii) improving neighbors of the state by assigning appropriate values of cost to goal and direction arrows fields to the state;
- iii) adding improved neighbors to a storage data structure;
- and
- iv) causing iteration of steps 13a)i)-13a)iii) for all states in the storing means;
- and
- b) controlling the object to follow a path indicated by the direction arrows fields.
A device for maneuvering an autonomous vehicle comprising
- a) means for storing an internal representation of
- i) objects surrounding the vehicle, which objects are relevant to a desired maneuver;
- and
- ii) a non-holonomic nature of the vehicle;
- b) means for selecting a movement trajectory based on the internal representation according to some criterion for optimizing movement;
- and
- c) means for controlling the vehicle to follow the trajectory autonomously.
A device for maneuvering an autonomous vehicle comprising
- a) means for storing an internal representation of
- i) objects surrounding the vehicle, which objects are relevant to a desired maneuver;
- and
- ii) a non-holonomic nature of the vehicle;
- b) means for selecting a movement trajectory based on the internal representation according to some criterion for optimizing movement;
- and
- c) means for controlling the vehicle to follow the trajectory autonomously, wherein
- the representation of the objects around the vehicle has more than two dimensions;
- the representation includes a representation of a goal or obstacle position;
- and
- the goal or obstacle position is represented differently in different two dimensional layers of the representation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.