System and method for human operator intervention in autonomous vehicle operations
AssigneeZipline International Inc.
InventorsAndrew Chambers, Keenan Wyrobek, Keller Rinaudo, Ryan Oksenhorn, William Hetzler
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An autonomous vehicle system is configured to receive vehicle commands from one or more parties and to execute those vehicle commands in a way that prevents the execution of stale commands. The autonomous vehicle system includes a finite state machine and a command counter or stored vehicle timestamp, which are used to help reject invalid or stale vehicle commands.
Claims20
A method for piloting an autonomous vehicle, comprising:
- receiving, at a computer server, an assistance request associated with the autonomous vehicle;
- selecting, at the computer server, a remote vehicle operator from a group of remote vehicle operators, the remote vehicle operator associated with a control device;
- receiving, at the computer server, a situation report associated with the autonomous vehicle;
- generating, at the computer server, an operator message based at least in part on the situation report;
- sending, from the computer server, the operator message to the control device;
- receiving, at the computer server, at least one operator command from the control device;
- and
- sending, from the computer server, at least one vehicle command to the autonomous vehicle based at least in part on the at least one operator command, the at least one vehicle command including a command verification value, wherein:
- the at least one vehicle command causes the autonomous vehicle to change from a first path to a second path if a comparison of the command verification value to a stored command verification value of the autonomous vehicle indicates that the command verification value is valid;
- and
- the at least one vehicle command does not cause the autonomous vehicle to change from the first path to the second path if the comparison of the command verification value to the stored command verification value of the autonomous vehicle indicates that the command verification value is not valid.
An autonomous vehicle comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a representation of a plurality of vehicle states and a plurality of valid state transitions, a mission planner module, a flight controller module, and a communications module, the autonomous vehicle configured to:
- receive a vehicle command using the communications module;
- verify a validity of the vehicle command;
- determine, based on the vehicle command, a new vehicle state that may be activated, using the mission planner module;
- determine if a transition from a currently active vehicle state to the new vehicle state is one of the valid state transitions, using the mission planner;
- in response to determining that the transition from the currently active vehicle state to the new vehicle state is one of the valid state transitions:
- activate the new vehicle state;
- and
- change from a first path of travel to a second path of travel based on the new vehicle state, using the flight controller;
- and
- in response to determining that the transition from the currently active vehicle state to the new vehicle state is not one of the valid state transitions, not activating the new vehicle state.
A method for piloting an autonomous vehicle, comprising:
- storing a first command verification value in a computer memory of an autonomous vehicle;
- broadcasting, from a communications system of the autonomous vehicle, a status message comprising the first command verification value;
- receiving a vehicle command via the communications system, the vehicle command comprising a second command verification value;
- determining, using a mission planner of the autonomous vehicle, if a comparison of the second command verification value to the first command verification value indicates that the second command verification value is valid;
- responsive to determining that the second command verification value is valid, changing the autonomous vehicle from a first path to a second path, using a flight controller;
- and
- responsive to determining that the second command verification value is not valid, not changing the autonomous vehicle from the first path to the second path.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.