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GoogleGranted patentCars & transportInterest 6/10

Waymo patents self-driving cars that weigh risks before changing course

This patent describes a method for autonomous vehicles to decide how aggressively to adjust their driving to get better sensor data. The system calculates the potential benefit of seeing more clearly against the safety risks of making a sudden move or change in speed.

Why it mattersIt offers a clearer look at how self-driving cars balance the need for information with the necessity of staying safe in real-time traffic.

In the filing’s own words

An autonomous vehicle configured for active sensing may also be configured to weigh expected information gains from active-sensing actions against risk costs associated with the active-sensing actions. An example method involves: (a) receiving information from one or more sensors of an autonomous vehicle, (b) determining a risk-cost framework that indicates risk costs across a range of degrees to which an active-sensing action can be performed, wherein the active-sensing action comprises an action that is performable by the autonomous vehicle to potentially improve the information upon which at least one of the control processes for the autonomous vehicle is based, (c) determining an information-improvement expectation framework across the range of degrees to which the active-sensing action can be performed, and (d) applying the risk-cost framework and the information-improvement expectation framework to determine a degree to which the active-sensing action should be performed.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. A method comprising: determining, by a computing system and based on sensor data from one or more sensors coupled to a first vehicle, a second vehicle is at least partially blocking a field of view of a first sensor coupled to the first vehicle; determining a control action for the first vehicle to perform based on determining the second vehicle is at least partially blocking the field of view of the first sensor; and based on determining that a risk cost associated with the first vehicle performing the control action is less than a threshold risk cost, controlling the first vehicle according to the control action.

Facts

Company
Google (Waymo LLC)
Official title
Consideration of risks in active sensing for an autonomous vehicle
Patent number
US12746912B2
Application number
18953589
Filed
Nov 20, 2024
Granted
Sep 29, 2026
Inventors
2
Claims
20

Classified under

B60W 30/08 Operations & transportB60W 30/00 Operations & transportB60W 30/18163 Operations & transportB60W 60/0016 Operations & transportB60K 35/28 Operations & transportB60K 2360/175 Operations & transport
Read the full filing (official PDF) ↗ Open in the Patent Tracker

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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.