Nio Usa, Inc.

James S Higgins

Abhishek Singhal

Rachad Youssef Gamarra

Stefan T Hilligardt

Anthony Tao Liang

Gautam Muralidhar

Infantdani Abel Rayan

Joshua T Butler

A device for controlling an autonomous vehicle includes a processor and a memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to detect that the autonomous vehicle has one or more malfunctioning components and to determine, in response to the detection, a likelihood that the autonomous vehicle is able to reach a desired stop location based on one or more factors associated with the one or more malfunctioning components. The device determines at least one maneuver for the autonomous vehicle based on the likelihood, and causes the autonomous vehicle to perform the at least one maneuver.

Methods and devices for autonomous vehicle operation

An autonomous vehicle or self-driving vehicle can protect persons from accidents. When the occupants of a vehicle exit the vehicle, those occupants can be endangered by the driving environment. Thus, while the occupants are outside the vehicle, the vehicle can continue to monitor the environment and provide warnings or intercept other vehicles or objects that may impact the occupants. Once all occupants have exited the vehicle, the vehicle's systems can continue to track each person around the vehicle and may engage, in limited maneuvers, to shield the pedestrians around the vehicle.

Methods and systems for providing a protect occupants mode with an autonomous vehicle

Autonomous systems, such as vehicles being operated in a self-driving mode, may allow for human occupants to be inattentive to the operation of the system. However, events may occur that require a human user to perform an action. Systems and method are provided that enable an autonomous system to determine whether the system requires, or will require, a user action and whether the user is or is not attentive. If an action is required and the human is not attentive, an alerting protocol is executed to cause the system to perform actions that enable the user to be alerted, such as to enable the, now attentive, user to be able to perform the action.

Autonomous system operator cognitive state detection and alerting

Embodiments are directed to employing various methods and devices to access a vehicle and controlling a level of access granted based on the device and methods employed. Controlling access to a vehicle can comprise maintaining a plurality of security profiles, each security profile associated with a different access device or type of access device. When the presence of an access device in proximity to the vehicle or a request to access the vehicle is detected, a security profile associated with the detected access device or the request to access the vehicle can be retrieved and used to determine whether to grant access to the vehicle. In response to determining to grant access to the vehicle, access to the vehicle can be provided according to an access level for the detected access device or the request to access the vehicle identified in the retrieved security profile.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

James S Higgins