Waymo LLC

Justin Zaydel

Nolan McPeek-Bechtold

Diomidis Katzourakis

James Harris

Aspects of the disclosure relate to controlling a vehicle in an autonomous driving mode. For instance, a control command identifying a steering control position may be received by a steering system of the vehicle from an autonomous driving control system. Orientation of one or more wheels of the vehicle may be controlled according to the steering control position. After receiving the control command, that the steering system has not received a valid control command from the control system for a first predetermined duration may be determined. Based on the determination that the steering system has not received a valid control command from the control system for the first predetermined duration, the orientation of the one or more wheels may be continue to be controlled based on the steering control position.

Steering system fault response for autonomous vehicles

Aspects of the technology involve controlling a vehicle configured to operate in an autonomous driving mode. This includes receiving a set of environmental inputs including temperature information from different temperature sources, receiving initial steering information from a steering system of the vehicle, and obtaining an initial rack position command by a motion control module of the vehicle. The system determines, based on the environmental inputs, the initial steering information and an initial rack position, a likelihood that a steering actuator of the steering system of the vehicle is blocked or likely to become blocked. The system determines whether a threshold excitation amount has been applied to the steering system within a selected amount of time or a selected driving distance. When the threshold amount of excitation is not met, an excitation profile is applied to the steering system in order to modify the initial rack position.

Method for detection and mitigation of blocked steering actuator

Aspects of the disclosure relate to a vehicle having an autonomous driving mode and a manual driving mode. The vehicle may include a steering system having one or more processors configured to control the orientation of the one or more wheels based on control commands. The vehicle may also include an autonomous driving control system configured to control the vehicle in an autonomous driving mode by generating the control commands and to send the control commands to the steering system. In addition, the steering system may thermally derate the steering system based on first temperature information for the steering system when the vehicle is operating in a manual drive mode, and the autonomous driving control system may thermally derate the steering system based on second temperature information for the steering system when the vehicle is operating in the autonomous driving mode.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Justin Zaydel