Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Kyle Richard Post

Jeffrey Allen Doering

Tobias John Pallett

Anthony Tsakiris

Levasseur Tellis

Sarra Awad Yako

A vehicle system includes at least one autonomous driving sensor programmed to output environment signals representing an environment around an autonomous vehicle and object detection signals representing an object or person on an exterior surface of the autonomous vehicle. The vehicle system further includes an autonomous mode controller programmed to autonomously control the autonomous vehicle in accordance with the environment signals output by the autonomous driving sensor, detect the object or person on the exterior surface of the autonomous vehicle in accordance with the object detection signals, and limit autonomous operation of the autonomous vehicle in response to detecting the object or person on the exterior surface of the autonomous vehicle.

Vehicle exterior surface object detection

A vehicle system includes a user interface device and an autonomous mode controller. The user interface device receives a user input representing a driving mode selection. The autonomous mode controller commands one or more vehicle subsystems to operate in accordance with characteristics associated with the driving mode selection. Examples of characteristics can include how aggressively the vehicle accelerates or decelerates, a minimum distance from the vehicle to a front vehicle, or how frequently the vehicle changes lanes, among others.

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Dearborn, MI, United States of America

Kyle Richard Post