Waymo LLC

Google Inc.

Teradata Us, Inc.

Aster Data Systems, Inc.

Peter Michal Pawlowski

Benjamin David Eidelson

Michael Steven Montemerlo

David Yonchar Margines

Carlos Hernandez Esteban

Doug Sherrets

Jason Prado

Dirk Haehnel

Laurens Andreas Feenstra

Jonas Erik Lindberg

Per Johan Gustafsson

Saksiri Tanphaichitr

Tacettin Dogacan Guney

Eric Friedman

Heradon Douglas

Björn Kempén

Jeffrey Min

Peter Ng

Colin Andrew Braley

Randall Sarafa

Richard Eugene Fulcher

Ujjwal Singh

Mayur Kamat

Evan Stephen Millar

Rhett Robinson

Ming Ji

David Harrison Silver

Prasan Roy

Rangarajan Vasudevan

Joy Weng Zhang

Aspects of the technology relate to providing service area maps for an autonomous vehicle transportation service having a fleet of vehicles. For instance, each vehicle of the fleet is associated with a polygon corresponding to a service area for that vehicle. A first location may be received from a client computing device, and a set of vehicles of the fleet of vehicles that are currently available to provide transportation services may be identified based on the first location. The polygons associated with each of the set of vehicles may be used to determine a first polygon having a geographic area. A first portion of map information corresponding to the geographic area of the first polygon may be identified, and the first portion may be provided to the client computing device for display to a user such that the portion represents a currently available service area for the user.

Service area maps for autonomous vehicles

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using a surfel map to generate long range localization. One of the methods includes obtaining, for a particular location of a vehicle having a camera and a detection sensor, surfel data including a plurality of surfels. Each surfel in the surfel data has a respective location and corresponds to a different respective detected surface in an environment. Image data captured by the camera is obtained. It is determined that a region of interest for detecting objects for a vehicle planning process is outside a detectable region for the detection sensor. In response, it is determined that the image data for the region of interest matches surfel color data for the surfels corresponding to the region of interest. In response, the vehicle planning process is performed with the region of interest designated as having no unexpected objects.

Long range localization with surfel maps

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for updating data of a map. One of the methods includes storing a map of an environment, the map comprising surfels and a road graph; receiving new surfel data for the surfels; adjusting the surfels based on the new surfel data; determining a vector field difference between the surfels of the stored map and the adjusted surfels; adjusting a portion of the road graph based on the vector field difference; generating an updated map comprising the adjusted surfels and the adjusted portion of the road graph; and storing the updated map.

Updating road graphs for autonomous driving

Aspects of the disclosure relate to validating map data using challenge questions. For instance, an attributes to be validated may be identified from the map data. At least one challenge question may be selected from a plurality of predetermined challenge questions based on the attribute. An image may be retrieved based on image information associated with the at least one challenge question. The image and the at least one challenge question may be provided for display. In response to the providing, operator input identifying an answer to the at least one challenge question may be received. This answer may be then used to validate the attribute.

Verifying map data using challenge questions

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for processing data characterizing a first region in an environment to generate a prediction characterizing a second region in the environment. One of the methods includes obtaining surfel data comprising a plurality of surfels; obtaining sensor data for a plurality of locations in a first region of the environment; determining, from the surfel data, a plurality of first surfels corresponding to respective locations in the first region of the environment; determining, using the first surfels and the sensor data, a difference between i) a first representation of the first region of the environment corresponding to the first surfels and ii) a second representation of the first region of the environment corresponding to the sensor data; and generating a respective object prediction for one or more locations in a second region of the environment.

Detecting environment changes using surfel data

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using a surfel map to generate a prediction for a state of an environment. One of the methods includes obtaining surfel data comprising a plurality of surfels, wherein each surfel corresponds to a respective different location in an environment, and each surfel has associated data that comprises an uncertainty measure; obtaining sensor data for one or more locations in the environment, the sensor data having been captured by one or more sensors of a first vehicle; determining one or more particular surfels corresponding to respective locations of the obtained sensor data; and combining the surfel data and the sensor data to generate a respective object prediction for each of the one or more locations of the obtained sensor data.

Autonomous driving with surfel maps

Systems, methods and computer readable media for persistent conversations are described. In some implementations, a method can include receiving a communication message sent from a first user to at least one other user, and generating a persistent conversation object having a conversation content section and conversation state information. The method can also include storing the communication message in the conversation content section of the persistent conversation object, and forwarding the communication message to the at least one other user. The method can further include updating the conversation state information to reflect the receiving, storing and forwarding of the communication message.

Persistent conversations

The present disclosure includes systems and methods for off-the-record communication including expiring messages. An example method comprises receiving an electronic communication from a source device, the electronic communication including at least one expiring message, temporarily storing content of the expiring message in a non-durable memory for a predetermined amount of time, durably storing envelope information associated with the expiring message in a durable memory, and determining whether a recipient device for the expiring message is available to accept transmission of the expiring message and determining whether an expiration event has occurred.

Method and apparatus for expiring messages in electronic communications

Systems, methods and computer readable media for persistent conversations are described. In some implementations, a method can include receiving a communication message sent from a first user to at least one other user and generating a persistent conversation object having a conversation content section and conversation state information. The method can also include storing the communication message in the conversation content section of the persistent conversation object and forwarding the communication message to the at least one other user. The method can further include updating the conversation state information to reflect the receiving, storing and forwarding of the communication message.

Integrating communication modes in persistent conversations

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Peter Michal Pawlowski