Waymo LLC

Ryan Powell

Peter Crandall

Maria Moon

Matthew Corey Hall

Nirmal Jitendra Patel

Julien Charles Mercay

Philip Nemec

Salil Pandit

Clement Wright

Kyle Bechtel

Bruce Mai

Nathaniel Fairfield

Dmitri A Dolgov

Christopher Paul Urmson

Renaud-Roland Hubert

Min Li Chan

Peter Colijn

Hans-olav Cavelie

Guilherme Villar

Lauren Schwendimann

Paul Lee

Lynn Wang

Samrat Kansara

Kathleen Allen

Yang Li

Juliet Rothenberg

Vishay Nihalani

Orlee Smith

Cong Li

Suneet Shah

Guiherme Villar

The technology includes communicating the current status of a self-driving vehicle to users, such as passengers within the vehicle and other users awaiting pickup. Certain information about the trip and vehicle status is communicated depending on where the passenger is sitting within the vehicle or where the person awaiting pickup is located outside the vehicle. This includes disseminating the 'monologue' of a vehicle operating in an autonomous driving mode to a user via an app on the user's device (e.g., mobile phone, tablet or laptop PC, wearable, or other computing device) and/or an in-vehicle user interface. The monologue includes current status information regarding driving decisions and related operations or actions. This alerts the user as to why the vehicle is taking (or not taking) a certain action, which reduces confusion and allows the user to focus on other matters.

Application monologue for self-driving vehicles

Display screen portion with icon

Vehicle sign

Aspects of the disclosure provide for displaying notifications on a display of an autonomous vehicle. In one instance, a distance from the vehicle to a destination of the vehicle or a passenger may be determined. When the distance is between a first distance and a second distance, a first notificationmay be displayed on the display. The second distance may be less than the first distance. When the distance is less than the second distance, a second notificationmay be displayed on the display. The second notification provides additional information not provided by the first notification.

External facing communications for autonomous vehicles

Aspects of the technology relate to assisting a passenger in an autonomous vehicle without a driver. For instance, after a door of the vehicle is opened, a predetermined period of time may be waited by processors of computing devices of the vehicle. After waiting the predetermined period of time and when the vehicle's door remains open, a set of instructions for closing the vehicle's door may be played by the processors through a speaker of the vehicle. Once the door of the vehicle is closed, an announcement may be played by the processors through the speaker requesting that the passenger press a first button to initiate a ride to a destination. In response to the first button being pressed, the ride to the destination may be initiated by the processors by maneuvering the vehicle autonomously to the destination.

Audible passenger announcements for autonomous vehicle services

Display screen portion with transitional icon

The technology relates to facilitating transportation services between a user and a vehicle having an autonomous driving mode. For instance, one or more server computing devices having one or more processors may information identifying the current location of the vehicle. The one or more server computing devices may determine that the user is likely to want to take a trip to a particular destination based on prior location history for the user. The one or more server computing devices may dispatch the vehicle to cause the vehicle to travel in the autonomous driving mode towards a location of the user. In addition, after dispatching, the one or more server computing devices sending a notification to a client computing device associated with the user indicating that the vehicle is currently available to take the passenger to the particular destination.

Autonomous vehicle services

Aspects of the disclosure provide for displaying notifications on a display of an autonomous vehicle. In one instance, a distance from the vehicle to a destination of the vehicle or a passenger may be determined. When the distance is between a first distance and a second distance, a first notification may be displayed on the display. The second distance may be less than the first distance. When the distance is less than the second distance, a second notification may be displayed on the display. The second notification provides additional information not provided by the first notification.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Ryan Powell