Volvo Car Corporation

Xinkai Zhang

Sihao Ding

Harshavardhan Reddy Dasari

A system and method of planning a path for an autonomous vehicle from the vehicle's initial configuration to the goal configuration which is collision-free, kinematically-feasible, and near-minimal in length. The vehicle is equipped with a plurality of perception sensors such as lidar, camera, etc., and is configured to operate in an autonomous mode. An onboard computing device is configured to process the sensor data and provide a dynamic occupancy grid map of the surrounding environment in real-time. Based on the occupancy grid map, the path planner can quickly calculate a collision-free and dynamically feasible path towards the goal configuration for the vehicle to follow.

Environment-aware path planning for a self-driving vehicle using dynamic step-size search

One or more embodiments herein can enable identification of an obstacle free area about an object. An exemplary system can comprise a memory that stores computer executable components, and a processor that executes the computer executable components stored in the memory, wherein the computer executable components can comprise an obtaining component that obtains raw data defining a physical state of an environment around an object from a vantage of the object, and a generation component that, based on the raw data, generates a dimension of a portion or more of a virtual polygon representing a boundary about the object, wherein the boundary bounds free space about the object. A sensing sub-system can comprise both an ultrasonic sensor and a camera that can separately sense the environment about the object from the vantage of the object to thereby generate separate polygon measurement sets.

Free space estimator for autonomous movement

One or more embodiments herein can provide a process to determine dead-reckoning localization of a vehicle. An exemplary system can comprise a memory that stores computer executable components, and a processor that executes the computer executable components stored in the memory, wherein the computer executable components can comprise an obtaining component that obtains plural sensor readings defining movement of a vehicle, wherein the plural sensor readings comprise an inertial sensor reading, a kinematics sensor reading, and an odometry sensor reading, and a generation component that generates, based on the plural sensor readings, a pose value defining a position of the vehicle relative to an environment in which the vehicle is disposed. A sensing sub-system of the exemplary system can comprise an inertial measurement unit sensor, a kinematics sensor, and an odometry sensor.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Xinkai Zhang