The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 13, 2013
Filed:
Oct. 07, 2011
Joshua J. Curtis, Huntsville, AL (US);
George T. Mcwilliams, Germantown, MD (US);
Kristopher C. Kozak, San Antonio, TX (US);
Joshua J. Curtis, Huntsville, AL (US);
George T. McWilliams, Germantown, MD (US);
Kristopher C. Kozak, San Antonio, TX (US);
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX (US);
Abstract
A method for defining a following path for a following vehicle to autonomously follow a leader, the method including acquiring waypoints associated with a path that the leader traverses; filtering the acquired waypoints, wherein the filtering removes waypoints located outside an area of interest; generating intermediate waypoints by interpolating between adjacent pairs of the filtered waypoints if the adjacent pairs of the filtered waypoints are separated by a distance that exceeds a threshold distance; and defining a following path through the filtered waypoints and the intermediate waypoints using a least-squares spline fit to calculate the following path.