Controlling an autonomous vehicle based upon a predicted imminent lane change

• Main Authors: Nitz, Ted, Harrington, Curt, Daily-Diamond, Christopher, Ward, Christopher
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 03.08.2021
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONJOINT CONTROL OF VEHICLE SUB-UNITS OF DIFFERENT TYPE ORDIFFERENT FUNCTION; CONTROL SYSTEMS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR HYBRID VEHICLES; CONTROLLING; COUNTING; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; REGULATING; ROAD VEHICLE DRIVE CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR PURPOSES NOT RELATED TOTHE CONTROL OF A PARTICULAR SUB-UNIT; SIGNALLING; SYSTEMS FOR CONTROLLING OR REGULATING NON-ELECTRIC VARIABLES; TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS; TRANSPORTING; VEHICLES IN GENERAL

An autonomous vehicle is described, wherein the autonomous vehicle is configured to estimate a change in direction of a vehicle that is on a roadway and is proximate to the autonomous vehicle. The autonomous vehicle has a mechanical system, one or more sensors that generate one or more sensor signals, and a computing system in communication with the mechanical system and the one or more sensors. The autonomous vehicle is configured to detect an imminent lane change by another vehicle based on at least one of a computed angle between a wheel of the other vehicle and a longitudinal direction of travel of the other vehicle, a degree of misalignment between the wheel of the other vehicle and a body of the other vehicle, and/or an eccentricity of the wheel of the other vehicle. The mechanical system of the autonomous vehicle is controlled by the computing system based upon the detected imminent lane change.