TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to operating autonomous vehicles. More particularly, embodiments of the disclosure relate to testing and implementation of sensor control systems.

BACKGROUND

Vehicles operating in an autonomous mode (e.g., driverless) can relieve occupants, especially the driver, from some driving-related responsibilities. When operating in an autonomous mode, the vehicle can navigate to various locations using onboard sensors, allowing the vehicle to travel with minimal human interaction or in some cases without any passengers.

Motion planning and control are critical operations in autonomous driving. However, conventional motion planning operations estimate the difficulty of completing a given path mainly from its curvature and speed, without considering the differences in features for different types of vehicles. Same motion planning and control is applied to all types of vehicles, which may not be accurate and smooth under some circumstances.

To implement motion planning, a sensor system gathers information about the environment surrounding the autonomous driving vehicle (ADV). The sensor system can include a global positioning system (GPS), a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system, a radio detection and ranging (RADAR) system, one or more cameras, an ultra-sound system, and other sensors. The sensors can be interfaced to a sensor interface within a computing system of the ADV. The sensor interface can include a proprietary printed circuit board (PCB) that is manufactured for use with the computing system.

In factory testing, a GPS signal may not be available for testing a sensor PCB of the ADV for at least the reasons that a GPS sensor is very expensive and requires a line of sight to a global positioning satellite that may not be available inside of a factory environment. Further, an entire sensor array, including GPS, LIDAR, RADAR, camera, inertial measurement unit, ultrasonic sensor(s), global navigation satellite system, temperature, humidiyy, and pressure sensors, and position sensors for throttle, barking, and steering of the ADV may be physically very large and difficult to connect to a sensor PCB without first installing the sensor PCB into the ADV. Installing the sensor PCB into the ADV in order to test that the sensor PCB has been manufactured correctly, and without defects, is an inefficient way to test the sensor PCB.2

