TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to assisted driving, and more specifically to collision avoidance.

BACKGROUND

During normal operation, autonomous vehicles may encounter situations that they are not configured to handle properly. Existing autonomous driving solutions are not mature enough to be able to properly handle all of the various edge cases that occur on the road, particularly in complex environments such as city centers, business districts, enterprise campuses, and the like. Some particular examples of edge cases that are difficult for existing solutions to handle include following instructions from police officers guiding traffic, navigating around construction sites, navigating in areas lacking high definition map data, navigating in areas with inaccurate map data, mismatches between posted speed limits and actual speeds of typical drivers, maneuvering in parking lots with many parked cars, determining whether an obstacle in the road can be safely driven over (e.g., a fallen tree branch which would not affect the vehicle), and the like.

In order to handle these edge cases, some existing solutions utilize a remote human operator situated in a control center. A bi-directional communication link is established between the vehicle and a computing device operated by the remote human operator. Through this bi-directional communication link, the remote human operator receives video and other sensory data related to the vehicle's surroundings (e.g., data from internal and external cameras, Light Detection and Ranging [LiDAR] sensors, ultrasonic sensors, odometry sensors, etc.). The remote human operator provides inputs to the vehicle instructing the vehicle to perform actions to avoid risks.

Further, some existing solutions provide passive warning systems to aid the human operator. For example, lane-keeping warning systems alert the operator of unintended lane departures and forward collision warning systems indicate when, based on the current driving decisions, a collision is likely imminent. In such passive warning systems, the operator needs to actually make the driving decisions to return to their lane or avoid the risk of collision.

In contrast to passive warning systems, active safety systems take action when a risk is imminent. For example, forward collision warning systems identify imminent collisions and brake without any intervention by a human operator. Likewise, collision avoidance for intersection systems identify when another vehicle is approaching the intersection that will not allow for safe entrance and brakes in order to prevent the operator from causing the vehicle to enter the intersection.

In existing advanced driver assistance systems, the human operator is typically given priority over the passive warning systems or active safety systems. For example, the human operator may ignore the passive warnings or override the driving decisions of the active safety systems based on a misunderstanding of the risks around the vehicle.

Although remote human operators allow for handling edge cases that existing solutions cannot handle, use of human operators introduces new possibilities of human error. Human operators may be affected by disadvantages such as fatigue, distraction, and the like. Further, when remote operators switch between multiple vehicles in a short time period, they may become disoriented and mix up vehicle circumstances.

Additionally, when latency is high, communications between the remote human operator and the vehicle may be delayed and, therefore, prevent the human operator from relaying instructions quickly enough to avoid an accident.

It would therefore be advantageous to provide a solution that would overcome the challenges noted above.

SUMMARY

A summary of several example embodiments of the disclosure follows. This summary is provided for the convenience of the reader to provide a basic understanding of such embodiments and does not wholly define the breadth of the disclosure. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated embodiments, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all embodiments nor to delineate the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later. For convenience, the term “some embodiments” or “certain embodiments” may be used herein to refer to a single embodiment or multiple embodiments of the disclosure.

Certain embodiments disclosed herein include a method for collision warning. The method comprises: calculating a dynamic trajectory of a vehicle, the vehicle including at least one camera for capturing visual multimedia content, wherein the dynamic trajectory indicates a projected movement path of the vehicle, wherein the dynamic trajectory is calculated based on a respective stopping distance and a radius of movement determined for the vehicle; generating an overlay based on the at least one dynamic trajectory, wherein the overlay indicates at least one risk, wherein each of the at least one risk is located within the at least one dynamic trajectory; and applying the overlay to the visual multimedia content.

Certain embodiments disclosed herein also include a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing a processing circuitry to execute a process, the process comprising: calculating a dynamic trajectory of a vehicle, the vehicle including at least one camera for capturing visual multimedia content, wherein the dynamic trajectory indicates a projected movement path of the vehicle, wherein the dynamic trajectory is calculated based on a respective stopping distance and a radius of movement determined for the vehicle; generating an overlay based on the at least one dynamic trajectory, wherein the overlay indicates at least one risk, wherein each of the at least one risk is located within the at least one dynamic trajectory; and applying the overlay to the visual multimedia content.

Certain embodiments disclosed herein also include a system for collision warning. The system comprises: a processing circuitry; and a memory, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the system to: calculate a dynamic trajectory of a vehicle, the vehicle including at least one camera for capturing visual multimedia content, wherein the dynamic trajectory indicates a projected movement path of the vehicle, wherein the dynamic trajectory is calculated based on a respective stopping distance and a radius of movement determined for the vehicle; generate an overlay based on the at least one dynamic trajectory, wherein the overlay indicates at least one risk, wherein each of the at least one risk is located within the at least one dynamic trajectory; and apply the overlay to the visual multimedia content.

