INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-045959 filed on Mar. 13, 2019 including the specification, drawings and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to an information processing device and an autonomous traveling control system including the information processing device.

2. Description of Related Art

Recently, there is an autonomous vehicle that travels autonomously with no need for the driver to perform some of the driving operations. An autonomous vehicle is equipped with exterior monitoring cameras (hereinafter also simply referred to as a camera) for capturing the surroundings of the vehicle. This autonomous vehicle requires a technique for ensuring safe driving even if a communication failure occurs due to a failure in some apparatuses.

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2016-192028 (JP 2016-192028 A) discloses an autonomous driving control system that, when a part of the position estimation information cannot be acquired, determines whether the vehicle can be driven autonomously based on the remaining position estimation information that has been acquired.

SUMMARY

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2016-192028 (JP 2016-192028 A) does not disclose a technique for continuing autonomous driving when a camera mounted on an autonomous vehicle fails during autonomous driving. This means that, when an exterior monitoring camera on an autonomous vehicle fails during autonomous driving, there is a possibility that the vehicle's safe driving control and autonomous driving control will be affected.

The present disclosure provides a technique that can reduce an impact on safe driving control and autonomous driving control of a vehicle when an exterior monitoring camera mounted on an autonomous vehicle fails.

An information processing device according to one aspect of the present disclosure is an information processing device that sends control information necessary for autonomous driving to an autonomous vehicle on which exterior monitoring cameras are mounted. The information processing device includes a receiving unit configured to receive a signal sent from a wireless communication unit included in the autonomous vehicle, a failure determination unit configured to determine a failed vehicle based on the signal from the wireless communication unit wherein the failed vehicle includes at least one of the external monitoring cameras that has failed, a detection unit configured to detect a specific vehicle wherein the specific vehicle is a vehicle that is planned to travel on a route at least a section of which overlaps with a planned route of the failed vehicle beginning at a failure point of the failed vehicle that includes the at least one of the exterior monitoring cameras determined to be failed, and a sending unit configured to send travel control information to the failed vehicle wherein the travel control information instructs the failed vehicle to travel in front of or behind the specific vehicle.

According to this aspect, when an exterior monitoring camera mounted on an autonomous vehicle fails, the traveling of the vehicle including this failed exterior monitoring camera can be controlled in such a way that the failed vehicle travels in front of or behind a specific vehicle that is planned to travel on a route at least a section of which overlaps with the travel planned route of the failed vehicle beginning at the failure point. As a result, even when an exterior monitoring camera fails, the failed vehicle can continue autonomous driving, thus reducing the possibility that the failure will have a significant effect on vehicle's safe driving control and autonomous driving control.

According to the present disclosure, a technique is provided that can reduce an impact on safe driving control and autonomous driving control of a vehicle when an exterior monitoring camera mounted on an autonomous vehicle fails.

