Patent ID: 11915490
Assignee: WAYMO LLC
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 8:
9. A system comprising:
one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
receiving a surfel map comprising a plurality of surfels generated by a plurality of vehicles obtaining sensor data in a driving environment, wherein:
each surfel corresponds to a respective different location in the environment; and
each surfel has associated data that comprises one or more semantic labels, wherein each semantic label represents a property of an object represented by the surfel;

obtaining, by a first vehicle, sensor data for a first location in the environment, the sensor data having been captured by one or more sensors of the first vehicle;
obtaining, from the surfel map generated by the plurality of vehicles obtaining sensor data in the driving environment, one or more surfels corresponding to the first location of the sensor data obtained by the first vehicle;
combining, by the first vehicle, the sensor data for the first location obtained by the first vehicle with surfel data associated with the one or more surfels obtained from the surfel map generated by the plurality of other vehicles to perform a label-specific detection process for the surfel that utilizes the one or more semantic labels associated with the surfel; and
based on an outcome of the label-specific detection process, updating or maintaining a planned path of travel for the first vehicle based on a comparison of one or more surfels to sensor data obtained by the first vehicle corresponding to locations of the one or more surfels.