Patent ID: 9568916
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: B60W,G01C,G05D,G06K

Claim:
1. A self-driving road vehicle, comprising: a body; a locomotion system coupled to the body for accelerating, propelling and decelerating the vehicle along a roadway; a steering system coupled to the body for steering the vehicle; a sensor array carried by the body for sensing driving data, the sensor array having a sensor range; a control system carried by the body, wherein: the control system is coupled to the sensor array for receiving sensed driving data from the sensor array; the control system is coupled to the locomotion system for controlling the locomotion system; and the control system is coupled to the steering system for controlling the steering system; a data storage module coupled to and accessible by the control system, the data storage module storing at least one attributed roadway trajectory; each attributed roadway trajectory comprising: at least one ordered series of attributed roadway trajectory points, wherein for each ordered series of attributed roadway trajectory points: each attributed roadway trajectory point has a position in a terrestrial coordinate frame; each attributed roadway trajectory point has at least one roadway attribute having a respective attribute value; each attribute value representing a characteristic of a real-world roadway segment at a position on the real-world roadway segment that is spatially associated with the attributed roadway trajectory point; wherein the control system is configured to: obtain, for at least one of the attributed roadway trajectory points, at least one respective attribute value representing sensor-independent roadway data; use the at least one attribute value to adjust control of at least one of the locomotion system and the steering system; obtain the at least one respective attribute value representing sensor-independent roadway data while the position in the terrestrial coordinate frame of the respective at least one of the attributed roadway trajectory points corresponds to a terrestrial position outside of the sensor range of the sensor array; and use the at least one attribute value to adjust control of at least one of the locomotion system and the steering system while the position in the terrestrial coordinate frame of the respective at least one of the attributed roadway trajectory points corresponds to a terrestrial position outside of the sensor range of the sensor array.