Patent ID: 8510029

Claim:
A method for defining a following path for a following vehicle to autonomously follow a leader, comprising: acquiring waypoints, said waypoints associated with a path that said leader traverses; filtering said acquired waypoints, wherein said filtering comprises identifying a preceding waypoint and a subsequent waypoint and removing waypoints that exceed a threshold number of degrees outside of a course heading defined by said preceding waypoint and subsequent waypoint, wherein said threshold number of degrees is in the range of one to ten degrees and is selected based on a speed of said leader and a waypoint acquisition sampling rate; generating intermediate waypoints by interpolating between adjacent pairs of said filtered waypoints if said adjacent pairs of said filtered waypoints are separated by a distance that exceeds a threshold distance; removing a previously acquired waypoint as a new waypoint is acquired, if said removal generates a course change exceeding five degrees; and defining a following path through said filtered waypoints and said intermediate waypoints using a least-squares spline fit to calculate said following path, wherein said following vehicle traverses said following path.