Patent ID: 8577517

Claim:
A method of operating a remote vehicle configured to communicate with an operator control unit, the method comprising: executing a click-to-drive behavior on a computing processor, the click-to-drive behavior comprising: receiving a picture or a video feed from at least one imaging device of the remote vehicle; and determining a drive destination in the received picture or video feed; executing a cruise control behavior on the computing processor, the cruise control behavior comprising: receiving an absolute heading command and a velocity command from the operator control unit, the absolute heading and velocity commands associated with a displayed picture or video feed on the operator control unit from the at least one imaging device of the remote vehicle; and computing a drive heading and a drive velocity using the absolute heading and velocity commands, a vehicle position at a capture time of the displayed picture or video feed, and a vehicle velocity at the capture time of the displayed picture or video feed; and executing a retro-traverse behavior on the computing processor when the remote vehicle ceases to receive a control signal from the operator control unit, the retro-traverse behavior comprising: generating a return path interconnecting in reverse order of timestamps at least two previously-traversed waypoints of a list of time-stamped waypoints stored in non-transitory memory; and executing a retro-traverse of the return path by navigating the remote vehicle successively to previous time-stamped waypoints in the waypoints list until a control signal is received from the operator control unit.