DETIALED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 of US Application No. 18/970,035, filed on 12/05/2024, are currently pending and have been examined.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 9, 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chi et al. (US 2023/0280748 A1, “Chi”).
Regarding claims 1, 9, and 17, systems for implementing fallback behaviors for autonomous vehicles and teaches:
A vehicle control apparatus, comprising: (The vehicle may have a plurality of computing systems, such as first computing systems 110, second computing system 120, and third computing system 130, each including one or more computing devices 112, 122, 132. Together, these computing systems and devices may function as an autonomous driving computing system incorporated into vehicle 100 – See at least ¶ [0020])
a first chip (Turning to FIG. 2, which provides additional details of the first, second and third computing systems, each of these computing devices 112, 122, 132 may include one or more processors 220, 221, 223, i.e., chips – See at least ¶ [0021] and [0024]) configured for supporting an intelligent driving function;
a second chip (Turning to FIG. 2, which provides additional details of the first, second and third computing systems, each of these computing devices 112, 122, 132 may include one or more processors 220, 221, 223, i.e., chips – See at least ¶ [0021] and [0024]) configured for supporting an intelligent cockpit function at least; and (Computing device 122 of computing system 120 may also include all of the components normally used in connection with a computing device such as the processor and memory described above as well as one or more user inputs 243 (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, touch screen and/or microphone) and various electronic displays (e.g., a monitor having a screen or any other electrical device that is operable to display information). In this example, the vehicle includes an internal electronic display 245 as well as one or more speakers 244 to provide information or audio-visual experiences. In this regard, internal electronic display 246 may be located within a cabin of vehicle 100 and may be used by computing device 122 to provide information to passengers within the vehicle 100 – See at least ¶ [0026])
a vehicle control unit configured for determining a current operating state of the first chip based on state indication information generated by the first chip for indicating the current operating state of the first chip; (Returning to FIG. 6, while this process is occurring, as shown in block 610, the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may monitor the messages sent from the first computing system to the second computing system, including the aforementioned error messages 520. These error messages may indicate errors in the first computing system. In this regard, the third computing system may determine whether an error is detected as shown in block 612. If no errors are detected, the third computing system may continue to monitor the messages – See at least ¶ [0053])
receiving a first control instruction outputted by the first chip in response to the current operating state being an available state, and controlling a driving state of the vehicle based on the first control instruction; and (The first computing system may include a highly sophisticated planner system, perception system, and software stacks. For instance, perception system of the first computing system may include different software modules designed to allow for the detection of different objects in the vehicle's environment. The software stack of the first computing system may use behavior models to predict how these objects are likely to behave for some period of time into the future. Similarly, the planner system of the first computing system may use these predictions and detailed map information in order to generate trajectories which allow the vehicle to conduct all types of maneuvers – See at least ¶ [0014]; When an error in the first computing system is detected, the third computing system may take over for the first computing system in order to generate trajectories for the second computing system – See at least ¶ [0017]; Here, the system uses the first computer system trajectories when the system is not in an error state, i.e., available. When the vehicle is in an error state, i.e., unavailable, the system implements the third computer system for determining the same trajectories and information as the first computer.)
receiving a second control instruction outputted by the second chip in response to the current operating state being an unavailable state, and controlling the driving state of the vehicle based on the second control instruction. (Based on the determination of how to generate trajectories and according to what functionality, the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may generate trajectories at block 618 as described above. As shown in block 620 and 606, these trajectories may be sent to and received by the computing devices 122 of computing system 120, for instance, via the trajectory messages 530 of FIG. 5. In response, as shown in block 608, the computing devices 112 may control the vehicle in the autonomous driving mode according to the received trajectory. For instance as noted above, the computing devices 112 may control the vehicle to follow the trajectory by sending commands to control the actuators of the deceleration system 140, acceleration system 150, steering system 170, and/or power system 160 – See at least ¶ [0060]; Examiner notes that while the above refers to computing devices 112 as controlling a vehicle, that appears to be a typo and computing devices 122 of computer 2 are controlling the vehicle – See at least Fig. 1 and 6)
Regarding claims 2, 10, and 18, Chi further teaches:
outputting, by the vehicle control unit, state indication information corresponding to the unavailable state in response to the current operating state being the unavailable state; and (Referring to FIG. 5, the computing devices 112 of the first computing system 110 may send trajectory messages 510 including trajectories and error messages 520 including errors to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120 – See a least ¶ [0048])
receiving, by the vehicle control unit, the second control instruction outputted by the second chip, and controlling the driving state of the vehicle based on the second control instruction. (In addition, these messages, and in particular the error messages 520 may be received by the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130. The computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may also send trajectory messages 530 to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120. In some instances, the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may also send command messages 540 and/or command messages 550 to the computing devices 112 of the first computing system 110 and to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120 – See at least ¶ [0048])
Regarding claims 3, 11, and 19, Chi further teaches:
acquiring, by the second chip, data collected by first sensors; and (In some instances, when an error in the first computing system 110 is detected, the third computing system 130 may also assess the functionality of available sensors of the vehicle in order to determine what if any types of location the vehicle should avoid – See at least ¶ [0059])
generating, by the second chip, a first environmental perception result based on the data collected by the first sensors; (the sensors include cameras and lidar which generates an environmental perception – See at least ¶ [0028])
wherein receiving, by the vehicle control unit, a second control instruction outputted by the second chip in response to the current operating state being an unavailable state, further comprises: (Referring to FIG. 5, the computing devices 112 of the first computing system 110 may send trajectory messages 510 including trajectories and error messages 520 including errors to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120 – See a least ¶ [0048])
receiving, by the vehicle control unit, the second control instruction generated by the second chip based on the first environmental perception result in response to the current operating state being the unavailable state. (In addition, these messages, and in particular the error messages 520 may be received by the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130. The computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may also send trajectory messages 530 to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120. In some instances, the computing devices 132 of the third computing system 130 may also send command messages 540 and/or command messages 550 to the computing devices 112 of the first computing system 110 and to the computing devices 122 of the second computing system 120 – See at least ¶ [0048]; Examiner notes that the trajectories are generated based on the sensor data – See at least ¶ [0003])
Regarding claims 4, 12, and 20, Chi further teaches:
acquiring, by the second chip, data collected by a first number of first sensors when the state indication information corresponding to the unavailable state is not received; and (In some instances, when an error in the first computing system 110 is detected, the third computing system 130 may also assess the functionality of available sensors of the vehicle in order to determine what if any types of location the vehicle should avoid. at is one of the primary sensors for that use case. In other words, there may be a hierarchy of road scopes requiring different types of functionality, and if the vehicle does not have the functionality required for a certain road scope, the third computing system may avoid areas having that road scope. For instance, certain types of failures, such as power system or individual sensor problems, may reduce the vehicle's capability of detecting objects in the vehicle's environment at certain locations – See at least ¶ [0059])
receiving, by the second chip, the state indication information corresponding to the unavailable state, and acquiring data collected by a second number of the first sensors, the second number being greater than the first number. (In this regard, the third computing system 130 may determine which of the vehicle's sensors are still functional and generate trajectories accordingly. For example, if a rear-left corner radar of the vehicle 100 has been compromised (i.e. is no longer functioning to operating specifications), then lane changes to the left on high speed roads may be avoided, since the rear-left corner radar may be important for such maneuvers – See at least ¶ [0059]; Examiner notes that in this example only one sensor is damaged and the other sensors can be used for trajectory/navigation, i.e., the number of working sensors is greater than the number of non-working sensors.)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 6, 7, 14, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chi, as applied to claims 1 and 9, in further view of Hilger et al. (US 2024/0182051 A1, “Hilger”).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Chi does not explicitly teach receiving, by the vehicle control unit, a first cockpit control instruction generated by the second chip in response to the current operating state being the available state, and controlling a cockpit of the vehicle based on the first cockpit control instruction. However, Hilger discloses an apparatus and method for dynamically matching an operator electronic control unit of a vehicle to a current functional state of vehicle functions and teaches:
receiving, by the vehicle control unit, a first cockpit control instruction generated by the second chip in response to the current operating state being the available state, and controlling a cockpit of the vehicle based on the first cockpit control instruction. (The electronic control unit is configured to control the operator electronic control unit in such a way that the ascertained current functional state can be output, or is output, by the operator electronic control unit. The output of the current functional state by the operator electronic control unit can comprise in particular outputting or displaying operator control elements of the operator electronic control unit that facilitate operation of a particular one of the vehicle functions that are part of the ascertained functional state of the operator electronic control unit – See at least ¶ [0026]-[0027])
In summary, Chi discloses a system with multiple chips and a user interface within the cockpit used to receive user commands and output data. (¶ [0026]) Chi does not explicitly teach that the data displayed relates to the current operating state being the available state. However, Hilger discloses an apparatus and method for dynamically matching an operator electric control unit of a vehicle to a current functional state of vehicle functions and teaches outputting to a displace whether or not a function or state is available.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to have modified the systems for implementing fallback behaviors for autonomous vehicles of Chi to provide for the apparatus and method for dynamically matching an operator electric control unit of a vehicle to a current functional state of vehicle functions, as taught in Hilger, so allow an up-to-date output or display of operator control elements that facilitate the operation of currently available vehicle functions using the operator electronic control unit to be provided on the operator electronic control unit. (At Hilger ¶ [0028])
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Chi does not explicitly teach, but Hilger further teaches:
receiving, by the vehicle control unit, the second control instruction generated by the second chip based on a second resource in response to the current operating state being the unavailable state, receiving a second cockpit control instruction generated by the second chip based on a first resource, and controlling the cockpit of the vehicle based on the second cockpit control instruction. (The electronic control unit is configured to control the operator electronic control unit in such a way that the ascertained current functional state can be output, or is output, by the operator electronic control unit. The output of the current functional state by the operator electronic control unit can comprise in particular outputting or displaying operator control elements of the operator electronic control unit that facilitate operation of a particular one of the vehicle functions that are part of the ascertained functional state of the operator electronic control unit – See at least ¶ [0026]-[0027]; Examiner notes that if a function is not available then it is not displayed as available, this produces the “second” cockpit control instruction.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to have modified the systems for implementing fallback behaviors for autonomous vehicles of Chi to provide for the apparatus and method for dynamically matching an operator electric control unit of a vehicle to a current functional state of vehicle functions, as taught in Hilger, so allow an up-to-date output or display of operator control elements that facilitate the operation of currently available vehicle functions using the operator electronic control unit to be provided on the operator electronic control unit. (At Hilger ¶ [0028])
Claim(s) 8 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chi, as applied to claims 1 and 9, in further view of Li et al. (US 2021/0331687 A1, “Li”).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Chi does not explicitly teach restarting, by the vehicle control unit, the first chip in response to the current operating state being the unavailable state; and receiving, by the vehicle control unit, the first control instruction outputted by the first chip again after the first chip is restarted successfully, and controlling the driving state of the vehicle based on the first control instruction. However, Li discloses methods and devices for control an autonomous driving vehicle and teaches:
restarting, by the vehicle control unit, the first chip in response to the current operating state being the unavailable state; and (It can be seen from the above that in the embodiment of the present invention, the error information of different components in the vehicle is detected, wherein the different components comprise at least one of the following: a power supply, a sensor, a navigation device, a log memory, and a processing device; if error information of any one component is detected, feedback the detected error information to the processor; restart the vehicle' automatic driving function based on a feedback result, wherein the feedback result is feedback by the processor according the detected error information – See at least ¶ [0036])
receiving, by the vehicle control unit, the first control instruction outputted by the first chip again after the first chip is restarted successfully, and controlling the driving state of the vehicle based on the first control instruction. (In an optional embodiment, the method for con trolling an autonomous driving vehicle may further include: acquiring different reset instructions, wherein the different reset instructions are configured to control different components in the vehicle to reset, and the different reset instructions comprises reset priorities; controlling a corresponding component to reset according to the reset priorities of the different reset instructions; when the corresponding component is successfully reset, restarting the corresponding com ponent to enter a working mode – See at least ¶ [0052])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to have modified the systems for implementing fallback behaviors for autonomous vehicles of Chi to provide for the method and device for control an autonomous driving vehicle, as taught in Li, so that the technical effect of improving the reliability of the vehicle is achieved. (At Li ¶ [0037])
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for indicating allowance:
The closest prior art of reference is Chi et al. (US 2023/0406359 A1) which discloses systems for implementing fallback behaviors for autonomous vehicles and teaches a plurality of chips sending and receiving data between each other to determine the error status of a first chip. Based on this information the system may adjust its autonomous driving modes.
With respect to claim 1, Chi taken either individually or in combination other prior art of record fails to teach or suggest: “…verifying, by the first chip, the second environmental perception result based on the first environmental perception result, to obtain a verification result; and generating and outputting, by the first chip, the first control instruction based on the second environmental perception result in response to the verification result characterizing that verification of the second environmental perception result passes.” in combination with the remaining elements and features of the claimed invention. It is for those reasons that the Applicant’s invention defines over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is Fasola et al. (US 2023/0406359 A1) which discloses collision imminent detection and teaches a plurality of perception systems which check the validity of the detection results of the perception systems.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHASE L COOLEY whose telephone number is (303)297-4355. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 7-5MT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aniss Chad can be reached at 571-270-3832. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/C.L.C./Examiner, Art Unit 3662
/ANISS CHAD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3662