DETAILED 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 .
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) 1,2,4-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Universal Field Robots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PYY_8LNzc) in view of Japanese document (JP 5-25826).
Universal Field Robots discloses a method performed by an autonomous off-road vehicle (AOV), the method
comprising: autonomously loading a pile onto an arm of the AOV;
performing an autonomous pile movement operation for the loaded pile and using the
arm of the AOV (see youtube video). Universal Field Robots discloses the invention substantially as claimed. However, Universal Field Robots is silent about
determining whether at least one of one or more attributes of the pile is projected to
exceed a corresponding tolerance threshold using a set of sensors of the AOV; and autonomously stopping the autonomous pile movement operation in response to determining that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold before the at least one attribute exceeds the corresponding tolerance threshold.
Japanese document ‘826 teaches determining whether at least one of one or more attributes of the pile is projected (see abstract, assumed bearing force) to exceed a corresponding tolerance threshold (settling amount less than a certain value) using a set of sensors of the AOV (see Fig. 4); and autonomously stopping the autonomous pile movement operation in response to comparing that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile to a designed value. It would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Universal Field Robots to determining whether at least one of one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed a corresponding tolerance threshold using a set of sensors of the AOV; and autonomously stopping the autonomous pile movement operation in response to comparing that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile to a designed value as taught by Japanese document ‘826 since such a modification prevents unnecessary driving of the piles when it can safely support the solar panels.
It would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Universal Field Robots (as modified above) to stopping the autonomous pile movement when the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold before the at least one attribute exceeds the corresponding tolerance threshold since such a modification prevents unnecessary pile driving and potential damage (buckling) of the pile.
Re claim 2, wherein the autonomous pile movement operation is an autonomous pile driving operation of autonomously driving the loaded pile into ground at a
target location identified by a pile plan map (see Universal Field Robots video).
Re claim 4, it would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Universal Field Robots) as modified above to wherein determining whether the at least one of the
one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold comprises determining, at a predetermined frequency and during the autonomous pile movement operation, whether the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold since such a modification allows for the installed piles to meet the desired designed parameters more effectively.
Re claim 5, it would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Universal Field Robots) as modified above to wherein the one or more attributes include one or
more of a location and an orientation of the pile since the orientation of the pile affects the bearing capacity.
Re claim 6, further comprising: generating quality control condition data (see Japanese document, “measuring records”) in response to determining that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold.
Re claim 7, in response to determining that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold: flagging the quality control condition data and a corresponding target location identified by a pile plan map for manual inspection (see Japanese document, “notified a manager”).
Re claim 8, The method of claim 1, further comprising: autonomously adjusting one or more actuation parameters of one or more components of the AOV for the autonomous pile movement operation (this is considered as stopping the pile driving) in response to determining that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold.
Re claim 9, further comprising, after autonomously stopping the
autonomous pile movement operation: autonomously loading another pile onto the arm of the AOV; and performing the autonomous pile movement operation for the loaded other pile and using the arm of the AOV (see Universal Field Robots video, installing piles).
Re claim 10, further comprising: notifying an operator (see Japanese document ‘826) for manual intervention during the autonomous pile movement operation, in response to determining that the at least one of the one or more attributes of the pile is projected to exceed the corresponding tolerance threshold.
Claim(s) 11, 12,14-19, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Universal Field Robots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PYY_8LNzc) in view of Japanese document (JP 5-25826) and Japanese document (JP 2017066630)
Universal Field Robots (as modified above) discloses the invention substantially as claimed. However, Universal Field Robots (as modified above) is silent about including
a hardware processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed by the hardware processor, cause the hardware processor to perform steps disclosed above.
Japanese document ‘630 teaches it is known to have a hardware processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed by the hardware processor, cause the hardware processor to perform steps of installing piles. It would have been considered obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Universal Field Robots (as modified above) to include hardware processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed by the hardware processor, cause the hardware processor to perform steps as taught by Japanese document ‘826 since such computer hardware and software are conventional in autonomous pile driving.
Re claim 20, the combination of references above yield the claimed limitations called for in claim 20.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3,13 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SUNIL SINGH whose telephone number is (571)272-7051. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 8-3, F 9-8 and 2nd Sat 11-7.
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/SUNIL SINGH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3678
SS
9/19/2026
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