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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim priority based on provisional application filed on 05/16/2024.
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) 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et al (U.S. 2020/0363813) and further in view of YANG et al (2022/0135035).
1. As per claims 1 and 7 He disclosed an autonomously driving vehicle comprising: at least one environmental sensor [an autonomous vehicle can include a sensor system having one or more sensors that are configured to detect information about the environment in which the vehicle operates] (Paragraph. 0027);
a processor [Perception and planning system 110 includes the necessary hardware (e.g., processor(s), memory, storage) and software (e.g., operating system] (Paragraph. 0034);
a controller connected to a steering system [The vehicle and its associated controller(s) use the detected information to navigate through the environment] (Paragraph. 0027), a brake system, and an acceleration system [Control module 306 then generates one or more control commands (e.g., throttle, brake, steering control commands) based on the planning and control data of the current cycle] (Paragraph. 0049); a memory having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the controller to:
receive data corresponding to physical locations within an environment in which the vehicle is operating, at least one of the physical locations associated with a target location [ The location server provides location services and the MPOI server provides map services and the POIs of certain locations. Alternatively, such location and MPOI information may be cached locally in a persistent storage device of perception and planning system 110] (Paragraph. 0035);
determine a ground truth path within the environment, based on the plurality of GPS locations, wherein the ground truth path comprises a plurality of ground truth path locations [Localization module 301 determines a current location of autonomous vehicle 300 (e.g., leveraging GPS unit 212) and manages any data related to a trip or route of a user. Localization module 301 (also referred to as a map and route module) manages any data related to a trip or route of a user] (Paragraph. 0041);
obtain, using the at least one environmental sensor, a current vehicle location; determine an extrapolated vehicle location based on a plurality of operating parameters of the steering system, the brake system, and the acceleration system [Driving statistics 123 include information indicating the driving commands (e.g., throttle, brake, steering commands) issued and responses of the vehicles (e.g., speeds, accelerations, decelerations, directions) captured by sensors of the vehicles at different points in time. Driving statistics 123 may further include information describing the driving environments at different points in time, such as, for example, routes (including starting and destination locations)] (Paragraph. 0037);
compare the extrapolated vehicle location to each location of the plurality of ground truth path locations [Criteria determiner module 707 can contain a judgment logic to compare an output trajectory of an RL agent (as part of RL agents 721). The comparison can be based on a reference trajectory which can be an output trajectory from an optimization model (as part of optimization models 421 of FIG. 4). The judgment logic can determine if the comparison results in a difference below a threshold] (Paragraph. 0063);
output a throttle value, a steer value, and a brake value based on a closest location of the plurality of ground truth locations [Vehicle dynamic model 1301 can model a vehicle dynamics system. Model 1301 can include a bicycle vehicle model. Model 1301 can further model a slip of the tires to model the ADV. Based on model 1301, environment model 1300 can derive a number of discretized vehicle control options (e.g., steer, throttle, or brake) for discretized vehicle actions (e.g., u.sub.0 . . . u.sub.F) 1303. Based on the allowed control/action options 1303] (Paragraph. 0079); and
adjust the plurality of operating parameters of the steering system, the brake system [A steering sensor may be configured to sense the steering angle of a steering wheel, wheels of the vehicle, or a combination thereof. A throttle sensor and a braking sensor sense the throttle position and braking position of the vehicle] (Paragraph. 0031), and
However, He did not explicitly disclose the acceleration system based on the throttle value, the steer value, and the brake value.
In the same field of endeavor YANG disclosed, “In some embodiments, the one or more control signal values includes a steering angle value that steers the autonomous vehicle, a throttle value that adjusts a speed of the autonomous vehicle, or a braking value that adjusts an amount of brakes engaged by the autonomous vehicle” (Paragraph. 0007).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing was made to have incorporated in some embodiments, the one or more control signal values includes a steering angle value that steers the autonomous vehicle, a throttle value that adjusts a speed of the autonomous vehicle, or a braking value that adjusts an amount of brakes engaged by the autonomous vehicle as taught by YANG in the method and system of He to increase the efficiency of the autonomous driving system.
2. As per claim 2 He-Yang disclosed wherein the at least one environmental sensor comprises at least one of a camera, an infrared sensor, a radar system, or a GPS module (He, Paragraph. 0030).
3. As per claim 3 He-Yang disclosed wherein the plurality of operating parameters comprises a current throttle value, a current steer value, a current brake value, and a current velocity (He, Paragraph. 0037).
4. As per claim 4 He-Yang disclosed wherein the throttle value is computed by comparing the current throttle value and the current velocity to a target velocity (Yang, Paragraph. 0007). Claim 4 has the same motivation as to claim 1.
5. As per claim 5 He-Yang disclosed further comprising: a user interface, wherein the target velocity is received from a user via the user interface (He, Paragraph. 0053).
6. As per claim 6 He-Yang disclosed wherein the steer value comprises an angle, wherein the angle is computed by a difference between a first vector based on the current vehicle location and the extrapolated vehicle location, and a second vector based on the current vehicle location and a ground truth path location closest to the extrapolated vehicle location (He, Paragraph. 0052).
Conclusion
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/ADNAN M MIRZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3667
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