Let the Apple Car rumors roll on. Apple has been granted a patent (number 11,402,221) for an “autonomous navigation system.” If it ever arrives, such a vehicle will almost certainly be electric and at least partially self-driving.
About the patent
The rise of interest autonomous navigation of vehicles, including automobiles, has resulted in a desire to develop autonomous navigation systems which can autonomously navigate (i.e., autonomously “drive”) a vehicle through various routes, including one or more roads in a road network, such as contemporary roads, streets, highways, etc. However, in the patent data, Apple says that systems which can enable autonomous navigation, also referred to as autonomous driving, of a vehicle can be less than ideal.
In some cases, autonomous navigation is enabled via an autonomous navigation system which can process and respond to static features (e.g., roadway lanes, road signs, etc.) and dynamic features (present locations of other vehicles in a roadway on which the route extends, present environmental conditions, roadway obstructions, etc.) along a route in real-time as they are encountered, thereby replicating the real-time processing and driving capabilities of a human being.
Apple says that, however, the processing and control capabilities required to simulate such processing and responsive capability can be “impractical, if technically feasible, and the complexity and magnitude of computer systems required to be included in a vehicle to enable such real-time processing and responsiveness can present an unsuitably excessive investment in capital costs for each vehicle, thereby rendering the system impractical for usage on a wide scale.”
In other cases, autonomous navigation is enabled by developing a detailed map of various routes, including data indicating various features of the road (e.g., road signs, intersections, etc.), specifying various driving rules relative to the various routes (e.g., proper speed limits, lane changing speeds, lane locations, variations of driving rules based on various climate conditions and times of day, etc. for a given portion of a given route), and providing the map to autonomous navigation systems of various vehicles to enable the vehicles to autonomously navigate the various routes using the map.
However, Apple says that development of such a map can require “extensive expenditures” of time and effort, as developing sufficient data for an individual route can require dispatching a suite of sensors, which can be mounted in a dedicated sensor vehicle, to traverse a route and collect data regarding the various features included in the route, processing the collected data to develop a “map” of the route, determining appropriate driving rules for various portions of the route, and repeating the process for each of the individual routes included in the map. The tech giant adds that such a process can require an excessive expenditure of time and effort to develop a map characterizing multiple routes, particularly when the multiple routes span over some or all of the roadways in a major city, region, nation, etc.
In addition, as roadways can change over time, e.g. due to road construction, accidents, weather, seasonal occurrences, etc. such a map can unexpectedly become obsolete and unusable for safe autonomous navigation of a route. Updating a map can require dispatching a sensor suite to re-traverse the route, which can require an expenditure of time. Apple says that when such an expenditure is considered in view of the sheer volume of potential routes in a roadway network, particularly if multiple routes require updating simultaneously, updating a map of routes in a timely manner, such that vehicle users are not deprived of safe autonomous navigation capabilities, can be difficult.
Apple’s solution involves:
° A vehicle with sensor devices which monitor characteristics of the driving route based on the vehicle being navigated along the driving route;
° An autonomous navigation system which is interoperable with the sensor devices to: implement a succession of updates to a virtual characterization of the driving route;
° An autonomous navigation system configured to be installed in a vehicle and selectively enable autonomous navigation of the vehicle along a driving route.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “Some embodiments provide an autonomous navigation system which enables autonomous navigation of a vehicle along one or more portions of a driving route based on monitoring, at the vehicle, various features of the route as the vehicle is manually navigated along the route to develop a characterization of the route. The characterization is progressively updated with repeated manual navigations along the route, and autonomous navigation of the route is enabled when a confidence indicator of the characterization meets a threshold indication.
“Characterizations can be updated in response to the vehicle encountering changes in the route and can include a set of driving rules associated with the route, where the driving rules are developed based on monitoring the navigation of one or more vehicles of the route. Characterizations can be uploaded to a remote system which processes data to develop and refine route characterizations and provide characterizations to one or more vehicles.
When might we see an Apple Car?
On. Nov. 18, 2021, Bloomberg reported that Apple is accelerating development on its “Apple Car.” The article says the electric vehicle will be self-driving and could roll out in 2025.
What’s more, in a note to clients — as noted by AppleInsider — investment bank Wedbush says Apple is likely to announce a strategic electric vehicle partnership in 2022 to lay the groundwork for an “Apple Car” release in 2025.
