Huawei's New Patent: Flexibly Adjusting Autonomous Driving Strategies Based On Driver Status

On June 20, it was reported that according to the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the patent of "vehicle control method and device" applied by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was announced a few days ago.

According to the patent abstract, the application provides a vehicle control method and device related to the field of autonomous driving technology, which can flexibly set autonomous driving strategies based on the driver's status information, and improve the user's autonomous driving experience.

The specific methods include obtaining the driver's status information and determining the driver's offline level. Among them, offline level is used to characterize the degree of distraction of the driver's attention. Adjust driving factors based on offline level, and then control the vehicle based on the adjusted driving factors.

It is reported that the patent does not limit the ways for drivers to obtain status information. It can be obtained through driver monitoring systems, combined with various technologies such as audio acquisition, image acquisition, neural network models, or through linkage with other devices. The driver's status information specifically includes one or more of their head posture, line of sight angle, frequency of yawning, and duration of eye closure, in order to determine the driver's level of distraction and fatigue, and thus evaluate their offline level.

It is worth mentioning that by flexibly setting the autonomous driving strategy based on the driver's status information, the vehicle does not directly exit the autonomous driving mode in scenarios where the driver's attention is briefly distracted, but maintains the activation status of the autonomous driving mode with a relatively conservative autonomous driving strategy, improving the continuity of the autonomous driving mode and thus enhancing the user's autonomous driving experience.

In addition, it is understood that this scheme is suitable for autonomous driving technology scenarios at L2 to L3 levels, supporting a smooth transition of autonomous driving technology from L2 to L3 levels by gradually increasing tolerance for driver distraction.