US 12,030,509 B1
Realism in log-based simulations
Carl Nygaard, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Zhenzhen Liu, Santa Clara, CA (US); and Constantin Scholl, Mountain View, CA (US)
Assigned to Waymo LLC, Mountain View, CA (US)
Filed by Waymo LLC, Mountain View, CA (US)
Filed on Nov. 25, 2020, as Appl. No. 17/104,016.
Int. Cl. B60W 50/06 (2006.01); B60W 30/09 (2012.01); B60W 30/095 (2012.01); B60W 30/18 (2012.01); B60W 60/00 (2020.01); G06F 30/20 (2020.01)
CPC B60W 50/06 (2013.01) [B60W 30/09 (2013.01); B60W 30/0956 (2013.01); B60W 30/18163 (2013.01); B60W 60/0015 (2020.02); B60W 60/0053 (2020.02); G06F 30/20 (2020.01); B60W 2520/10 (2013.01); B60W 2552/10 (2020.02); B60W 2552/53 (2020.02); B60W 2554/4026 (2020.02)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of generating simulations in order to evaluate software used to control autonomous vehicles in an autonomous driving mode, the method comprising:
identifying in log data, by one or more processors, an initial situation involving a certain kind of interaction between a vehicle operating in the autonomous driving mode and an object;
conducting, by the one or more processors, a search of the log data in order to identify log data for one or more similar situations based on characteristics of the initial situation;
retrieving, by the one or more processors, the one or more similar situations from the identified log data;
generating, by the one or more processors, a new simulation using the identified log data by inserting the object into the one or more similar situations; and
running, by the one or more processors, the new simulation in order to evaluate the software.