Automotive Engineering - August 2021 - 26

BOOSTING PATENTS
ADVANCED R&D FEATURE
during the
pandemic
" detecting other road users and making predictions about what another
vehicle or object is going to do, so our planner can integrate
that information. "
Ostafew voiced frustration about some current driver assistance
systems that are imprecise and unreliable. " Ideas I have for the trajectory
planner are guided by the notion that you shouldn't keep
making the same mistake, " he asserted.
A significant workaround that benefited his patent work during the
Cenk Gumeci's SOFC patent was enabled by a " one team "
philosophy across Nissan's technology pillars, noted his
colleague, battery expert Dianne Atienza.
planner algorithm gets handed off to the system's " reactive
layer, " which monitors the driving situation significantly
faster than the trajectory planner. It constantly
looks for changes and deviations to that plan.
" So, if a vehicle cuts in ahead of you unpredicted, or
something comes out of occlusion that modifies the
plan, the reactive layer then modifies the piece, "
Ostafew explained. The trajectory planner is the base
layer, needed to handle static objects, moving objects,
and other components. The team is now focused on
integrating the 'world model'. Its role, Ostafew said, is
lockdown was having access to a simulator, developed in-house for a
previous project. It was on the shelf, and came in handy when lockdown
arrived and the AV road-test fleet became unavailable.
" When COVID hit in February 2020, everybody scrambled to work
at home-but we were able to use the simulator for free, without licenses, "
Ostafew said. " So compared to our group at YM0 in Japan,
we were able to keep developing using the simulations for the algorithms
we were working on. Our managers were surprised at how far
along we were, and how fast we were moving in simulation. "
After their experiences during the pandemic, the Nissan technology
experts are looking forward to being able to work together again
in person - " to walk around the building and see what the engineers
are working on. It helps us in finding where to look to identify patentable
ideas, " said Ostafew.
Clark agreed, noting the value of " meeting with our researchers
face-to-face and really seeing the new technology up close again. "
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Automotive Engineering - August 2021

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