GM has filed a patent application for a new remote autonomous vehicle towing system, adding to the automaker’s growing repertoire of AV tech features.
The GM patent filing has been assigned application number US 2023/0082897 A1 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and was published on March 16th, 2023. The patent was originally filed on September 10th, 2021, and lists several Michigan-based engineers as the inventors, including Rasoul Salehi, Yao Hu, Arun Adiththan, Yilu Zhang.
The patent describes a system whereby an autonomous vehicle with a non-functioning autonomous system and functioning drive system can be wirelessly “led” by a second autonomous vehicle to a set destination.
As the GM patent points out, it is possible that issues may arise in an AV’s autonomous systems that may render the vehicle unable to self-drive – for example, hardware problems with the sensor array, or software problems with the onboard algorithms. Although the AV may still have a functioning propulsion and chassis system, the AV system used to guide the propulsion system and chassis system may be rendered inoperable.
In a situation such as this, the GM patent describes a remote autonomous vehicle towing system whereby a secondary autonomous vehicle wirelessly assumes control of the inoperable AV system in the first vehicle, with the secondary tow vehicle wirelessly guiding the first vehicle to a set destination using the still-functioning AV system in the secondary tow vehicle.
This new system proposed by GM could prove beneficial in the event that an AV’s onboard autonomous system malfunctions, providing a quick solution and circumventing the need for a human pilot or tow vehicle that physically transports the inoperable AV to a set destination.
Indeed, as seen previously, GM’s autonomous vehicles, which are deployed by the GM’s autonomous vehicle division, Cruise, will occasionally fail, as evidenced by a string of road block incidents reported by GM Authority.
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Comments
Who is going to be able to afford all this crap on new vehicles anymore?
The government. That’s the point. You wont own cars and cities will shell out 500,000K per unit and it will be a taxis based system.
Nobody wants them, so stop AV funding and put the savings back into customers wallet. We are a society based on personal ownership.
GM should be led by real car guys,not some overeducated woman who knows nothing about the real world or the vehicles that belong there.
When it was ran by car guys and saturated with vehicles they thought people wanted but didn’t sell, they weren’t doing well. Now they are profitable and selling vehicles. So yeah, if you want GM around just let it ran how it has been. They can’t cater to a few people and expect to stay in business, they need to cater to the masses and unfortunately, the masses aren’t car guys. But they put out enough interesting products, just not so much the skunk works type vehicles that don’t sell.
OMG this is double dangerous!