Patents

Autonomous-vehicle inventions for decision making, negotiation, and fleet diagnostics.

This page summarizes granted and pending patent matters from my work in autonomous systems. The inventions span road-user interaction, lane-convergence decision making, and fleet-scale diagnostic classification for autonomy operations. Across these areas, the common theme is improving how autonomous fleets make safer decisions, negotiate with other road users, and turn fleet issues into actionable engineering work.

2 Granted Issued US patents in the impact-based autonomous-agent family

2 Pending Patent applications in lane-convergence control and fleet diagnostic classification

Decisions & Diagnostics On-road decision making and diagnostic triage methods for autonomy programs

Safety Methods aimed at safer negotiation, merging, issue triage, and public deployment

Granted Patent Family

Method and system for impact-based operation of an autonomous agent.

This invention family addresses how an autonomous agent evaluates the effect of its candidate behavior on nearby road users. The method compares simulated futures, measures the impact of ego behavior on surrounding agents, and supports policy selection that accounts for negotiation, progress, and safe interaction in complex environments. In deployed fleet contexts, this kind of impact modeling helps autonomous vehicles negotiate with other road users more predictably and navigate complex interaction scenarios where decision making is critical to safety and rider acceptance.

US 12,012,123 US 12,441,364

Status Issued US patents; continuation application in the same family.

Inventors Collin Johnson, Yash Bagla, Kapil Borle, Akshay Katpatal, Mahmood Mahmood, Edwin B. Olson.

Use Case Autonomous-vehicle negotiation and decision making around other road users in fleet operations.

System Impact Supports safer interaction policies for fleet vehicles operating in complex traffic negotiations.

Pending

Systems and methods for controlling a vehicle in lane convergence regions.

This pending patent matter focuses on decision making at zipper merges and lane convergence regions. The work supports autonomous vehicles in selecting behavior where right-of-way, gap availability, and interaction timing must be resolved under high-speed or urban driving constraints. The contribution is intended for fleet-scale autonomy: it helps vehicles reason through zipper-merge junctions and lane-convergence areas that are common, safety-sensitive parts of real road networks.

Status Pending.

Inventors Yash Bagla, Jacob Higgins.

Use Case Fleet-scale merge behavior and lane-convergence decision logic for autonomous vehicles.

System Impact Supports autonomous decision making at zipper-merge junctions across deployed fleet behavior.

Pending

Vector-based diagnostic classification system.

This pending patent matter concerns diagnostic classification for autonomy operations. The system uses vector representations to triage fleet issues, classify failures, and route problems to the teams best positioned to investigate and fix them. At fleet scale, this kind of classification helps turn thousands of events into structured signals so autonomy teams can identify, prioritize, and resolve issues faster.

Status Pending.

Inventors Yash Bagla, Yasser Beilouni, Kelly McGuire, James Neville.

Use Case Fleet issue triage, failure classification, prioritization, and escalation.

System Impact Helps convert thousands of fleet events into actionable engineering signals for safer autonomy.