Patent Hints at Amazon Self-Driving Delivery Truck Plans
While tech titans such as Google, Uber, and Apple along with virtually every auto-maker on the planet have poured resources into the development of autonomous vehicle engineering, online retail behemothic Amazon has been relatively quiet on that front end. However, a recently canonical patent shows the Seattle-based company could exist set up to make a big move in the autonomous vehicle space.
The patent doesn't suggest that Amazon plans to sell self-driving cars through Amazon Prime. Now, imagine having a new car delivered to your door autonomously. Nor will it enter the ride-sharing market to compete confronting Uber or produce technology that goes into cocky-driving cars, similar Google's latest autonomous vehicle pin.
Instead the patent, titled 'Lane Assignments for Autonomous Vehicles', reveals a bigger-picture play that fits with Amazon'south business strategy to deliver goods more efficiently. In particular, it provides a way to communicate with self-driving vehicles so they can adjust to changes in traffic flow when navigating what's known as reversible lanes that switch direction depending on the volume of the traffic flow and are often used to manage vehicle travel in and out of urban areas.
The patent, which had originally been filed in November 2022 but granted earlier this week, noted that autonomous vehicles "may not have information about reversible lanes when approaching a portion of a roadway" that uses them. Equally is, it provides a glimpse of why Amazon would want to command traffic patterns as they relate to self-driving cars.
Anticipating Reversible Lanes
There's the obvious safety benefit of having self-driving cars—or in Amazon's example, autonomous delivery trucks and vans—not driving the incorrect way in traffic and causing a head-on collision. Since information technology is non able to conceptualize reversible lanes, information technology also ways delivery trucks can't optimise their routes in accelerate and, thus, they'll spend more fourth dimension in traffic. This is something Amazon wants to avert.
Another interesting twist is that the division of Amazon leading its autonomous-vehicle inquiry is its drone project, Amazon Prime Air. One of the inventors listed on the patent, Jim Curlander, is a Technical Adviser at Prime Air.
It'south like shooting fish in a barrel to put the pieces together based on the recent Amazon patent and come across it as a fashion for self-driving trucks to move goods more efficiently to consumers—and somewhen eliminate delivery drivers. Withal, I do believe in that location's something larger at play here.
When Amazon entered markets such as streaming content or Deject Services, the online retail giant has made a pregnant impact. With this patent, Amazon is non only extending its influence to self-driving technology and to the delivery business, it is also monitoring how traffic moves in and out of cities—and figuring out what is best for controlling self-driving cars.
Virtually Doug Newcomb
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/cars-auto/13538/patent-hints-at-amazon-self-driving-delivery-truck-plans
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