Skip to main content

Google patents bus detection system

Less than a month after one of its autonomous cars was in collision with a bus, Google has been awarded a patent for a bus detection system, Bus detection for an Autonomous Vehicle. The timing is coincidental, as Google is said to have applied for the patent in 2014. The patent, which focuses on school buses, describes the technology which should enable Google’s autonomous vehicles to recognise a large vehicle, compare it to known school bus sizes and colours and determine whether it is ‘representativ
March 18, 2016 Read time: 1 min
Less than a month after one of its autonomous cars was in collision with a bus, Google has been awarded a patent for a bus detection system, Bus detection for an Autonomous Vehicle.

The timing is coincidental, as Google is said to have applied for the patent in 2014.

The patent, which focuses on school buses, describes the technology which should enable Google’s autonomous vehicles to recognise a large vehicle, compare it to known school bus sizes and colours and determine whether it is ‘representative of a school bus’.

Related Content

  • New App alerts emergency services after a collision
    July 20, 2015
    Launched in time for the summer holiday season, Collision Call is a new app which automatically calls and alerts emergency services after a serious collision and sends an e-mail to family, work and friends, allowing them to take immediate action. The app measures G-forces which occur during a collision. If those forces exceed a certain level, dangerous to humans, the app automatically calls the alarm number in the relevant country and sends e-mails to programmed contacts. To prevent this from happening w
  • Cellint measures speed and travel time without roadside infrastructure
    April 10, 2014
    Collecting speed and travel time data without using roadside infrastructure could offer new possibilities to cash-strapped road authorities. Streaming video may be useful for traffic controllers to monitor incidents and automatic number plate recognition may be required for enforcement, but neither are necessary for many ITS functions. For instance travel times, tailbacks, percentage of vehicles turning, origin and destination analysis can all be done using Bluetooth and/or WI-Fi sensors and without video o
  • Align transport infrastructure needs with ITS offerings
    July 19, 2012
    Kallistratos Dionelis, General Secretary of ASECAP, ponders the absence of creativity and innovation in the road management sector. 'Traditional' road managers and ITS specialists share many of the same ultimate goals and yet, he says, a common understanding of what technology can achieve is still conspicuously absent.
  • Align transport infrastructure needs with ITS offerings
    July 19, 2012
    Kallistratos Dionelis, General Secretary of ASECAP, ponders the absence of creativity and innovation in the road management sector. 'Traditional' road managers and ITS specialists share many of the same ultimate goals and yet, he says, a common understanding of what technology can achieve is still conspicuously absent.