ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,698,005, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Inferring good user pickup locations from detected walking paths" was invented by William Zhou (Mountain View, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The technology involves identifying suitable pickup and drop-off locations based on detected pedestrian walking paths. Mapped areas have specific physical configurations, which may suggest places to pick up or drop off a rider (or a delivery). A walking path heatmap can be generated based on obtained historical and/or real-time pedestrian-related information, which can be obtained by autonomous vehicles driving in ...