Google was awarded US Patent 8,078,349 for driverless car

US Patent 8,078,349

Transitioning a mixed-mode vehicle to autonomous mode

Abstract

Disclosed are methods and devices for transitioning a mixed-mode autonomous vehicle from a human driven mode to an autonomously driven mode. Transitioning may include stopping a vehicle on a predefined landing strip and detecting a reference indicator. Based on the reference indicator, the vehicle may be able to know its exact position. Additionally, the vehicle may use the reference indictor to obtain an autonomous vehicle instruction via a URL. After the vehicle knows its precise location and has an autonomous vehicle instruction, it can operate in autonomous mode.

Inventors: Prada Gomez; Luis Ricardo (Hayward, CA), Fairfield; Nathaniel (Mountain View, CA), Szybalski; Andy (San Francisco, CA), Nemec; Philip (San Jose, CA), Urmson; Christopher (Mountain View, CA) Assignee: Google Inc. (Mountain View, CA) Appl. No.: 13/105,101 Filed: May 11, 2011

this sounds interesting: "In some embodiments, a URL stored as a QR Code may enable the autonomous vehicle to download new instructions." I wonder how that's going to work.