Patent Application
20200264620
The present subject matter is related in general to image processing and segmentation, more particularly, but not exclusively to a method and system for determining drivable road regions for safe navigation of an autonomous vehicle.
In recent time, with rapid advancement in automobile industry, road safety has gained a lot of importance. Detecting road region for day and night lighting conditions is at most important for safe navigation of vehicles. Generally, detection of road region works well for day lighting conditions using input color images. However, it becomes very difficult to do the same on night lighting conditions as it is dependent on other inputs from other sub system such as, navigation stack powered by Global Positioning System (GPS), lidar sensors and other sensors for various predictions.
Currently, in the conventional system, multiple disparate sub-systems such as, cameras, lidars and sonars are integrated and used in the autonomous vehicles for road boundary detection and navigation. However, there exist huge challenges in integrating all the sub-subsystems due to difference in format of data of the sub-systems. In addition, each of the sub-systems are dependent on each other. Hence, if any one sub-system fails, then whole system may fail to navigate the autonomous vehicle. Also, on night lighting conditions, it is arduous to recognize road regions in small detected region of interest from images. Further, these small regions of interest within the images should provide very precise information such as, left road boundary, right road boundary, lane information, angle of curvature of the road and the like about road features. Typically, for night lighting condition, Infrared Radiation (IR) camera images may be used for detecting road regions. The IR camera stores information in a single channel data (such as, gray scale or single dimensional image). Thus, the IR camera does not have depth and gradients information. Such data poses a greater challenge, to make machine learning technique to learn features of road region. Hence, usage of IR images results in very low accuracy in predictions of road region. In addition, in IR images of road, while considering a small fixed region of interest, in field of view of the camera over multiple successive frames, a difference in road region are minimal with respect to current road, thus making the images less scale variance.
The information disclosed in this background of the disclosure section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.
In an embodiment, the present disclosure may relate to a method for determining drivable road regions for safe navigation of an autonomous vehicle. The method includes receiving real-time images of a road in which an autonomous vehicle is travelling, from one or more image sensors, associated with the autonomous vehicle. Each of the real-time images of the road is segmented into polygon regions and trend lines to obtain a plurality of features associated with the road using a pre-trained road segmentation model. The road segmentation model is trained with a machine learning technique, using a plurality of training images marked with road features, polygon regions and trend lines. The method includes identifying orientation of the road in the real-time images to be one of, a linear orientation and a non-linear orientation based on a slope measured between successive intermediate points distributed evenly on the trend lines. Further, the method includes managing redistribution of the intermediate points on the trend lines based on the orientation of the road. Thereafter, the method includes identifying paired points from the intermediate points redistributed on the trend lines. The paired points are connected using a horizontal line to determine the drivable road regions for the autonomous vehicle.
In an embodiment, the present disclosure may relate to a road region determination system for determining drivable road regions for safe navigation of an autonomous vehicle The road region determination system may include a processor and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, where the memory stores processor executable instructions, which, on execution, may cause the road region determination system to receive real-time images of a road in which an autonomous vehicle is travelling, from one or more image sensors, associated with the autonomous vehicle. The road region determination system segments each of the real-time images of the road into polygon regions and trend lines to obtain a plurality of features associated with the road using a pre-trained road segmentation model. The road segmentation model is trained with a machine learning technique, using a plurality of training images marked with road features, polygon regions and trend lines. Further, the road region determination system identifies orientation of the road in the real-time images to be one of a linear orientation and a non-linear orientation based on a slope measured between successive intermediate points distributed evenly on the trend lines. Based on the orientation of the road, the road region determination system manages redistribution of the intermediate points on the trend lines. Thereafter, the road region determination system identifies paired points from the intermediate points redistributed on the trend lines. The paired points are connected using a horizontal line to determine the drivable road regions for the autonomous vehicle.
The foregoing summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. In addition to the illustrative aspects, embodiments, and features described above, further aspects, embodiments, and features will become apparent by reference to the drawings and the following detailed description.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate exemplary embodiments and, together with the description, serve to explain the disclosed principles. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout the figures to reference like features and components. Some embodiments of system and/or methods in accordance with embodiments of the present subject matter are now described, by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying figures, in which:
It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any block diagrams herein represent conceptual views of illustrative systems embodying the principles of the present subject matter. Similarly, it will be appreciated that any flow charts, flow diagrams, state transition diagrams, pseudo code, and the like represent various processes which may be substantially represented in computer readable medium and executed by a computer or processor, whether or not such computer or processor is explicitly shown.
In the present document, the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodiment or implementation of the present subject matter described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments.
While the disclosure is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiment thereof has been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail below. It should be understood, however that it is not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the disclosure is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternative falling within the scope of the disclosure.
The terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or any other variations thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a setup, device or method that comprises a list of components or steps does not include only those components or steps but may include other components or steps not expressly listed or inherent to such setup or device or method. In other words, one or more elements in a system or apparatus proceeded by “comprises . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of other elements or additional elements in the system or method.
In the following detailed description of the embodiments of the disclosure, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the disclosure may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the disclosure, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. The following description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense.
Embodiments of the present disclosure relates to a method and a road region determination system for determining drivable road regions for safe navigation of an autonomous vehicle. In an embodiment, the autonomous vehicle refers to a driverless vehicle. At any instance of time while the autonomous vehicle is moving, real-time images of road in which the autonomous vehicle is travelling is received from one or more image sensors associated with the autonomous vehicle. The present disclosure segments the real-time images of the road into polygon regions and trend lines based on a road segmentation model. In an embodiment, the road segmentation model is trained using a plurality of training images by making use of machine learning technique. Based on the segmentation, orientation of the road in the real-time images is determined to be either linear orientation and non-linear orientation. The road region determination system determines the drivable road regions based on the segmentation and orientation of the road. The present disclosure enables the autonomous vehicle to have multiple fail-safe mechanism to detect drivable road regions.
As shown in
In one embodiment, the road region determination system 101 may include, but is not limited to, a laptop, a desktop computer, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a notebook, a smartphone, a tablet, a server, Electronic Controller Unit (ECU) associated with navigation unit of the autonomous vehicle 103, and any other computing devices. A person skilled in the art would understand that, any other devices, not mentioned explicitly, may also be used as the road region determination system 101 in the present disclosure. In an embodiment, the road region determination system 101 may be integrated within the autonomous vehicle 103 or may be configured to function as a standalone system.
Further, the road region determination system 101 may include an I/O interface 109, a memory 111 and a processor 113. The I/O interface 109 may be configured to receive the real-time images of the road from the one or more image sensors 105 associated with the autonomous vehicle 103. The real-time images of the road received from the I/O interface 109 may be stored in the memory 111. The memory 111 may be communicatively coupled to the processor 113 of road region determination system 101. The memory 111 may also store processor instructions which may cause the processor 113 to execute the instructions for determining drivable road regions for safe navigation of an autonomous vehicle 103.
While the autonomous vehicle 103 is moving on a road, the road region determination system 101 determines the lighting condition in current location of the autonomous vehicle 103 based on inputs received from one of a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit, a light flux measurement sensor and a weather forecast unit (not shown explicitly in
The light flux measurement sensor may be used to measure light intensity for both day and night lighting conditions. The weather forecast unit streams weather forecast for the current location determined using the GPS unit. The lighting condition may be determined as for example, day lighting condition, night lighting condition and the like. Based on the lighting condition in the current location, the road region determination system 101 receives the real-time images of the road in which the autonomous vehicle 103 is travelling from the one or more image sensors 105. In other words, the road region determination system 101 may trigger the one or more image sensors 105 based on the lighting condition determined for the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103. For instance, the IR camera provides IR images, and hence may be triggered for providing the real-time images of the road for the night lighting conditions. Similarly, the color camera provides color images, and hence may be triggered for providing the real-time images of the road for the day lighting conditions. The road region determination system 101 may segment each of the real-time images of the road into polygon regions and trend lines. In an embodiment, the polygon regions may include an entire road polygon region, left road polygon region and right road polygon region. In an embodiment, the trend lines may include a left trend line and a right trend line which are identified on the left road polygon region and the right road polygon region respectively.
The road region determination system 101 segments the real-time images of the road to obtain a plurality of features associated with the road using a pre-trained road segmentation model. In an embodiment, the plurality of features associated with the road includes type of road based on material used in the road, such as, bituminous road, WBM road, limestone road and the like and colour of road. A person skilled in the art would understand that any other features of the road, not mentioned explicitly, may also be used in the present disclosure. In an embodiment, the road segmentation model is trained based on a machine learning technique, using a plurality of training images which are annotated with road features, polygon regions and trend lines manually. A person skilled in the art would understand that any machine learning technique may also be used by the road region determination system 101 in the present disclosure. Further, the road region determination system 101 distributes intermediate points evenly on the left trend line and the right trend line.
Subsequently, the road region determination system 101 may identify an orientation of the road in the real-time images based on a slope measured between successive intermediate points which are distributed evenly on the left trend line and the right trend line. The orientation of the road may be identified as one of a linear orientation and a non-linear orientation. The orientation of the road may be linear orientation when the slope between each successive intermediate point is within a predefined threshold range of slope. Alternatively, the orientation of the road may be the non-linear orientation when the slope between each of the successive intermediate point is beyond the predefined threshold range of slope. Further, the road region determination system 101 may manage redistribution of the intermediate points on the trend lines based on identification of the orientation of the road. In an embodiment, when the orientation of the road is identified as non-linear orientation, the road region determination system 101 may alter the distribution of the intermediate points by placing more intermediate points on curved region of the road. Alternatively, on identifying the orientation of the road to be linear, the road region determination system 101 may maintain the evenly distribution of the intermediate points. Thereafter, the road region determination system 101 may identify paired points from the intermediate points redistributed on the trend lines, such that, the paired points are connected using a horizontal line to determine the drivable road regions for the autonomous vehicle 103. In an embodiment, the paired points of the intermediate point are identified by connecting each intermediate point on the left trend line with corresponding intermediate point on the right trend line with the horizontal line. In an embodiment, the road regions include a left road boundary region, a right road boundary region and an angle of curvature of the road.
The road region determination system 101 may include data 200 and one or more modules 209 which are described herein in detail. In an embodiment, data 200 may be stored within the memory 111. The data 200 may include, for example, location data 201, road images 203, road feature data 205, training dataset 207 and other data 208.
The location data 201 may include the data from the GPS unit, the light flux measurement sensor and the weather forecast unit which are communicatively connected with the autonomous vehicle 103. The location data 201 may be used to determine the lighting condition in the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103. For instance, the data from the GPS unit may include the latitude and longitude coordinates which are used to locate the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103. The data from the light flux measurement sensor may include values of light intensity measured for both day and night lighting conditions. Further, the data from the weather forecast unit may include weather information for the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103.
The road images 203 may include the real-time images of the road in which the autonomous vehicle 103 is currently traveling. The real-time images of the road may be received from the one or more image sensors 105 based on the lighting condition detected based on the location data 201. For example, when the lighting condition is identified for day time, the real-time images of the road may be received from the color camera. Similarly, when the lighting condition is identified for night time, the real-time images of the road may be received from the IR camera.
The road feature data 205 may include the plurality of features associated with the road. The plurality of features may include type of road, color of the road and the like. A person skilled in the art would understand that any other features of the road, not mentioned explicitly may also be used in the present disclosure.
The training dataset 207 may include the plurality of training images along with polygon regions with labels. In an embodiment, the polygon regions may be used to define the plurality of features associated with the road. In an embodiment, the plurality of training images may include IR images and color images.
The other data 208 may store data, including temporary data and temporary files, generated by modules 209 for performing the various functions of the road region determination system 101.
In an embodiment, the data 200 in the memory 111 are processed by the one or more modules 209 present within the memory 111 of the road region determination system 101. In an embodiment, the one or more modules 209 may be implemented as dedicated units. As used herein, the term module refers to an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), Programmable System-on-Chip (PSoC), a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that provide the described functionality. In some implementations, the one or more modules 209 may be communicatively coupled to the processor 113 for performing one or more functions of the road region determination system 101. The said modules 209 when configured with the functionality defined in the present disclosure will result in a novel hardware.
In one implementation, the one or more modules 209 may include, but are not limited to a receiving module 211, a road segmentation training module 213, a road image segmentation module 215, a road orientation identification module 217, a managing module 219 and a road region identification module 221. The one or more modules 209 may also include other modules 223 to perform various miscellaneous functionalities of road region determination system 101. In an embodiment, the other modules 223 may include a lighting condition determination module and an intermediate point distribution module. The lighting condition determination module may receive the data from the GPS unit, the light flux measurement sensor and the weather forecast unit to determine the lighting condition at the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103. The intermediate point distribution module may distribute the intermediate points evenly on the left trend line and the right trend line based on a predefined number. For instance, the predefined number of intermediate point may be set to “eight”, “sixteen” and the like.
The receiving module 211 may receive the real-time images of the road from the one or more image sensors 105 associated with the autonomous vehicle 103. The real-time images of the road may be received based on the lighting condition in the current location of the autonomous vehicle 103. Further, the receiving module 211 may receive the data from the GPS unit, the light flux measurement sensor and the weather forecast unit which are coupled with the autonomous vehicle 103. The receiving module 211 may provide the drivable road region to the control unit of the autonomous vehicle 103 for triggering respective units in the autonomous vehicle 103 based on the road regions.
The road segmentation training module 213 may train the road segmentation model using the plurality of training images based on machine learning technique. In an embodiment, the plurality of training images may be annotated with the road features, the polygon regions and the trend lines.
The road segmentation trainer 227 may include machine learning methods and technique for training. For instance, the machine learning models such as, faster RCNN with RESNet may be used to train the road segmentation model. A person skilled in the art would understand that any other machine learning technique, not mentioned explicitly herein, may also be used in the present disclosure. Further, the road segmentation training module 213 may include a road segmentation model builder 229 builds the road segmentation model based on the polygon region labels and extracted features.
The road image segmentation module 215 may segment the real-time images of the road received from the receiving module 211 into the polygon regions and the trend lines based on the pretrained road segmentation model. The road segmentation model as described above, is trained with the machine learning technique, using the plurality of training images marked with road features, polygon regions and trend lines. The road image segmentation module 215 may segment the road in the real-time images into three types of polygon regions namely, the entire road polygon region, the left road polygon region and the right road polygon region. The road image segmentation module 215 may segment the real-time images of the road in order to obtain the plurality of features associated with the road.
The road orientation identification module 217 may identify the orientation of the road to be one of the linear orientation and the non-linear orientation.
Returning to
The road region identification module 221 may determine the drivable road regions for the autonomous vehicle 103. The road region identification module 221 may identify the paired points from the intermediate points redistributed on the trend lines.
As illustrated in
The order in which the method 600 is described is not intended to be construed as a limitation, and any number of the described method blocks can be combined in any order to implement the method. Additionally, individual blocks may be deleted from the methods without departing from the scope of the subject matter described herein. Furthermore, the method can be implemented in any suitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof.
At block 601, the real-time images of the road in which the autonomous vehicle 103 is travelling is received by the receiving module 211 from the one or more image sensors 105 associated with the autonomous vehicle 103.
At block 603, each of the real-time images of the road is segmented by the road image segmentation module 215 into the polygon regions and the trend lines to obtain the plurality of features associated with the road using the pre-trained road segmentation model. In an embodiment, the road segmentation model is trained by the road segmentation training module 213 with the machine learning technique, using the plurality of training images marked with road features, polygon regions and trend lines.
At block 605, the orientation of the road in the real-time images is identified by the road orientation identification module 217 to be one of the linear orientation and the non-linear orientation. The orientation of the road is identified based on the slope measured between the successive intermediate points distributed evenly on the left trend line and the right trend line.
At block 607, redistribution of the intermediate points on the trend lines is managed by the managing module 219 based on the orientation of the road.
At block 609, the paired points from the intermediate points redistributed on the trend lines is identified by the road region identification module 221, such that the paired points are connected using the horizontal line to determine the drivable road regions for the autonomous vehicle.
Computing System
The processor 702 may be disposed in communication with one or more input/output (I/O) devices (not shown) via I/O interface 701. The I/O interface 701 may employ communication protocols/methods such as, without limitation, audio, analog, digital, monoaural, RCA, stereo, IEEE-1394, serial bus, universal serial bus (USB), infrared, PS/2, BNC, coaxial, component, composite, digital visual interface (DVI), high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), RF antennas, S-Video, VGA, IEEE 802.n/b/g/n/x, Bluetooth, cellular (e.g., code-division multiple access (CDMA), high-speed packet access (HSPA+), global system for mobile communications (GSM), long-term evolution (LTE), WiMax, or the like), etc.
Using the I/O interface 701, the computer system 700 may communicate with one or more I/O devices. For example, the input device may be an antenna, keyboard, mouse, joystick, (infrared) remote control, camera, card reader, fax machine, dongle, biometric reader, microphone, touch screen, touchpad, trackball, stylus, scanner, storage device, transceiver, video device/source, etc. The output device may be a printer, fax machine, video display (e.g., cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED), plasma, Plasma display panel (PDP), Organic light-emitting diode display (OLED) or the like), audio speaker, etc.
In some embodiments, the computer system 700 consists of the road region determination system 101. The processor 702 may be disposed in communication with the communication network 709 via a network interface 703. The network interface 703 may communicate with the communication network 709. The network interface 703 may employ connection protocols including, without limitation, direct connect, Ethernet (e.g., twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T), transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), token ring, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/x, etc. The communication network 709 may include, without limitation, a direct interconnection, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), wireless network (e.g., using Wireless Application Protocol), the Internet, etc. Using the network interface 703 and the communication network 709, the computer system 700 may communicate with an autonomous vehicle 714. The network interface 703 may employ connection protocols include, but not limited to, direct connect, Ethernet (e.g., twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T), transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), token ring, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/x, etc.
The communication network 709 includes, but is not limited to, a direct interconnection, an e-commerce network, a peer to peer (P2P) network, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), wireless network (e.g., using Wireless Application Protocol), the Internet, Wi-Fi and such. The first network and the second network may either be a dedicated network or a shared network, which represents an association of the different types of networks that use a variety of protocols, for example, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), etc., to communicate with each other. Further, the first network and the second network may include a variety of network devices, including routers, bridges, servers, computing devices, storage devices, etc.
In some embodiments, the processor 702 may be disposed in communication with a memory 705 (e.g., RAM, ROM, etc. not shown in
The memory 705 may store a collection of program or database components, including, without limitation, user interface 706, an operating system 707 etc. In some embodiments, computer system 700 may store user/application data, such as, the data, variables, records, etc., as described in this disclosure. Such databases may be implemented as fault-tolerant, relational, scalable, secure databases such as Oracle or Sybase.
The operating system 707 may facilitate resource management and operation of the computer system 700. Examples of operating systems include, without limitation, APPLE MACINTOSH® OS X, UNIX®, UNIX-like system distributions (E.G., BERKELEY SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION™ (BSD), FREEBSD™, NETBSD™, OPENBSD™, etc.), LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS™ (E.G., RED HAT™, UBUNTU™, KUBUNTU™, etc.), IBM™ OS/2, MICROSOFT™ WINDOWS™ (XP™, VISTA™/7/8, 10 etc.), APPLE® IOS™, GOOGLE® ANDROID™, BLACKBERRY® OS, or the like.
In some embodiments, the computer system 700 may implement a web browser 708 stored program component. The web browser 708 may be a hypertext viewing application, for example MICROSOFT® INTERNET EXPLORER™, GOOGLE® CHROME™, MOZILLA® FIREFOX™, APPLE® SAFARI™, etc. Secure web browsing may be provided using Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTPS), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS), etc. Web browsers 708 may utilize facilities such as AJAX™, DHTML™, ADOBE® FLASH™, JAVASCRIPT™, JAVA™, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), etc. In some embodiments, the computer system 700 may implement a mail server stored program component. The mail server may be an Internet mail server such as Microsoft Exchange, or the like. The mail server may utilize facilities such as ASP™, ACTIVEX™, ANSI™ C++/C#, MICROSOFT®, .NET™, CGI SCRIPTS™, JAVA™, JAVASCRIPT™, PERL™, PHP™, PYTHON™, WEBOBJECTS™, etc. The mail server may utilize communication protocols such as Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI), MICROSOFT® exchange, Post Office Protocol (POP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), or the like. In some embodiments, the computer system 700 may implement a mail client stored program component. The mail client may be a mail viewing application, such as APPLE® MAIL™, MICROSOFT® ENTOURAGE™, MICROSOFT® OUTLOOK™, MOZILLA™ THUNDERBIRD™, etc.
Furthermore, one or more computer-readable storage media may be utilized in implementing embodiments consistent with the present disclosure. A computer-readable storage medium refers to any type of physical memory on which information or data readable by a processor may be stored. Thus, a computer-readable storage medium may store instructions for execution by one or more processors, including instructions for causing the processor(s) to perform steps or stages consistent with the embodiments described herein. The term “computer-readable medium” should be understood to include tangible items and exclude carrier waves and transient signals, i.e., be non-transitory. Examples include Random Access Memory (RAM), Read-Only Memory (ROM), volatile memory, non-volatile memory, hard drives, CD ROMs, DVDs, flash drives, disks, and any other known physical storage media.
An embodiment of the present disclosure makes use of only camera inputs with minimal or no sensor fusion and uses machine-learning technique to determine drivable road regions. Thus, eliminating dependency between multiple sensors.
An embodiment of the present disclosure enables the autonomous vehicle to have multiple fail-safe mechanism to detect drivable road region through segmentation.
An embodiment of the present disclosure for object segmentation may also be used in different applications such as robots vision, surveillance, consumer and retails application etc.
The described operations may be implemented as a method, system or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The described operations may be implemented as code maintained in a “non-transitory computer readable medium”, where a processor may read and execute the code from the computer readable medium. The processor is at least one of a microprocessor and a processor capable of processing and executing the queries. A non-transitory computer readable medium may include media such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks, tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, DVDs, optical disks, etc.), volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, Flash Memory, firmware, programmable logic, etc.), etc. Further, non-transitory computer-readable media include all computer-readable media except for a transitory. The code implementing the described operations may further be implemented in hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.).
Still further, the code implementing the described operations may be implemented in “transmission signals”, where transmission signals may propagate through space or through a transmission media, such as, an optical fiber, copper wire, etc. The transmission signals in which the code or logic is encoded may further include a wireless signal, satellite transmission, radio waves, infrared signals, Bluetooth, etc. The transmission signals in which the code or logic is encoded is capable of being transmitted by a transmitting station and received by a receiving station, where the code or logic encoded in the transmission signal may be decoded and stored in hardware or a non-transitory computer readable medium at the receiving and transmitting stations or devices. An “article of manufacture” includes non-transitory computer readable medium, hardware logic, and/or transmission signals in which code may be implemented. A device in which the code implementing the described embodiments of operations is encoded may include a computer readable medium or hardware logic. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications may be made to this configuration without departing from the scope of the invention, and that the article of manufacture may include suitable information bearing medium known in the art.
The terms “an embodiment”, “embodiment”, “embodiments”, “the embodiment”, “the embodiments”, “one or more embodiments”, “some embodiments”, and “one embodiment” mean “one or more (but not all) embodiments of the invention(s)” unless expressly specified otherwise.
The terms “including”, “comprising”, “having” and variations thereof mean “including but not limited to”, unless expressly specified otherwise.
The enumerated listing of items does not imply that any or all of the items are mutually exclusive, unless expressly specified otherwise.
The terms “a”, “an” and “the” mean “one or more”, unless expressly specified otherwise.
A description of an embodiment with several components in communication with each other does not imply that all such components are required. On the contrary, a variety of optional components are described to illustrate the wide variety of possible embodiments of the invention.
When a single device or article is described herein, it will be readily apparent that more than one device/article (whether or not they cooperate) may be used in place of a single device/article. Similarly, where more than one device or article is described herein (whether or not they cooperate), it will be readily apparent that a single device/article may be used in place of the more than one device or article or a different number of devices/articles may be used instead of the shown number of devices or programs. The functionality and/or the features of a device may be alternatively embodied by one or more other devices which are not explicitly described as having such functionality/features. Thus, other embodiments of the invention need not include the device itself.
The illustrated operations of
Finally, the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on an application based here on. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodiments of the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.
While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201941006129 | Feb 2019 | IN | national |
