US Patent 10053091 Spring system-based change lane approach for autonomous vehicles

In one embodiment, in response to a request for changing lane, one or more objects surrounding an autonomous vehicle are perceived. For each of the perceived objects, a virtual spring is assigned to connect the object and the autonomous vehicle. Each virtual spring is associated with a specific spring model to generate a force based on relative positions of an associated object and the autonomous vehicle. One or more forces generated from one or more virtual springs corresponding to the one or more surrounding objects are aggregated to generate an aggregated force. One or more lane-changing parameters for the autonomous vehicle are determined based on the aggregated force and a direction of the aggregated force.