Patent attributes
Systems and methods described herein relate to vehicular navigation. One embodiment generates a polyline reference path for a vehicle; stores a representation of the polyline in a data structure; detects a plurality of obstacles ahead of the vehicle; identifies one or more obstacle gates among the plurality of obstacles using path coordinates relative to the reference path, each obstacle gate including at least one cluster of obstacles; identifies one or more gaps within each of the one or more obstacle gates; determines an obstacle-avoidance path for the vehicle that passes through a particular one of the one or more gaps in each of the one or more obstacle gates; and controls one or more aspects of operation of the vehicle based, at least in part, on the obstacle-avoidance path.