US Patent 11099561 Control of an autonomous vehicle in unmapped regions

Autonomous vehicles use accurate maps for navigation. Manually controlling such an autonomous vehicle in certain areas may expand regions the vehicle may service. Such manual control may also be more efficient, safer, and/or reliable, in some instances. Aspects of this disclosure describe techniques for manual control of an autonomous vehicle in unmapped regions. For example, a vehicle may determine and autonomously travel to a mapped location proximate an unmapped destination, and may then be manually controlled from the mapped location to the unmapped destination. In addition, during manual control through the unmapped region, data may be collected using sensors on the autonomous vehicle to map the region.