US Patent 11881031 Hierarchical processing of traffic signal face states

This document describes methods to assign a collective state to a group of traffic signal devices that are concurrently detected by multiple cameras. The states may be color states or other states. The system will process the images to identify states of each of the devices in the images. When the devices exhibit more than one state, the system will determine an overall state for the group by generating a confidence score for each of the states. The system will select, from the multiple states, the state having a confidence score that exceeds a threshold. The system will then use the selected state to assign an overall state to the group of traffic signal devices. The system may use the overall state to generate a signal that will cause the vehicle to perform an action such as a motion control action, or output of an audible or visual alert.