Pro-active road precaution device and system

Abstract

A pro-active road precaution system for vehicles 3 or motorcycles comprises a PCU unit which has a range of sensors including impact and accelerometers to collate advancing roads data, along with a GP

Description

Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device and system that warns vehicle drivers and riders of motorcycles of upcoming road hazards such as potholes or road obstacles. Background The use of motor vehicles and motorcycles is a worldwide practice and daily human and goods transportation on roads is a huge infrastructure which each country is responsible to maintain, within its own remits and guidelines. Roads tend to become run down and damaged through weather conditions and vehicle wear over long periods of time resulting in pot holes and similar issues. A pot hole is created when a road surface has broken open and the wear and weather issues have affected it to create a hole, these can often be very dangerous. The winter weather and ice with rain over periods of months tends to make this issue even more prolific in certain countries where this type of weather is more common, for example; the United Kingdom. The ice freezes from rain or moisture inside the first more shallow hole and the frozen ice breaks down the road material, such as Tarmac (TRADE MARK) making an often deep hole. Should a vehicle tyre or a motor cycle tyre pass inside a deep pothole the car could become damaged, often breaking parts such as the alloy wheels, the tyre or even breaking the suspension springs. In the examples of motorcycle riders, there have been cases where riders have actually been killed after interacting with a pothole and certainly many motorcycles have been seriously damaged and rider injured. The issue faced by riders is the problem of not knowing when a pothole is advancing toward them. If a vehicle, for example, is travelling on a road the driver is often pre-occupied by driving safely and has not got the time to look out for potholed as they drive, this also applies the motorcyclists who may be travelling at speed and not able to spot a pothole coming. This also applies to other types of road debris or misplaced road furniture, such as speed humps. Speed humps are raised elongated humps which are fixed across the width of a road to slow down vehicles, such as cars and vans; should these become unstable following long use or if they are not installed correctly, they can also become a road hazard. Therefore, a way of warning drivers or riders of motorcycles of such problems would be of great advantage and can be created by connecting a physical product which is applied to the car or motorcycle with a real time road sensor or map system which monitors the locations where potholes or road hazards are situated and warns the driver of this in good time. The present invention aims to provide a system which warns drivers of cars, vans or other vehicles and riders of motorcycles of road hazards using information from online global mapping systems, such as Google Maps (Trade Mark). The global mapping system sends up to date road information to a cloud server, this central data also has information from other map services and the new inputs from the devices that are installed in customer vehicles. A PCU unit has communication antenna to transfer &receive data from the cloud servers through phone or home Wi-Fi hotspot services, and also has the memory to store, upload and download the data. The PCU unit has a range of sensors from impact to accelerometers to get the bad roads data, along with a GPS unit to triangulate the device location. Furthermore; a micro controller in the PCU decides, based on the data and the GPS location of the vehicle or motorcycle, to send signals to a physical alert unit such as a vibrator filament in the hand grips of the motorcycle or the steering cover on the vehicles steering wheel. The steering cover thus vibrates &alerts the driver ahead of a pot hole or a bump to reduce the speed of the vehicle. Summary of the invention According to the present invention there is provided a pro-active road precaution device and system which monitors the locations of potholes or other road obstacles which a driver or motorcycle rider could collide with and reports them ahead of time to the driver or rider by means of an alert via a vibrating steering wheel cover or a pair of vibrating handle bar grips in the case of a motorcycle. The issues which are monitored include; sudden potholes in a road often are seen too late and these potholes and poor roads, damage the vehicle and its parts. The unwanted expenses in automotive spares are often high and these also change the originality of the vehicle, which can be more obvious to certain owners and certainly if the vehicle is special and rare. When there is rain fall these potholes are totally covered and vehicles are driven on mere assumption. Poor road conditions are quite normal and driving vehicles during the night time is made impossible due to lack of road illumination when combined with potholes or obstacles in some of the developing countries. Furthermore; when Speed bumps are laid incorrectly in combination with no warning signs, this can be life threatening, sometimes poor roads lead to many accidents and loss of life which is more prevalent in less developed areas of the world. The information for this alert on a vehicle or motorcycle comes from a cloud server, this central data also has information from other map services and the new inputs from the devices that are installed in customer vehicles. A PCU unit on the steering wheel cover device and on the handlebar grips for the motorcycle has a communication antenna to transfer &receive data from the cloud servers through phone or home Wi-Fi hotspot services and also has the memory to store, upload and download the data. The PCU unit has a range of sensors from impact to accelerometers to get the bad roads data, along with a GPS unit to triangulate the device location. Furthermore; a microcontroller in the PCU decides, based on the data and the GPS location of the vehicle or motorcycle, to send signals to physical driver alert units such as a vibrator filament in the hand grips of the motorcycle or the steering cover on the vehicles steering wheel. The steering cover thus vibrates &alerts the driver ahead of a pot hole or a bump to reduce the speed of the vehicle. As aforementioned, the vibration in the steering wheel cover alert drivers of the poor roads ahead of its inception with the alert, drivers then reduce the speed to more carefully observe the road ahead. Google maps already has the data of where the roads are poor and where vehicles are in a general slowdown or traffic backup. This Pro-Active system also picks up the new data and uploads it to the cloud server network. Which is then shared to the users in real time. When the online maps show the best route to a destination, the small orange or coloured portion shown on the routes are the data of vehicles when they are slow moving due to congestion. This device has this data stored &warns the drivers before a quarter mile, based on the GPS position of the vehicle. This pro-active road precaution device and systems electronic unit (PCU) program can be upgraded further to provide info on water logging &road portions that are prone to accidents. The PCU box is designed to be suitable for each vehicle model and provides an interface between the SGSN and the radio network using a frame relay technology and is arranged so it can be fitted at a correct place with the right length of the cable. The SGSN is the core network element that handles the mobility management, session management, and authentication of GPRS users. It also forwards and receives data packets between the GPRS users and the GGSN. A separate connection connects to the vehicle battery. In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting. As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the Patent Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting as to the scope of the invention in any way. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved pro-active road precaution device and system which has all the advantages of the prior art systems and none of the disadvantages. It is another object of the present invention to provide a new pro-active road precaution device and system may be easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved proactive road precaution device and system which is of durable and reliable construction. An even further object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved pro-active road precaution device and system which is susceptible of a low cost of manufacture with regard to both the materials from which it is made and labour and which accordingly is then susceptible of lower prices of sale to the consuming public, thereby making such a product available to the buying public. Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved pro-active road precaution device and system which provides in the apparatuses and methods of the prior art some of the advantages thereof, while simultaneously overcoming some of the disadvantages normally associated therewith. These together with other objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and detailed descriptive matter in which there is illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention. Brief description of figures Figure 1 shows the pro-active road precaution device and system. Figure 2 shows vehicles PCU system features. Detailed description of figures A typical embodiment of the pro-active road precaution device and system is shown in Figure 1. It comprises the central server 1 which is a large hard drive which holds the latest pot holes / traffic data for each geographical location. This can be considered similar to an online streaming company, which is this case has the latest potholes / traffic information and the vehicles which require this data will subscribe to this service to maintain the safety of their vehicle on the roads. For the communication between the vehicle PCU &the central server 1 the medium used is the internet 2 aided by a GSM center 4 predominately on the drivers phone or from any public / home Wi-Fi hotspot locations. All vehicles with a pro-active unit will have a PCU, which knows the vehicle locations aided by satellite GPS 5 and requests the correct and required data using the transmitter from the central server 1. The micro-controller in the PCU, with its temporary data, later sends a signal to the vehicle alert system when the vehicle is about to approach potholes or other obstructions such as road debris that the system is aware of, in a quarter mile distance. The vehicle drivers 3 with this new steering vibration information can do necessary adjustments and be well prepared to approach any bad road / pot holes with caution. Figure 2 shows the vehicles system features wherein the PCU unit has a range of sensors from impact to accelerometers to collate the advancing roads data, along with a GPS 6 unit to triangulate the device location. Furthermore; a microcontroller in the PCU decides, based on the data and the GPS location of the vehicle or motorcycle, to send signals to physical driver alert units, having an LCD display 7, and the physical alerts such as a vibrator filament in the hand grips of the motorcycle or the steering cover on the vehicles steering wheel (Not shown). The steering cover thus vibrates &alerts the driver ahead of a pot hole or a bump to reduce the speed of the vehicle. In use the PCU has following parts, a micro-controller 9 which is the brain of the PCU and the GPS 6 to locate the vehicle on the road, the driver-alert 8, as aforementioned as the vibrating unit in the steering wheel cover and the LCD display / alarm 7 which is an optional unit and part of driver alert. A transmitter 10 is a two-way communication, and does this via car driver’s mobile phone and the internet connection. The PCU operation is commenced when the vehicle turns on and the pro-active unit is also therefore turned on. The micro-controller 9 retrieves the information from GPS 6 on the vehicle geographical location. The micro-controller 9 then requests information via the transmitter 10 for the latest data on the road conditions such as the potholes traffic situations or registered road obstructions / debris in the current location and stores the temporary data. As the driver approaches each pothole the micro-controller 9 sends the signal to the alert system 8, in this example being to the vibrator unit. In addition to above, the transmitter unit picks up the current vehicle vibration data and feeds back to the central server. A steering wheel cover (not shown) as aforementioned is connected by wire to the electronic device / PCU and the opposing end has a USB adaptor for its power charging.

Claims

1) A pro-active road precaution device and system comprising; vehicles or motorcycles fitted with a PCU unit which has a range of sensors including impact and accelerometers to collate the advancing roads data, along with a GPS unit to triangulate the PCU / vehicle location, a microcontroller in the PCU sends signals to physical driver alert units in a steering wheel cover or motorcycles hand grips, aided further by an LCD display alert, the system is connected via the internet using a two-way transmitter to a central server which is a large hard drive and holds the latest pot hole I traffic data for each geographical location, this is aided by Satellite GPS and a GSM center.2) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the PCU operation is commenced when the vehicle is turned on and the proactive unit is also therefore simultaneously turned on from a standby status, the microcontroller then retrieves the information from the GPS on the vehicles geographical location.3) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 2 wherein the microcontroller requests information via the transmitter for the latest data on the road conditions such as the potholes traffic situations or registered road obstructions / debris in the current location and stores the temporary data.4) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 3 wherein as the driver approaches each pothole the microcontroller sends the signal to the alert system.5) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 4 wherein the two-way transmitter unit picks up the current PCU vehicle vibration data and feeds back to the central server.6) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 5 wherein the said communication between the vehicle PCU &the central server via the internet, aided by a GSM center, is performed predominately on the drivers phone or from any public / home Wi-Fi hotspot locations.7) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the steering wheel cover and hand grips are connected by wire to the electronic device / PCU and the opposing end has a USB adaptor for its power charging.8) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 1 wherein a microcontroller is the brain of the PCU.9) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 8 wherein said microcontroller decides to send signals to the physical driver alert unit based on the data and the GPS location of the vehicle or motorcycle.10) A pro-active road precaution device and system as claimed in claim 9 wherein the physical alerts sent to the driver are a vibrator filament in the hand grips of the motorcycle or the steering wheel cover on the vehicles steering wheel, the steering cover or hand grips thus vibrate &alert the driver ahead of a pot hole or a bump / obstruction ahead and to reduce the speed of the vehicle.

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