Autonomous Braking Control for Multi-Vehicle Threat Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle vision systems struggle to accurately detect and assess potential collision threats from multiple vehicles ahead, leading to inefficiencies in autonomous emergency braking systems.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle vision system that combines data from cameras and radar sensors, processed by an electronic control unit (ECU), to determine the presence of other vehicles, fuse image and sensor data, and generate a braking command when a threat level exceeds a threshold.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a vehicle vision system uses only camera-based imaging sensors to detect vehicles ahead, then the system structure remains simple, but the detection accuracy and reliability of threat assessment deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines camera-based imaging sensors with radar sensors to create a hybrid detection system. The camera captures visual data of vehicles and road conditions, while the radar sensor simultaneously detects vehicle positions, speeds, and distances. By merging these two different sensing modalities, the system achieves superior detection accuracy and reliability compared to using either sensor type alone, while maintaining reasonable system complexity through integrated processing in the ECU.
2Reliability
If the system processes data from multiple sensors to determine threat levels, then the reliability of collision assessment improves, but the processing time and computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The ECU continuously processes and stores data from both camera and radar sensors in advance, maintaining updated information about vehicle positions, speeds, and potential threats even before a collision risk is detected. This preliminary processing ensures that when a threat situation arises, the system can quickly retrieve pre-processed data and generate braking commands without excessive processing delays, thus improving response time while maintaining high reliability.
3Reliability
If the system implements autonomous emergency braking with multiple sensor fusion, then the safety performance improves, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The ECU is designed to perform multiple functions: it processes data from both camera and radar sensors, detects various objects (vehicles, pedestrians, obstacles), assesses collision risks, and controls the braking system. By making the ECU a multi-functional universal processing unit, the system achieves high safety performance through sensor fusion while avoiding the need for separate dedicated processors for each function, thus controlling overall device complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system effectively detects multiple vehicles ahead, assesses collision threats, and initiates autonomous emergency braking, enhancing safety and reducing the risk of rear-end collisions.
Implementation Method 1
a radar sensor disposed at the equipped vehicle and sensing at least forward of the equipped vehicle
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicular control system includes a camera and a radar sensor disposed at an equipped vehicle. The system, via processing of image data and processing of sensor data, determines other vehicles present on the road ahead of the equipped vehicle. The system, responsive to determining the presence of a plurality of other vehicles present on the road, determines a threat level for each vehicle of the plurality of other vehicles. An emergency braking system of the equipped vehicle is controlled responsive to the determined threat levels. When a vehicle of the plurality of other vehicles is no longer detectable via processing of image data captured by the camera and processing of sensor data captured by the radar sensor, the system predicts a position for the no longer detectable vehicle of the plurality of other vehicles.