Autonomous Vehicle Cooperative Sensing via Information Sharing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current autonomous vehicle systems independently collect and process sensing information, limiting their ability to recognize obstacles or hazards outside their sensor range and requiring direct line of sight for detection, which restricts their awareness of surroundings and decision-making capabilities.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle information sharing apparatus and method that enables autonomous vehicles to share driving-related and environmental information through wireless communication, using a self sensor processor, future prediction sensor processor, remote virtual sensor processor, dynamic map processor, cooperative sensor interface, static map processor, and path generator to acquire and analyze information from both local and remote sources, allowing for enhanced situational awareness and path adjustment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If autonomous vehicles independently collect and process sensing information without cooperation, then each vehicle can process information quickly and simply, but the sensing range is limited and obstacles outside the sensor range cannot be detected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges sensing capabilities of multiple autonomous vehicles by establishing a cooperative sensing system where vehicles share sensor data through wireless communication. The management server collects sensing information from multiple vehicles and integrates it to create a comprehensive environmental map, effectively expanding the sensing range beyond what any single vehicle can achieve alone.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a management server as an intermediary that coordinates information sharing between autonomous vehicles. The server receives sensing data from multiple vehicles, processes and integrates the information, and distributes relevant data back to the vehicles, enabling cooperative sensing without requiring direct peer-to-peer communication between all vehicle pairs.
2Reliability
If sensors require direct line of sight to detect objects, then detection precision is high when LOS is ensured, but objects within sensing range cannot be detected if LOS is blocked
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines sensing data from multiple vehicles to overcome line-of-sight limitations. When one vehicle's sensors are blocked, the system merges sensing information from other vehicles that have unobstructed views of the same area, ensuring continuous and reliable obstacle detection regardless of individual vehicle positioning or obstacles.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where vehicles continuously share sensing information and positional data with the management server. The server analyzes this feedback loop of information to identify gaps in detection coverage and requests additional sensing data from vehicles in positions that can provide complementary views, thereby maintaining reliable detection even when direct line of sight is blocked.
3Loss of information
If vehicles share driving-related information and future driving information, then situational awareness and path planning are improved, but communication data requirements and processing load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and prioritizes only the essential sensing information and future driving data needed for cooperative navigation. Rather than transmitting all sensor data, the system identifies and shares only critical information such as obstacle positions, path predictions, and relevant environmental features, reducing data transmission volume while maintaining information completeness for safe operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary processing of sensing data to generate predicted future driving paths and pre-processed obstacle information before sharing. By preparing this distilled information in advance, vehicles can share more compact data representations that convey essential future state information without transmitting raw sensor streams, thereby reducing communication overhead while maintaining decision-making quality.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are an apparatus and method for sharing vehicle information among autonomous vehicles. According to the apparatus and method, not only current driving-related information and future driving-related information of a self vehicle but also current driving-related information and future driving-related information of another vehicle is acquired and used to control travel of the self vehicle. Accordingly, the safety of travel is improved, and efficient autonomous travel is enabled.