Autonomous Driving Control Smoothing Behavior Changes

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Solution Overview

Problem

Vehicle autonomous driving systems often experience significant changes in vehicle behavior, such as deceleration after acceleration, leading to reduced riding comfort due to abrupt changes in motion, which can negatively impact passenger experience.

Innovation Solution

A vehicle autonomous driving system that includes a surroundings information determination unit, travel plan generation unit, vehicle state determination unit, calculation unit, actuator, and behavior determination unit to calculate control values that allow the vehicle to follow a restricted travel plan with smaller behavior changes, thereby improving riding comfort by smoothing transitions between different driving states.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the vehicle autonomous driving system controls the traveling of the vehicle based on target control values in the travel plan, then the vehicle can follow the target route, but the riding comfort deteriorates due to large behavior changes when opposite behavior changes occur

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveroute following accuracyVSAvoidriding comfort
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a behavior determination unit as an intermediary between the travel plan generation unit and the calculation unit. This unit detects opposite behavior changes (e.g., acceleration followed by deceleration) and triggers a restricted travel plan that smooths out abrupt behavior changes. The intermediary layer processes the target control values and modifies them when opposite behaviors are detected, thereby maintaining route following accuracy while improving riding comfort.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adjusts the travel plan based on detected behavior patterns. When the behavior determination unit identifies opposite behavior changes, it dynamically generates a restricted travel plan with modified control values that reduce abrupt transitions. This dynamic adaptation allows the vehicle to maintain reliable route following while adapting to improve riding comfort in real-time.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

2Speed

If the vehicle makes abrupt behavior changes to respond to surrounding vehicle positions, then the vehicle can react quickly to environmental changes, but the motion changes in opposite directions cause deterioration of riding comfort

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveresponse speed to environmental changesVSAvoidriding comfort
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent ensures continuous and smooth vehicle behavior by detecting opposite behavior changes and generating restricted travel plans that eliminate abrupt transitions. Instead of allowing discontinuous opposite actions (acceleration then immediate deceleration), the system maintains continuous useful action by smoothing the transitions while still responding to environmental changes, thereby improving riding comfort without sacrificing response capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Solution Approach 2:

The behavior determination unit provides feedback by monitoring the sequence of behavior changes and detecting when opposite behaviors occur. This feedback mechanism triggers the generation of a restricted travel plan that corrects the abrupt transitions. The feedback loop ensures that the vehicle responds to environmental changes while maintaining smooth motion that improves riding comfort.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentEP3088280B1Autonomous driving vehicle system
Publication Date: 2018.03.28 TOYOTA JIDOSHA KK
  • EP3088280B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3088280B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3088280B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A vehicle autonomous driving system includes a travel plan generation unit configured to generate a travel plan and a control width of a target control value, a travel control unit configured to calculate an control value, and a behavior determination unit configured to determine whether or not a behavior change which is opposite to the first behavior change is performed. In a case where it is determined that the opposite behavior change is performed, the travel control unit is configured to calculate the control value such that a behavior change amount of the first behavior change is smaller and becomes to be in the restricted vehicle state corresponding to the state within the control width compared to the case where the current vehicle state is caused to follow the target vehicle state when it is determined that the opposite behavior change is not performed.