Autonomous Vehicle Lane-Change Support for Obstacle Passing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Automated vehicles face challenges in safely passing obstacles on multi-lane roadways due to insufficient sensor range, leading to potential blockage and hazardous situations.
Innovation Solution
The vehicle assesses if a lane change is possible and, if not, sends a support query to a central system to identify a nearby vehicle to assist by changing lanes and managing traffic, ensuring safe passage by exchanging real-time position and speed information for coordinated maneuvers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the automatically driving vehicle relies solely on its own sensor system to detect obstacles and perform lane changes, then the vehicle maintains operational independence, but the sensor range is insufficient leading to blockage situations and hazardous conditions
Solution Approach 1:
A central control system acts as an intermediary between multiple vehicles, coordinating lane changes and obstacle avoidance maneuvers. The central system receives sensor data from the automatically driving vehicle and orchestrates actions with nearby vehicles, effectively extending the detection and response capabilities beyond what a single vehicle's sensors can achieve alone.
2Reliability
If the vehicle stops before the obstacle to wait for a lane change opportunity, then collision risk is reduced, but traffic flow is blocked and hazardous situations persist
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary coordination with nearby vehicles through the central control before the automatically driving vehicle needs to stop. The central system identifies suitable candidate vehicles and prepares them for upcoming lane change maneuvers, so that when the obstacle situation arises, the supporting vehicle is already positioned and ready to execute the maneuver, minimizing stopping time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously exchanges real-time position and status information between the automatically driving vehicle, the central control system, and supporting vehicles. This feedback loop allows dynamic adjustment of lane change timing and coordination, enabling the system to optimize both safety and traffic flow based on current road conditions.
3Productivity
If a supporting vehicle is instructed to change lanes to assist the automatically driving vehicle, then passage through the obstacle is enabled, but the supporting vehicle's original trajectory is disrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The central control system identifies and selects supporting vehicles in advance, before the automatically driving vehicle encounters the obstacle. By pre-coordinating with potential supporting vehicles and having them prepare for lane change maneuvers ahead of time, the system minimizes the actual maneuver execution time and reduces disruption to the supporting vehicle's trajectory.
4Reliability
If real-time position information is exchanged between vehicles, then coordinated maneuvers are achieved, but communication requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The central control system serves as an intermediary communication hub that manages information exchange between vehicles. Rather than requiring direct peer-to-peer communication infrastructure between all vehicles, the central system receives position and status data from each vehicle and redistributes relevant information, simplifying the communication architecture while maintaining coordination accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for supporting an automatically driving vehicle is provided. In one embodiment, it is ascertained whether it is possible for the automatically driving vehicle to change lanes to a fast lane in order to pass an obstacle located in front of the automatically driving vehicle on a roadway. If not, the automatically driving vehicle stops before reaching the obstacle and transmits a support request to a vehicle-external center. The vehicle-external center detects another vehicle in the surroundings of the automatically driving vehicle and instructs same to move in the direction of the automatically driving vehicle and change to the fast lane before reaching the automatically driving vehicle.