Autonomous Vehicle Component Sharing for Travel Inability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous vehicle systems lack the capability to extend operational duration by sharing components between vehicles, limiting their mobility and functionality in scenarios like component failure or low battery state of charge.
Innovation Solution
The system enables autonomous vehicles to detect travel inability and request components from other vehicles, using a control unit to generate and transmit operation commands for component transfer, allowing vehicles to provide substitutes like batteries or fuel to maintain operational status.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Duration of action of moving object
If autonomous vehicles operate independently without component sharing, then each vehicle maintains full operational independence, but the operational duration and travel distance are limited by individual component capacity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple autonomous vehicles into a cooperative system where they share components (batteries, fuel tanks) through a network. This allows vehicles to extend their operational duration by accessing components from other vehicles, effectively combining their resource pools while maintaining individual operational independence.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal component sharing system where any vehicle can potentially provide or receive various types of components (batteries, fuel). This multi-functional approach allows a single vehicle to serve multiple roles - as a provider of different component types to different vehicles in need, thereby extending operational duration across the fleet.
2Reliability
If vehicles carry spare components to assist other vehicles, then operational continuity is improved, but the vehicle's own payload capacity and fuel efficiency are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a communication network and control system as intermediaries that coordinate component sharing. Instead of vehicles carrying unnecessary spare components, the intermediary system matches vehicles that need components with vehicles that can provide them, reducing the need for each vehicle to carry excess payload while maintaining operational continuity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables vehicles to serve themselves and others dynamically. When a vehicle has excess component capacity (e.g., extra battery charge or fuel), it can automatically or semi-automatically provide this to another vehicle in need through the coordinated system, improving reliability without requiring permanent dedication of spare components.
3Measurement precision
If vehicles are equipped with extensive monitoring systems to detect component status, then travel inability can be detected early, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs universal sensors and monitoring systems that serve multiple functions - detecting battery charge levels, fuel quantity, component health status, and enabling communication with the network. This multi-functional approach allows accurate detection of component status without requiring separate dedicated systems for each measurement, thereby controlling complexity while improving measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle includes a control unit. The control unit is configured to execute: outputting, when detecting or estimating travel inability of an own vehicle, information regarding a request for receiving an article provided from another vehicle to avoid the travel inability. The control unit performs, when determining that a request vehicle outputs the information regarding the request, a prescribed process for providing an article corresponding to the request to the request vehicle.