Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Routing for Natural Disaster Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous driving vehicle systems lack the capability to respond appropriately to natural phenomena that could cause disasters, such as heavy rain, heavy snow, floods, earthquakes, or tsunamis, potentially endangering users on board.
Innovation Solution
The autonomous driving vehicle is equipped with an information acquisition device and a vehicle travel control device that recognize alarming phenomena through environmental data and communication with a management server, allowing it to determine whether to continue or halt travel and implement an emergency plan, which may include changing routes, evacuating, or stopping and unlocking doors to ensure user safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the autonomous driving vehicle continues autonomous travel toward the destination without response to natural phenomena, then the vehicle maintains its original travel plan and operational simplicity, but user safety deteriorates when disasters occur
Solution Approach 1:
The vehicle performs preliminary actions by acquiring driving environment information and recognizing alarming phenomena before disasters occur. The system proactively monitors for natural phenomena and prepares emergency plans in advance, rather than reacting after a disaster strikes. This allows the vehicle to halt or adjust its travel plan before entering hazardous conditions, thereby improving user safety while maintaining manageable system complexity through structured preventive protocols.
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle implements a feedback mechanism where driving environment information is continuously acquired and processed. When alarming phenomena are detected through sensor data or delivery information, the system feeds this information back to the vehicle travel control device, which then determines whether to continue or halt travel. This closed-loop feedback system enables responsive disaster avoidance while maintaining systematic control.
2Reliability
If the autonomous driving vehicle implements emergency response processing for natural phenomena, then user safety improves during disasters, but the complexity of the vehicle control system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is segmented into distinct functional modules: an information acquisition device that collects driving environment data, a vehicle travel control device that processes information, and specific processing units for alarming phenomenon recognition, determination, and emergency control. This segmentation allows each module to perform its function independently, improving safety through comprehensive monitoring while managing complexity through modular architecture where each component has a specialized role.
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle travel control device performs multiple functions using a unified control architecture. It handles both normal autonomous travel control and emergency response processing for various types of alarming phenomena (heavy rain, heavy snow, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis). By designing the control device to universally handle different disaster types through a common determination and emergency control framework, the system improves safety across multiple scenarios without proportionally increasing complexity for each specific function.
3Measurement precision
If the autonomous driving vehicle acquires and processes driving environment information for disaster recognition, then the accuracy of disaster detection improves, but the information processing requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple information sources into a unified processing framework. Sensor data from the vehicle's own detections and delivery information from external management servers are combined and processed together by the vehicle travel control device. This merging allows the system to achieve high detection accuracy by cross-validating multiple data streams while managing processing complexity through a single integrated control device that handles all information types through consistent algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle travel control device acts as an intermediary between raw driving environment information and emergency response actions. It receives and processes information from sensors and delivery systems, performs alarming phenomenon recognition and determination, then translates this processed information into appropriate emergency control decisions. This intermediary role allows the system to achieve accurate disaster detection while managing complexity by providing a structured buffer layer that organizes information flow between data acquisition and response execution.
Data Source
AI summary
An autonomous driving vehicle provides a driverless transportation service for a user. An alarming phenomenon is a natural phenomenon that potentially causes a disaster. The autonomous driving vehicle recognizes, based on driving environment information, the alarming phenomenon at a current location of the autonomous driving vehicle or on a planned travel route from the current location to a destination. When recognizing the alarming phenomenon, the autonomous driving vehicle determines whether to continue or halt vehicle travel control in accordance with a current travel plan. When determining to halt the vehicle travel control in accordance with the current travel plan, the autonomous driving vehicle sets an emergency plan depending on a type of the alarming phenomenon and controls the autonomous driving vehicle in accordance with the emergency plan.