Autonomous Vehicle Data Aggregation for Road Condition Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face challenges in safe operation due to impaired functionality in unusual environmental conditions and potential malfunctions of sensors or components, which can increase safety risks and require effective communication and coordination between vehicles to manage these risks.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method for presenting vehicle data on road segments, allowing autonomous vehicles to communicate with each other to alert maneuvers, coordinate paths, and share information on road conditions, using a system that combines data from multiple vehicles to generate an overall indication of road conditions and recommends operation mode changes based on real-time data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If autonomous vehicles operate independently without communication, then device complexity is reduced, but safety and reliability deteriorate due to inability to coordinate maneuvers and share road condition information
Solution Approach 1:
The communication system is segmented into discrete data packets containing specific information types (road conditions, maneuvers, coordinates). Each packet type addresses a specific safety concern, allowing the system to build reliability incrementally without requiring all communication functions simultaneously, thus managing complexity while improving safety.
Solution Approach 2:
Vehicles transmit maneuver information and road condition data before executing actions or encountering hazards. This preliminary communication allows other vehicles to anticipate and coordinate responses, improving safety through advance warning while keeping the communication system relatively simple by only activating transmission when needed.
2Loss of information
If vehicles transmit detailed real-time data about road conditions and maneuvers, then information availability improves, but data processing requirements and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system transmits different types of information (road conditions, maneuvers, coordinates) only when locally relevant to specific vehicles in proximity. Not all vehicles receive all data types at all times, reducing overall data processing requirements and energy consumption while maintaining information availability where needed for safety.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transmits more information than strictly necessary for basic operation (excessive action) but only at selective moments and to selective recipients (partial action). This ensures sufficient information availability for safety decisions while avoiding continuous full-data transmission that would consume excessive energy.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If autonomous vehicles operate without coordinating with each other, then operational independence is maintained, but collision risk increases due to lack of path coordination
Solution Approach 1:
A standardized data packet format acts as an intermediary between vehicles, providing a common language for path coordination without requiring complex direct vehicle-to-vehicle negotiation systems. This reduces coordination system complexity while effectively lowering collision risk through standardized information exchange.
Solution Approach 2:
Vehicles broadcast their intended paths and coordinates in advance before actual maneuvers occur. This preliminary path declaration allows other vehicles to plan avoidance actions without requiring real-time complex coordination, reducing collision risk while maintaining relatively simple system architecture.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for communicating between autonomous vehicles are described herein. Such communication may be performed for signaling, collision avoidance, path coordination, and/or autonomous control. A computing device may receive communications from autonomous vehicles, where the communications include data for the same road segment, including an indication of a condition of the road segment. The computing device may combine the data for the same road segment to generate an overall indication of the condition of the road segment, which may include a recommendation to vehicles approaching the road segment. Additionally, the computing device may receive a request from a mobile device within a vehicle approaching the road segment to display vehicle data. The overall indication for the road segment may then be displayed on a user interface of the mobile device.