AV Service Coverage Mapping with Stoppable-Lane Buffer Regions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) face challenges in determining and communicating their service area coverage due to dynamic road networks, road closures, and stopping restrictions, which can lead to reduced perceived quality of service for users as they may not be able to reach intended locations or stop at desired points.
Innovation Solution
A system that generates and updates a detailed map database to determine service coverage areas by selecting lanes where AVs can stop, generating buffer regions, and combining them to create a coverage area, which can be displayed to users in various formats, including on a map overlay, allowing for selection of different walking distances and reflecting real-time or historical data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If AVs operate with strict stopping restrictions on certain roads, then safety and operational reliability are improved, but service area coverage and user accessibility deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the road network into multiple lane types (e.g., stoppable lanes vs. non-stoppable lanes) and applies different stopping rules to each segment. This allows the AV to operate reliably according to restrictions on certain segments while still providing service coverage through other segments, resolving the contradiction between operational reliability and service area coverage.
2Ease of operation
If AVs provide door-to-door service, then user convenience and perceived quality of service are improved, but operational complexity increases due to stopping restrictions
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces an intermediary calculation process that determines service coverage areas by generating buffer regions around stoppable lanes and combining them. This intermediary layer abstracts the complexity of stopping restrictions from the user interface, allowing users to easily understand service coverage without the system needing to manage the operational complexity of numerous stopping rules.
3Loss of information
If the system provides detailed real-time coverage information to users, then perceived quality of service is improved, but information processing requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary calculations to determine service coverage areas in advance by processing map database information and generating buffer regions. This preliminary action prepares coverage information before user requests, allowing the system to provide detailed real-time coverage information to users without processing complexity increasing during actual service operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A map database stores data describing a set of connected roadways, each having one or more lanes. A coverage system selects lanes from the map database along which AVs can stop, such as parking lanes. The coverage system generates buffer regions for each of the stopping lanes, where each buffer region includes an area within a given distance of the respective lane. The coverage system combines the buffer regions to generate a coverage area, and provides a display of the coverage area overlayed over a map of roads corresponding to the coverage area.