Autonomous Vehicle Bumper Linkage for Self-Reset Collision Sensing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous vehicles often experience malfunction after collisions due to persistent activation of microswitches, leading to undesirable situations where the vehicle remains switched off, and there is a need for a solution that balances safety with reduced likelihood of malfunction.
Innovation Solution
The autonomous vehicle employs a connecting device comprising a ring, ball parts, a shaft, and a spring mechanism that allows elastic displacement and self-realignment, ensuring the bumper returns to its original position and microswitches reset, preventing plastic deformation and ensuring safety without excessive stiffness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a spring means is used to allow elastic displacement of the bumper, then the vehicle can detect collisions and stop safely, but the spring means may undergo plastic deformation or permanent deformation after repeated collisions
Solution Approach 1:
The connecting device is divided into multiple functional components: a rigid shaft for structural support, a spring means for elastic energy storage, and ball parts acting as movable connection elements. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function optimally while distributing mechanical stresses across different elements, preventing concentration of deformation in a single critical component.
Solution Approach 2:
The connecting device incorporates dynamic elements including the spring means that can compress and expand, and ball parts that can move along the shaft and rotate. This dynamic design allows the system to adapt to collision forces elastically, absorbing energy through controlled deformation that recovers after each impact, thereby preventing permanent deformation.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the spring means is made stiff enough to carry the bumper weight, then the bumper remains stable during vehicle operation, but it reduces the elastic deformability needed for collision detection
Solution Approach 1:
The spring means is pre-tensioned or pre-compressed to a controlled extent during assembly, establishing an initial state that provides both the necessary stiffness to support the bumper weight and the remaining elastic range to accommodate collision deformations. This preliminary action optimizes the spring's operational envelope.
Solution Approach 2:
The system utilizes changes in the spring's compression parameter during operation. During normal operation, the spring maintains a compression level that provides structural stiffness. During collision, the spring can undergo additional compression within its elastic limits, and then returns to its original compression state, dynamically adjusting its mechanical properties as needed.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration provides a balanced combination of elastic deformability and stiffness, preventing permanent deformation of the spring mechanism and ensuring the vehicle safely stops and resets after collisions, reducing the likelihood of malfunction.
Implementation Method 1
a spring means, wherein the ring is fixedly connected to the frame, wherein the first ball part and the second ball part are both provided rotatably tiltable with respect to the ring on opposite sides thereof
Implementation Method 2
the spring means is connected to, or presses against, a spring connector which is fixedly connected to the shaft at or near a first end thereof
Data Source
AI summary
An autonomous vehicle includes a frame with a motor, a bumper connected to the frame via a connecting device, and a sensor detecting displacement of the bumper upon a collision. The sensor is connected with a propulsion system that interrupts displacing the vehicle upon detecting a displacement. The connecting device includes a ring, a first ball part, a second ball part, a shaft, and a spring. The ring is fixedly connected to the frame, and the first and second ball part rotatably tilt in the ring. The shaft extends through the ring and the first ball part, and through and beyond the second ball part to a second end, at which the shaft is connected to the bumper by a joint. At least one ball part is displaceable along the shaft. The spring extends around the shaft between the second ball part and a spring connector, and pretensionedly presses the first and second ball parts against the ring. Upon a collision with an obstacle, the bumpers shifts, and the shaft tilts with respect to the frame. This tilting pushes the two ball parts away from each other. The spring also tilts, as a whole, preventing plastic deformation. The spring now exerts a larger spring force on the ball parts, and, after taking away the obstacle, will move back and realign. This will also realign the sensor, ensuring a longer effective lifetime of the sensor and thus of the safety of the vehicle.