Driverless Car Park Guidance Using Road User Motion Prediction

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current systems for autonomous driving within parking lots lack efficiency in managing interactions between driverless and manually operated vehicles, as well as pedestrians and animals, leading to potential collisions and inefficient operation.

Innovation Solution

A method and device that detect road users, predict their movements, and automatically guide driverless vehicles within the parking lot based on these predictions, ensuring a predetermined minimum distance is maintained and optimizing traffic flow by adjusting trajectories and timing to avoid conflicts.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If driverless vehicles operate autonomously in parking lots without coordination systems, then individual vehicle operation is simple, but collision risk increases and overall efficiency decreases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecollision avoidanceVSAvoidcoordination system complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges multiple detection devices (cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors) into a unified detection system that monitors the entire parking lot environment. This centralized approach allows coordinated control of multiple driverless vehicles, enabling them to share spatial and temporal information to avoid collisions while maintaining individual vehicle operational simplicity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The coordination system acts as an intermediary between individual driverless vehicles, receiving data from detection devices and transmitting control commands to vehicles. This mediator architecture enables collision avoidance by calculating safe trajectories and timing, while isolating the complexity from individual vehicles and centralizing it in the coordination system.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If driverless vehicles maintain large safety distances from road users, then collision risk is reduced, but movement efficiency and parking lot utilization decrease

Engineering Contradiction:
ImprovesafetyVSAvoidmovement efficiency
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adjusts safety distances based on real-time detection of road users and predicted movements. Instead of maintaining fixed large safety margins, the coordination system calculates optimal dynamic distances that adapt to the presence, absence, and predicted behavior of pedestrians and other vehicles, thereby maximizing movement efficiency while maintaining adequate safety.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The detection devices continuously monitor and predict road user movements in advance. By anticipating pedestrian paths and other vehicle trajectories, the coordination system can plan driverless vehicle routes proactively, maintaining minimal safe distances while avoiding actual collisions through提前 prediction and route optimization.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Productivity

If multiple driverless vehicles operate simultaneously in the parking lot, then overall throughput increases, but trajectory conflicts and coordination complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
ImprovethroughputVSAvoidtrajectory coordination
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The coordination system segments the parking lot into multiple spatial zones and time slots for different driverless vehicles. By dividing the operational space and time, the system enables simultaneous operation of multiple vehicles without trajectory conflicts, as each vehicle is assigned specific zones to operate in during specific time periods, reducing overall coordination complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements continuous feedback loops where detection devices monitor all vehicles and road users, the coordination system processes this information to detect potential trajectory conflicts, and control commands are adjusted in real-time. This feedback mechanism enables high throughput by dynamically resolving conflicts as they arise, allowing multiple vehicles to operate simultaneously while maintaining safety.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

4Reliability

If the system continuously monitors and predicts all road user movements, then collision avoidance improves, but computational load and processing time increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecollision prediction accuracyVSAvoidcomputational energy consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The detection system applies local quality monitoring by focusing computational resources on areas and objects with higher risk potential. Instead of uniformly monitoring all road users with equal detail, the system intensifies monitoring in zones where driverless vehicles are present or approaching, while reducing monitoring intensity in low-risk areas, thereby improving collision prediction accuracy where needed while reducing overall computational energy consumption.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Data Source

PatentEP3344520B1Method and device for conducting a driverless motor vehicle in a car park
Publication Date: 2023.09.06 ROBERT BOSCH GMBH
  • EP3344520B1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP3344520B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The invention relates to a method for conducting a driverless motor vehicle in a car park, comprising the following steps: - detecting one or more road users present in the car park, - predicting a respective movement of the one or more road users, and - automatically conducting the driverless motor vehicle in the car park on the basis of the respectively predicted movement. The invention further relates to a corresponding device, to a car park, and to a computer program.