Collision Avoidance Steering Assist With Early Driver Prompting

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing vehicle collision avoidance assist systems fail to prompt drivers to initiate collision avoidance maneuvers at early stages, often requiring significant steering efforts and potentially leading to unsafe collisions due to late recognition of the need for maneuvering.

Innovation Solution

A vehicle collision avoidance assist apparatus that includes an electronic control unit to detect potential collisions and notify drivers through visual and auditory cues, guiding them to perform early and appropriate steering maneuvers, and assists in maintaining the vehicle on a collision avoidance route.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the assist steering torque is applied only when the driver starts carrying out steering maneuvering, then the system avoids unnecessary energy consumption and false alarms, but the driver may start the maneuvering too late requiring greater steering torque and potentially causing collision

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecollision avoidance effectivenessVSAvoiddriver response time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary action by issuing a notification to the driver before the collision risk becomes critical. The notification is triggered when the predicted time to collision is within a predetermined threshold, prompting the driver to initiate steering maneuvering earlier than they might otherwise, thus improving response time while avoiding false alarms

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

2Loss of time

If the system notifies the driver early about potential collision, then the driver can start maneuvering earlier, but the driver may not recognize the necessity of maneuvering without system prompt

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedriver response timeVSAvoiddriver awareness of collision risk
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of timeVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring surrounding information detection apparatus data, calculating predicted time to collision, and providing notifications to the driver when collision risk is detected. This feedback loop ensures the driver is informed of the collision risk and prompted to take appropriate action, bridging the gap between system detection and driver awareness

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentEP4053820B1Vehicle collision avoidance assist apparatus
Publication Date: 2025.10.01 TOYOTA JIDOSHA KK
  • EP4053820B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4053820B1 patent drawingFigure 2A~2C
  • EP4053820B1 patent drawingFigure 3A~3C

AI summary

A vehicle collision avoidance assist apparatus (10) executes a collision avoidance steering maneuvering assist process of applying a steering force to an own vehicle (100) to assist a collision avoidance steering maneuvering carried out by a driver when there is a probability that the own vehicle (100) collides with an object (200) ahead of the own vehicle (100), and the driver carries out the collision avoidance steering maneuvering to steer the own vehicle (100) to avoid a collision of the own vehicle (100) with the object (200). The apparatus (10) notifies the driver of a necessity of carrying out the collision avoidance steering maneuvering when determining that there is the possibility that the own vehicle (100) collides with the object (200) ahead of the own vehicle (100).