Distributed Ledger Traffic Control for Contested Roadway Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Dynamic traffic control systems face challenges in efficiently managing contested roadway areas, where multiple vehicles need to access the same portion of the roadway simultaneously, leading to potential conflicts and unsafe concurrent occupancy.
Innovation Solution
A dynamic traffic control system that utilizes a distributed ledger to record agreements among vehicles for access to contested roadway areas, using state information and map data to determine the ordering of vehicle access, and broadcasts signals representing movement within these areas, ensuring secure and efficient conflict resolution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If centralized traffic control systems are used to manage contested roadway areas, then traffic flow can be controlled through centralized decision-making, but the system complexity and response time increase due to communication overhead with central authorities
Solution Approach 1:
Vehicles autonomously negotiate and resolve conflicts with neighboring vehicles without requiring centralized control. Each vehicle independently broadcasts its state information, receives information from others, calculates expected future paths, detects conflicts, and resolves them through distributed consensus, eliminating the need for complex centralized coordination infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
A distributed ledger acts as an intermediary to record and verify conflict resolution agreements between vehicles. The ledger provides a shared, tamper-proof record of which vehicle has priority access to contested roadway areas, enabling vehicles to coordinate without direct centralized control while maintaining trust and consistency across the distributed system.
2Device complexity
If distributed conflict resolution is implemented among vehicles, then system complexity is reduced and response time improves, but ensuring agreement and coordination among all vehicles becomes more challenging
Solution Approach 1:
Vehicles continuously broadcast their state information and receive updates from neighboring vehicles, creating a feedback loop that enables real-time awareness of each vehicle's position, speed, and intended path. This continuous feedback allows vehicles to detect conflicts early and negotiate resolutions dynamically, ensuring all parties have consistent information for making coordinated decisions.
Solution Approach 2:
Vehicles calculate their expected future paths in advance using maintained map information and current state data. By predicting future positions and potential conflicts before they occur, vehicles can proactively negotiate access rights to contested roadway areas, record agreements in the distributed ledger, and prevent conflicts rather than merely reacting to them.
3Loss of time
If vehicles autonomously negotiate access to contested areas, then response time to conflicts is reduced, but the amount of communication and coordination required between vehicles increases
Solution Approach 1:
The communication process is segmented into distinct, standardized information broadcasts: each vehicle transmits its state information (position, speed, heading) and receives similar information from others. This segmentation into discrete, structured data packets reduces communication overhead by eliminating redundant information and enabling efficient processing of essential conflict resolution data.
Solution Approach 2:
Vehicles perform preliminary calculations of expected future paths using maintained map information and current state data before conflicts occur. By pre-computing potential conflict scenarios and required negotiations, vehicles minimize real-time communication needs during actual conflicts, reducing the time and information exchange required to reach agreements.
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle includes a controller. The controller is programmed to broadcast state information for the vehicle and receive state information from other vehicles; identify a contested roadway area for the vehicle and another of the vehicles based on expected future paths of the vehicle and the other vehicle calculated per the state information; and update a ledger with an indication of which of the vehicle or the other vehicle is agreed to proceed through the contested roadway area.