External Vehicle Status Display for Autonomous Maintenance Diagnosis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current autonomous vehicle systems lack an efficient method to communicate maintenance status information to observers outside the vehicle, making it difficult for technicians to diagnose issues and allocate resources effectively.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method and system that uses a display device affixed to the exterior of the autonomous vehicle to depict maintenance statuses of various systems, including operational status, health, energy levels, and error codes, ensuring visibility to observers regardless of their position around the vehicle.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If maintenance status information is displayed inside the autonomous vehicle, then technicians can access the information, but technicians must enter the vehicle which increases time consumption and reduces efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an external display device as an intermediary that projects maintenance status information onto the exterior surface of the autonomous vehicle. This allows technicians to access the information without entering the vehicle, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of accessing information and time consumption. The external display acts as a mediator between the internal maintenance status data and the external technician.
2Loss of information
If a comprehensive display system is installed to show all maintenance statuses, then complete information is available, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a single projector device that can display multiple types of maintenance status information (operational status, health, energy levels, error codes) on the exterior surface of the vehicle. This universal display approach provides comprehensive information without requiring multiple separate display systems, thus resolving the contradiction between information completeness and device complexity.
3Productivity
If maintenance information is made visible to external observers, then diagnostic efficiency improves, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional high-energy display mechanisms with a projector that uses light to project information onto the vehicle's exterior surface. This substitution reduces energy consumption while maintaining visibility and diagnostic efficiency, thus resolving the contradiction between productivity improvement and energy consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure is directed to communicating autonomous-vehicle status. In particular, the methods, devices, and systems of the present disclosure can: determine one or more maintenance statuses of one or more of multiple different systems of an autonomous vehicle; and depict at least one of the status(es) via a display device affixed to an exterior of the autonomous vehicle and configured to display information associated with the multiple different systems such that the information is visible to an observer located outside the autonomous vehicle.