Fleet Route Control for Balanced Vehicle Gaps
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Solution Overview
Problem
In vehicle fleets undertaking missions along routes, imbalances in gaps between vehicles can lead to productivity losses and queuing issues at fueling or charging stations, as control actions to adjust one gap often disrupt others, creating unintended divergences.
Innovation Solution
A method involving selecting and correlating progress control value sets for vehicles to determine optimal distributions, identifying the appropriate set based on comparisons to a desired distribution, and controlling vehicles accordingly to maintain desired gaps and minimize productivity losses.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If control actions are taken to fix gap imbalances between vehicles, then the desired gap distribution is improved, but productivity of the vehicle fleet decreases due to speed adjustments and waiting
Solution Approach 1:
The control system performs preliminary actions by predicting future gap distributions before actually executing speed adjustments. It evaluates multiple potential control actions and their anticipated effects on both gap distribution and productivity, selecting the optimal action in advance that minimizes productivity loss while achieving desired gap balance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes control parameters such as speed adjustment magnitudes and timing based on real-time fleet conditions. Instead of applying fixed speed reductions or waits, the controller adjusts parameters like the degree of speed reduction, the duration of waiting, and which vehicles to control, optimizing the balance between gap correction and productivity maintenance.
2Length of moving object
If multiple vehicles are controlled individually to maintain gaps, then local gap control is improved, but the overall fleet coordination deteriorates due to cascading effects
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges individual vehicle control decisions into a unified fleet-wide control strategy. The controller evaluates gap imbalances across the entire fleet simultaneously and coordinates speed adjustments for multiple vehicles in a synchronized manner, ensuring that local gap corrections do not create cascading imbalances elsewhere in the fleet.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback control by continuously monitoring actual gap distributions, comparing them to desired gap targets, and adjusting control actions accordingly. The controller uses feedback from the entire fleet's state to make coordinated adjustments, ensuring that corrections to one part of the fleet are compensated by corresponding adjustments elsewhere to maintain overall stability.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a method for controlling vehicles (V1-V3) in a mission along a route, comprising—selecting at least two progress control value sets (u, tw), each value set comprising a respective value (u1, u2, u3, tw) of a progress control parameter for at least one of the vehicles, wherein each progress control parameter value influences the rate of progress of the respective vehicle, —determining, for each of the selected progress control value sets, a respective distribution (SoBfut) of the vehicles, if the at least one of the vehicles is controlled based on the respective selected progress control value set (u, tw), so that each progress control value set is correlated to a respective distribution (SoBfut) of the vehicles, —identifying, from the selected progress control value sets, based at least partly on the determinations of the distributions (SOBfut), a progress control value set (u, tw) for controlling the at least one of the vehicles, and—controlling the at least one of the vehicles (V1-V3) according to the identified progress control value set (u).