Guide Handle Navigation for Safe Autonomous Vehicle Drop-Off
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles lack effective guidance systems for transporting visually impaired individuals to specific destinations, such as braille blocks or safe locations, ensuring safe exit and entry, particularly in structured and unstructured environments.
Innovation Solution
A transportation vulnerable guidance apparatus that monitors surroundings to identify obstacles and braille blocks, controls a guide handle to move outside the vehicle to the identified location, and provides directional assistance through vibrations and air flow to help visually impaired individuals locate vehicle door handles and exit safely.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If autonomous vehicles operate without specialized guidance systems, then device complexity is reduced, but the ability to assist transportation vulnerable persons is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The guide handle is designed to perform multiple functions: it serves as both a physical guidance tool for visually impaired persons and a communication interface through vibration patterns. The same device provides directional information, distance cues, and safety warnings, eliminating the need for separate specialized equipment.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide handle acts as an intermediary between the autonomous vehicle system and the visually impaired passenger. It translates complex sensor data and navigation information into simple tactile vibrations that the passenger can understand, bridging the gap between the vehicle's intelligent systems and the user's limited sensory input.
2Productivity
If the vehicle stops at the exact destination point, then transportation efficiency is improved, but visually impaired persons cannot locate safe exit points
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-identifies safe exit points and braille block locations before the vehicle arrives. The guide handle is programmed with vibration patterns that will guide the passenger to these pre-determined safe locations, allowing the passenger to exit safely without requiring real-time visual search or complex decision-making upon arrival.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide handle provides continuous tactile feedback to the visually impaired passenger, indicating their position relative to the safe exit point. Different vibration patterns convey distance information and directional cues, allowing the passenger to navigate to the correct exit location with high precision without visual input.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the vehicle provides detailed environmental information, then the ability to guide visually impaired persons is improved, but information processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of providing comprehensive environmental information, the system focuses on delivering only the locally relevant guidance information needed at each moment. The guide handle provides vibration cues specifically tailored to the passenger's current position and immediate navigation needs, filtering out unnecessary information while maintaining effective guidance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms complex environmental data into simplified vibration parameter changes. Rather than presenting raw sensor data or detailed maps, the guide handle converts all information into intuitive vibration frequency, amplitude, and pattern variations that the visually impaired passenger can easily interpret and act upon.
4Adaptability or versatility
If the guide handle remains inside the vehicle, then device complexity is reduced, but the ability to guide passengers outside the vehicle is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The guide handle system is designed to be dynamic rather than static. The handle can extend or project outward from the vehicle when needed, and the vibration guidance patterns dynamically adjust based on the passenger's location and movement. This dynamic capability allows the system to provide effective guidance both inside and outside the vehicle without requiring completely separate physical devices.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables visually impaired individuals to safely locate braille blocks and vehicle door handles, facilitating easy and secure entry and exit from autonomous vehicles by providing real-time directional information and obstacle avoidance.
Implementation Method 1
a vibration module configured to generate vibrations in response to the determined directional information
Implementation Method 2
an air blowing module configured to generate an air flow toward the transportation vulnerable person in response to the determined directional information
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein is a method of guiding a transportation vulnerable person, including in response to a vehicle entering a destination, monitoring surroundings of the destination, determining a drop-off point at the destination based on information from the monitoring, and controlling a guide handle to move to an outside of the vehicle when the transportation vulnerable person alights at the determined drop-off point.