Autonomous Vehicle Personnel Alerts for Indoor Path Conflicts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face challenges in safely and efficiently navigating indoor facilities due to high ambient noise, reduced visibility, and difficulty in accurately determining the location and path of both vehicles and personnel, leading to potential hazards and desensitization from frequent notifications.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a communication system using beacons and mobile devices to triangulate the location of autonomous vehicles and personnel, providing notifications through various methods such as audio and haptic feedback, and adjusting notification intensity based on proximity and acknowledgment to ensure safety and awareness without desensitization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If autonomous vehicles navigate indoor facilities using sensor systems and internal computing, then the vehicle can operate autonomously, but the location and path determination becomes difficult in indoor environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces beacons as intermediary devices deployed throughout the indoor facility to mediate between the autonomous vehicle's sensors and the environment. These beacons emit signals that the vehicle's sensor systems can detect and use for triangulation, enabling precise location determination in GPS-denied indoor environments while maintaining autonomous operation
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from traditional 2D map-based navigation to 3D spatial positioning using triangulation with beacons distributed in three-dimensional space. By adding vertical dimensionality and using multiple beacons at different positions and heights, the system achieves precise location determination in complex indoor environments
2Productivity
If the vehicle travels along a determined path, then productivity is improved, but personnel safety may be compromised due to reduced visibility and awareness
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback system where the vehicle continuously monitors its surroundings using sensor systems, compares detected personnel or obstacles against its planned path, and receives feedback to adjust its behavior. This allows the vehicle to maintain high throughput by staying on course while automatically responding to safety concerns by slowing down or stopping when personnel are detected
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary detection of personnel and potential hazards before the vehicle reaches critical distances. By using sensor systems to detect personnel early and triangulating their positions with beacons, the vehicle can take preliminary protective actions such as adjusting speed or selecting alternative paths before a conflict arises, maintaining both productivity and safety
3Reliability
If notifications are provided to personnel about vehicle proximity, then safety awareness is improved, but personnel may become desensitized from frequent notifications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing different notification characteristics based on the specific situation and personnel location. Rather than uniform notifications, the system adjusts notification type, intensity, and frequency based on the local context - such as using different alerts for different zones or situations - which maintains personnel responsiveness by making notifications more relevant and less intrusive when not critically needed
Data Source
AI summary
A method for communication between autonomous vehicles and personnel can include receiving a signal from a remote computing system, the signal based upon a position of an autonomous vehicle and a first position of a mobile device, wherein the signal identifies that the mobile device is located in a path of the autonomous vehicle, responsive to receipt of the signal from the remote computing system, stopping the autonomous vehicle, receiving an updated signal from the remote computing system, the updated signal based upon a second position of the mobile device, the second position effective to facilitate a determination that the mobile device is no longer within the path of the autonomous vehicle, and responsive to receiving the updated position of the mobile device, resuming operation of the autonomous vehicle along the path. An autonomous vehicle and non-transitory computer-readable medium is also provided.