Road Junction Sensor Zoning for Autonomous Vehicle Entry Warnings
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face challenges in safely navigating shared road junctions with manually driven vehicles and non-compatible autonomous vehicles due to coordination issues, leading to safety concerns and inefficient traffic flow, as existing solutions either require separate infrastructure, manual intervention, or excessive emergency stops.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method using sensors to monitor traffic zones in road junctions, determining the presence of objects in edge zones to alert autonomous vehicles of potential incoming traffic, allowing them to react before entering a central zone, and adapting sensor monitoring based on occupancy to improve safety and efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If autonomous vehicles and manually driven vehicles share a road junction concurrently, then traffic flow efficiency is improved, but collision risk increases due to coordination difficulties
Solution Approach 1:
The road junction is divided into multiple traffic zones (central zone and edge zones) that are monitored separately by sensors. This segmentation allows the system to track vehicles in different areas independently, enabling safe concurrent operation by providing spatial awareness of all vehicles' positions and preventing uncoordinated entry into the central zone.
2Reliability
If traffic lights are used to separate autonomous and manually driven vehicles in time, then collision risk is reduced, but traffic flow efficiency deteriorates due to waiting periods
Solution Approach 1:
A sensor-based monitoring system provides real-time feedback about vehicle presence in traffic zones to both autonomous and manually driven vehicles. This feedback mechanism enables coordinated access to the road junction without requiring temporal separation through traffic lights, allowing vehicles to proceed when safe while maintaining high traffic flow efficiency.
3Measurement precision
If sensors are mounted at low positions on autonomous vehicles to detect small obstacles and persons, then detection precision is improved, but sensor reliability worsens due to sensitivity to bumps and inclinations
Solution Approach 1:
Infrastructure-mounted sensors serve as intermediaries between the road junction environment and the autonomous vehicles. These fixed sensors provide stable, high-precision detection of objects and vehicles in traffic zones without being subject to vehicle motion, bumps, or inclinations. The infrastructure sensors relay this information to autonomous vehicles, enabling accurate obstacle detection while maintaining sensor reliability.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2a~2c
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AI summary
The invention relates to a computer-implemented method for assisting one or more autonomous vehicles (30) to drive in a road junction (100). The road junction (100) comprises a plurality of traffic zones. The plurality of traffic zones comprise a central zone (20) arranged for use by the one or more autonomous vehicles (30) and one or more secondary vehicles (40). The plurality of traffic zones comprises at least one edge zone (10a, 10b) for use by the one or more secondary vehicles (40) for entering the central zone (20). The method comprises obtaining sensor data from a set of sensors (50) arranged in the road junction (100) for monitoring the plurality of traffic zones. The sensor data is indicative of objects present in the plurality of traffic zones. The method further comprises determining, based on the obtained sensor data, whether there are any objects present in the plurality of traffic zones. In response to determining that at least one object is present in the at least one edge zone (10a, 10b), the method further comprises, indicating to the one or more autonomous vehicles (30) that the road junction is occupied.