Long-Range Parking Sensing for Trailer Reversing Trajectories
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional automatic parking systems for vehicles, especially long vehicles or vehicle-trailer combinations, are limited by short-range sensors, which fail to plan appropriate trajectories due to their restricted scanning area, leading to potential collisions and inability to identify suitable parking positions.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of long-range sensors, such as those using structure from motion techniques or long-range radar, allows for a broader scanning area, enabling the identification of obstacles and suitable parking positions, and computing trajectories that avoid collisions for long vehicles and vehicle-trailer combinations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If short-range sensors are used for scanning the surrounding area, then the device complexity is reduced and cost is lowered, but the scanning area is limited and obstacles at longer distances cannot be detected
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor system is segmented into multiple components with different detection ranges: short-range sensors for immediate obstacles and long-range sensors for distant obstacles. This segmentation allows the system to achieve comprehensive coverage without requiring a single complex sensor to handle all ranges, thus resolving the contradiction between scanning area and device complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines short-range sensors and long-range sensors into a unified sensor system that integrates data from both types. This merging allows the system to achieve both extensive scanning area (through long-range detection) and manageable complexity (by using standard sensor technologies in combination)
2Reliability
If long-range sensors are deployed to scan a larger surrounding area, then obstacles at longer distances can be detected and parking positions can be identified, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The long-range sensors perform preliminary detection of obstacles and parking positions at a distance before the vehicle actually approaches them. This preliminary action allows the trajectory planning system to pre-calculate safe paths, enhancing parking safety without requiring complex real-time response systems
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a trajectory planning unit that acts as an intermediary between the sensor system and the vehicle control system. This intermediary processes the data from long-range sensors and generates safe trajectories, thereby enhancing safety while keeping the overall system complexity manageable through modular architecture
3Area of stationary object
If only a small surrounding region is scanned, then the sensor system remains simple and response time is fast, but suitable parking positions cannot be identified for long vehicles or vehicle-trailer combinations
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary scanning and identification of parking positions using long-range sensors before the vehicle needs to execute the parking maneuver. This preliminary action allows more time for processing and trajectory calculation, thus expanding the scanning area without significantly increasing the critical response time during actual parking execution
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
Enhances safety and identifies larger parking spaces by considering a larger surrounding area, allowing for the successful navigation of long vehicles and vehicle-trailer combinations into desired parking positions without collisions, even behind obstacles.
Implementation Method 1
the long-range sensing unit is adapted to scan the surrounding by applying a structure from motion (SFM) technique
Implementation Method 2
a long range-radar which is usually only activated when the vehicle is driving at higher speed
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention provides an enhanced automatic parking of a vehicle. In particular, a long-range scanning in the surrounding of a vehicle is performed in an extended range. The long-range scanning can be performed by means of a long-range radar and/or a structure from motion technique. In this way, it is possible to consider an extended space surrounding the vehicle for navigating the vehicle. Accordingly, a trajectory for navigating long vehicles and vehicle-trailer-combinations backwards can be computed by considering an extended surrounding of the vehicles. Hence, collisions with obstacles in the surrounding of the vehicle can be avoided for such long vehicles.