Mobile Device Collision Avoidance Signaling
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current driver assistance technologies in vehicles are inadequate for detecting slow-moving road occupants, such as pedestrians and cyclists, especially when they are obscured by obstacles or outside the vehicle's field of view, leading to potential collisions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize mobile devices to broadcast signals containing location and velocity data, allowing vehicles to compute the likelihood of collisions with targets outside their detection range and notify systems to adjust accordingly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If driver assistance technologies use traditional detection methods (cameras, sensors), then they can detect objects within field of view, but they fail to detect obscured targets or targets outside detection range
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces mobile devices (smartphones, wearables) as intermediary elements that carry transmitters to broadcast location signals. These mobile devices act as mediators between the target (pedestrian/cyclist) and the vehicle's detection system, enabling the vehicle to detect targets that are obscured or outside its direct field of view by receiving location data from the intermediary mobile device.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from direct optical/electromagnetic detection in the vehicle's field of view to a different dimensional approach by using wireless communication signals that can penetrate obstacles and reach the vehicle from any direction. This allows detection of targets in three-dimensional space regardless of line-of-sight constraints.
2Area of stationary object
If vehicles increase detection range and coverage, then they can detect more targets, but they cannot detect targets obscured by obstacles or outside current sensor range
Solution Approach 1:
Mobile devices serve as intermediaries that extend the detection coverage area by broadcasting location signals from targets that are obscured or outside the vehicle's sensor range. The vehicle's receiver captures these signals, effectively expanding the detection coverage without requiring physical expansion of sensors.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses universal mobile devices that pedestrians and cyclists already carry, which can broadcast location information. This multi-functional approach allows the same mobile device to serve communication purposes while simultaneously enabling collision avoidance detection.
3Reliability
If the system broadcasts collision avoidance signals from mobile devices, then collision detection capability improves, but signal processing and computation requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential location information from the mobile device signals and transmits this extracted data to the vehicle's receiver. The vehicle's processor then performs the collision likelihood computation, separating the simple signal broadcasting function from the complex analysis function.
Solution Approach 2:
The system broadcasts continuous location signals from mobile devices, which may be more data than strictly necessary. However, this excessive signaling ensures that collision detection remains reliable even when some signals are missed or obscured, with the trade-off being increased processing requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
A location of a target associated with a first system is determined at the first system at a first time. A signal is constructed at the first system where the data of the signal includes an identifier indicative of a collision avoidance nature of the signal. The signal is broadcast from the first system. the broadcasting causes a second system to receive the signal; compute a likelihood of a collision between the first system and the second system using the location from the signal, a velocity of the first system, a location of the second system at the first time, and a velocity of the second system at the first time; and send a notification from the second system about the likelihood of collision when the likelihood of collision exceeding a threshold likelihood.