Personal Mobility Platooning With Adaptive Cluster Shape Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing popularity of personal mobility devices, such as electric scooters and bicycles, often leads to accidents due to their narrow pathways and the growing interest in group tours, necessitating a solution for safe platooning that adjusts cluster shapes based on driving information.
Innovation Solution
A personal mobility system equipped with a transceiver and controller that determines movement commands for slaves in a platooning configuration, allowing for adjustments in cluster shape by transmitting commands to slaves, including reversing direction, moving within closed curves, and positioning away from main paths, with sensors detecting abnormal driving and reporting issues to an external server.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If personal mobility devices move in a row on sidewalks or bicycle paths, then the limited width of pathways is utilized, but accidents between personal mobility devices occur frequently
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic cluster shape adjustment where the relative positions and movement patterns of personal mobility devices in the cluster are continuously adapted based on real-time driving information, environmental conditions, and safety requirements. This dynamic reconfiguration allows the cluster to maintain safe spacing while efficiently utilizing limited pathway width, resolving the contradiction between pathway utilization and accident prevention
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously collects driving information from sensors and communication modules, processes this information to assess cluster formation safety, and provides feedback by adjusting movement commands for individual devices. This closed-loop feedback mechanism enables real-time optimization of cluster configuration to prevent accidents while maintaining efficient pathway usage
2Adaptability or versatility
If personal mobility devices perform group tours with platooning, then group tour programs are enhanced, but control complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is segmented into hierarchical levels: a master controller that makes high-level decisions about cluster formation and dissolution, and slave controllers that execute specific movement commands. This segmentation distributes control complexity across multiple devices while enabling sophisticated group tour capabilities through coordinated autonomous operation
Solution Approach 2:
Each personal mobility device in the cluster autonomously monitors its own driving information, sensor data, and communication with other devices to self-adjust its position and movement within the cluster. This self-service capability reduces the overall control complexity by eliminating the need for centralized micromanagement of each device
3Reliability
If the cluster shape is adjusted dynamically, then safety is improved, but communication requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The communication system transmits only locally relevant driving information and control commands necessary for cluster shape adjustment, rather than broadcasting all possible data. Each device communicates specifically with adjacent devices or the master controller only when shape adjustment is required, minimizing communication overhead while maintaining safety
Data Source
AI summary
It is an aspect of the present disclosure to provide a personal mobility capable of adjusting a shape of a cluster in performing platooning and a control method thereof. In accordance with one aspect of the disclosure, a personal mobility performing platooning includes: a transceiver; and a controller configured to determine a movement command for a slave of the platooning based on driving information when the personal mobility is configured as a master of the platooning and adjust a cluster shape of the platooning by controlling the transceiver to transmit the movement command to the slave.