Navigation Capability Evaluation for Sensor-Limited Hazard Regions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current autonomous vehicle navigation systems lack a standardized, scalable solution for ensuring safety and navigating complex environments, as they rely on diverse sensors and data sources without a unified interpretable mathematical model, which hinders widespread adoption.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a system that uses cameras and other sensors to analyze environmental data, including GPS and sensor information, to simulate navigation scenarios and determine safe routes by identifying regions where sensor outputs may lead to accidents, allowing for modifications to avoid potential hazards.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If autonomous vehicle navigation systems use diverse sensors and data sources without a unified model, then the system can process more environmental information, but the system complexity increases and safety assurance becomes difficult to standardize
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the navigation system into distinct functional modules: hazard detection module, route evaluation module, and safety verification module. Each module processes specific sensor data types independently before integration, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining versatile sensor integration capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a unified mathematical model as an intermediary layer between diverse sensors and navigation decision-making. This model standardizes sensor inputs into a common framework, enabling safe route determination without directly managing the complexity of individual sensor systems
2Reliability
If autonomous vehicle systems implement comprehensive safety verification, then safety assurance improves, but the computational resources and time required increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary safety evaluation by pre-mapping geographic regions and identifying potential hazard zones before actual navigation. This advance preparation allows the system to quickly assess safety during real-time operation without extensive computational delays
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces comprehensive real-time simulation with a mathematical model that analytically determines safe routes. This substitution reduces computational time requirements while maintaining rigorous safety verification standards
3Reliability
If the navigation system identifies and avoids all potential hazard regions, then accident prevention improves, but the available routing options decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by evaluating safety characteristics of specific geographic regions rather than imposing blanket restrictions. The system identifies hazard-specific properties (e.g., sensor insufficiency in certain environments) and adjusts routing decisions locally, maintaining overall route flexibility while preventing accidents in problematic areas
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods evaluate navigation system capabilities. In one implementation, at least one processing device is programmed to acquire characteristics of one or more sensors included in the host vehicle; establish a testing domain, wherein the testing domain includes at least one mapped representation of a geographic region; and simulate operation of the one or more sensors relative to the testing domain. Based on the simulated operation of the one or more sensors, the at least one processing device may determine whether one or more regions exist within the geographic region where outputs of the one or more sensors are insufficient for ensuring that each navigational action implemented by the navigation system of the host vehicle will not result in an accident for which the host vehicle is at fault.