Platooning Vehicle Precognitive Braking for Hazard Gap Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current vehicle platooning systems face challenges in maintaining a safe gap between vehicles while ensuring road safety, particularly in encountering hazards, as the lead vehicle's reaction can increase risks for following vehicles.
Innovation Solution
A system and method where a following vehicle in a platoon uses sensors to detect hazards and takes preemptive actions, such as increasing the gap by reducing velocity, before the lead vehicle reacts, utilizing tiered severity threat levels and pre-cognitive braking to mitigate risks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the lead vehicle reacts to hazards first in a platoon, then the lead vehicle can respond to the hazard, but the following vehicle may collide with the lead vehicle due to the reduced reaction time
Solution Approach 1:
The following vehicle performs preliminary hazard detection using its own sensors before the lead vehicle reacts. When a hazard is detected, the following vehicle preemptively increases the gap by reducing velocity, ensuring safety before the lead vehicle's reaction occurs. This preliminary action resolves the contradiction by enabling the following vehicle to protect itself in advance against the harmful effect of limited reaction time.
Solution Approach 2:
The following vehicle's hazard detection system acts as an intermediary safety mechanism. Instead of relying solely on the lead vehicle's reaction, the following vehicle independently detects hazards and intermediates the safety response by preemptively adjusting its velocity. This intermediary action ensures that the following vehicle can respond safely even when the lead vehicle's reaction is insufficient.
2Loss of energy
If the following vehicle maintains a smaller gap to the lead vehicle, then fuel efficiency is improved, but safety is compromised when hazards are encountered
Solution Approach 1:
The following vehicle dynamically adjusts the gap based on real-time hazard conditions. During normal operation, a smaller gap maintains fuel efficiency. When hazards are detected, the system dynamically increases the gap by reducing velocity, thereby adapting to changing safety requirements. This dynamic adjustment resolves the contradiction by allowing the gap to be small when safe and large when hazardous.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the gap parameter (distance between vehicles) based on hazard detection. Under normal conditions, the gap remains small for fuel efficiency. When hazards are detected, the gap parameter is increased through velocity reduction, transforming the safety margin. This parameter change enables the system to optimize both fuel efficiency and safety under different operating conditions.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If the following vehicle takes preemptive action before the lead vehicle, then collision risk is reduced, but the platoon coordination complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The hazard response function is segmented between the lead vehicle and following vehicle. The lead vehicle handles hazard response for objects in front of it, while the following vehicle independently handles hazard detection and preemptive response for the same space. This segmentation allows each vehicle to operate semi-independently, reducing the coordination complexity while maintaining safety through distributed hazard detection capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for mitigating or avoiding risks due to hazards encountered by platooning vehicles. The system and method involve interrogating, with one or more sensors, a space radially extending from a lead vehicle as the lead vehicle travels over the road surface, perceiving the environment within the space, ascertaining a hazard caused by an object in the space, and causing a following vehicle, operating in a platoon with the lead vehicle, to take a preemptive braking action to avoid or mitigate risks resulting from the hazard caused by the object in the space.