Pre-cognitive Braking for Platooning Vehicles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current vehicle platooning systems face challenges in maintaining safety and avoiding collisions due to hazards encountered on the road, as they often rely on the lead vehicle to react first, which can increase risks for following vehicles.
Innovation Solution
A system and method where a following vehicle in a platoon uses data from sensors to preemptively adjust its position by changing velocity or gap distance before the lead vehicle reacts, employing tiered threat levels and pre-cognitive braking to mitigate hazards, allowing it to take action independently before the lead vehicle.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the lead vehicle reacts first to hazards, then the lead vehicle maintains control authority, but the following vehicle's response time is insufficient leading to collision risks
Solution Approach 1:
The following vehicle performs preliminary hazard detection using its own sensors before the lead vehicle reacts. When a hazard is detected in the radial space, the following vehicle preemptively adjusts its velocity or gap distance before the lead vehicle takes action, ensuring sufficient response time and eliminating the time loss contradiction.
Solution Approach 2:
The following vehicle's sensor system acts as an intermediary hazard detection mechanism. Instead of relying solely on the lead vehicle's reaction, the following vehicle independently detects hazards in its radial space and initiates preemptive actions, serving as an intermediate safety layer between hazard detection and collision avoidance.
2Loss of energy
If the following vehicle maintains a small gap for fuel efficiency, then fuel savings are maximized, but safety margins are reduced increasing collision risk
Solution Approach 1:
The gap distance between vehicles is made dynamic rather than fixed. The following vehicle continuously adjusts the gap based on real-time hazard detection in the radial space. When hazards are detected, the gap is automatically increased to safe levels; when the space is clear, the gap returns to fuel-efficient minimums, thus resolving the contradiction between fuel efficiency and safety margins.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the gap distance parameter dynamically based on detected threat levels. By monitoring the radial space for hazards and adjusting the gap parameter accordingly, the system achieves both fuel efficiency (small gap when safe) and safety (increased gap when hazards detected), resolving the contradiction between energy loss and reliability.
3Reliability
If the following vehicle takes preemptive action independently, then collision avoidance capability is improved, but coordination with lead vehicle control becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The hazard detection and response functions are segmented between vehicles. Each vehicle independently monitors its own radial space for hazards using local sensors. This segmentation allows the following vehicle to take preemptive action based on local conditions without requiring complex centralized coordination, simplifying the control system while improving collision avoidance capability.
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.