Road Surface Condition Determination Using Multi-Vehicle Sensor Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional methods for determining road surface conditions using information from a single vehicle are not accurate enough, limiting the ability to enhance vehicular safety through advanced control systems like ABS braking.
Innovation Solution
A system that utilizes multiple vehicles equipped with on-board sensors to collect and transmit feature values, which are then aggregated by a server to determine road surface conditions within a predetermined area and time, improving accuracy through collective vehicular data analysis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If road surface condition is estimated from information of a single vehicle, then the system complexity is low, but the determination accuracy is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines information from multiple vehicles (n vehicles) to determine road surface conditions. The server collects feature values from on-board sensors of multiple vehicles traveling in the same region and integrates this data to improve determination accuracy, resolving the contradiction between single-vehicle simplicity and multi-vehicle accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary that collects, stores, and processes feature values from multiple vehicles. This mediator enables accurate road surface condition determination by aggregating data from multiple sources without requiring direct complex communication between vehicles, thus improving accuracy while managing system complexity through a centralized coordination point.
2Measurement precision
If multiple vehicles are used to determine road surface condition, then the determination accuracy is improved, but the information processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the information processing task: individual vehicles extract and transmit only relevant feature values (vibration, noise, acceleration data) to the server, while the server performs the aggregated analysis. This segmentation reduces the processing burden on each vehicle and enables accurate multi-vehicle determination without overwhelming information processing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the essential feature values needed for road surface condition determination from each vehicle's sensor data (vibration waveforms, noise levels, acceleration information). By taking out and transmitting only these critical features rather than raw sensor streams, the system improves determination accuracy while minimizing information processing complexity during transmission and storage.
3Measurement precision
If feature values from multiple vehicles are aggregated, then the road surface condition determination accuracy is enhanced, but the data transmission and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by having each vehicle transmit only the specific feature values relevant to road surface condition determination (vibration features, noise features, acceleration features) rather than complete sensor datasets. This selective transmission provides sufficient data for accurate multi-vehicle aggregation while reducing overall data transmission and storage requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention provides a road surface condition determining system with improved accuracy. In the system, a plurality of vehicles Wi are used, each equipped with on-board sensors (11, 12) for acquiring vehicular information, which is information on the behavior of the vehicle during travel, a feature value calculating means (13) for calculating a plurality of feature values to be used in estimating the condition of the road surface on which the vehicle is traveling from the vehicular information acquired by the on-board sensors (11, 12), and a transmitter 16 for transmitting the feature values to the outside of the vehicle. A server (20) has a data storage means (22) for accumulating the plurality of feature values from the plurality of vehicles. A road surface condition determining unit (30) determines a road surface condition using the accumulated feature values. And the system determines the road surface condition at the location within a predetermined range within a predetermined space of time.