Road-Embedded Tracking Tags for Reliable Autonomous Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face navigation inaccuracies due to changes in road conditions caused by events such as construction or natural disasters, leading to impaired decision-making and inefficiencies in roadway systems, as traditional markers may become outdated or missing.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous vehicle system that uses tracking tags embedded under the road surface, detected by sensors, to query a database for navigational information, allowing the vehicle to determine and execute navigational actions based on the received data, even when disconnected from a network, and update information to adapt to changes in road conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional roadway markers are used for navigation, then the system is simple and easy to implement, but the markers become inaccurate or missing when road conditions change due to construction or natural disasters
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces tracking tags as intermediary objects embedded in the road surface between the roadway infrastructure and the autonomous vehicle navigation system. These tags serve as mediators that provide stable identification points that survive road construction and environmental changes, resolving the contradiction between reliability and complexity by adding a simple embedded tag system rather than complex dynamic marker systems
Solution Approach 2:
The tracking tags are pre-installed and embedded in the road surface before any construction or environmental changes occur. This preliminary placement ensures that the navigation references are already in position and will remain stable through future changes, addressing the reliability issue without requiring complex real-time adaptation systems
2Reliability
If roadway markers are updated to reflect changing road conditions, then navigational accuracy improves, but the cost and complexity of maintenance increases
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking tags serve as maintenance-free intermediary markers embedded in the road structure. Unlike traditional painted markers that require frequent repainting and replacement, these embedded tags remain stable and require minimal maintenance, resolving the contradiction between maintaining accuracy and reducing maintenance effort
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses multiple identical tracking tags with unique identifiers distributed along the roadway. Instead of maintaining a single complex marker system that requires updates, the system replicates simple tagged markers throughout the road network, allowing the vehicle to navigate using any visible tag without requiring maintenance of specific marker content
3Ease of operation
If visible roadway markers are used, then the information is accessible to human drivers, but the markers become distorted or invisible when road surface conditions change
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from visible roadway markers to invisible or non-visible spectrum tracking tags embedded in the road. These tags operate in the non-visible spectrum (such as infrared or radio frequency), making them immune to road surface distortions, weather conditions, and lighting variations that affect visible markers, thus resolving the contradiction between accessibility and reliability through alternative sensing modalities
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution provides robust and accurate navigation for autonomous vehicles by utilizing embedded tracking tags that are resistant to distortions and updates, ensuring unconditional and invisible information that is resistant to harmful events, thus maintaining efficient operation even in dynamically changing environments.
Implementation Method 1
the computer may monitor the road for reflective invisible markings (e.g., markings that are of the non-visible spectrum). Based on a reflection of the invisible markings, the computer may determine the numerical identification or other identifying information for determining the navigational action.
Data Source
AI summary
An autonomous vehicle comprises a sensor and one or more processors. The processors can be configured to monitor, using the sensor, a surface of a road while the autonomous vehicle is driving on the road; detect a numerical identification of a tracking tag embedded underneath a surface of the road based on data collected from the sensor during the monitoring of the surface; query a database using the numerical identification of the tracking tag, the database comprising navigational information corresponding to different numerical identifications of tracking tags; identify first navigational information from the database that corresponds to the detected numerical identification of the tracking tag embedded underneath the surface of the road; determine a navigational action based on the first navigational information; and operate the autonomous vehicle according to the navigational action.