Vulnerable Road User Awareness Message Generation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, lack external status indicators, making it difficult for drivers to detect their presence and intentions, especially in poor visibility conditions, leading to increased accident risks.
Innovation Solution
A method for generating awareness messages that include computed status data, such as braking and turning intentions, from vulnerable road users, which are transmitted to nearby vehicles, allowing for improved situational awareness and reduced collision risks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If detector-based techniques are used to detect pedestrians, then collision avoidance capability is improved, but performance deteriorates in poor visibility conditions, at night, or when pedestrians are not in line of sight
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces communication technology as an intermediary between pedestrians and vehicles. Pedestrians use smartphones to transmit awareness messages containing status information (position, movement, braking, turning) to vehicles. This mediator overcomes the limitation of direct detection by enabling information exchange when pedestrians are not in line of sight or visibility is poor.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical/optical detection system (cameras, sensors) with a communication-based information system. Instead of relying on detectors to physically sense pedestrians, the system uses V2P communication to receive status messages from pedestrians' smartphones, substituting direct detection with information transmission.
2Device complexity
If only position information is transmitted in awareness messages, then communication simplicity is maintained, but situational awareness of vulnerable road users remains insufficient for motor vehicles
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by having pedestrians pre-compute their status information (position, movement status, braking, turning intentions) and include it in awareness messages before vehicles need this information for decision-making. This allows vehicles to receive ready-to-use status data without needing to process raw sensor data from pedestrians.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameters transmitted in awareness messages from simple position coordinates to include computed status parameters such as movement status, braking state, and turning intentions. This enrichment of message parameters provides vehicles with actionable intelligence about pedestrian behavior without significantly increasing communication complexity.
3Reliability
If awareness messages include computed status data from vulnerable road users, then situational awareness and collision avoidance are improved, but message complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies self-service by having the pedestrian's smartphone automatically compute status information (position, movement, braking, turning) and generate awareness messages without requiring vehicle systems to perform complex analysis. The pedestrian device serves itself by preparing the information, reducing the processing burden on vehicle systems.
Data Source
AI summary
Protection of vulnerable road users. The vulnerable road users are in particular pedestrians and users of non-motor vehicles such as bicycles, scooters etc. as well as light electric vehicles. A method for generating knowledge messages from a first road user to be sent to at least one device for assisting a second road user, includes: integrating into the knowledge message at least one calculated datum regarding the status of the first road user. Thus, in addition to the current position of the first road user measured by the smartphone (GPS measurement), the knowledge message includes other items of status data which are based on a calculation. This provides more detailed knowledge regarding the behaviour of the first road user and thus reduces the risk of collisions with a second road user.