Vehicle Air Quality Response to External Odors and Fume Sources
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicles lack mechanisms to detect and mitigate poor air quality, such as odors and fumes, which can negatively impact passenger comfort and health.
Innovation Solution
An air quality system in a vehicle that iteratively samples and assesses air quality using sensors, identifies the source of poor air quality through object detection and recognition, and generates responses to mitigate the issue, such as changing vehicle position or activating air cleaning systems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If vehicles include mechanisms to detect and mitigate poor air quality, then passenger comfort and health are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The air quality system integrates multiple functions including odor detection via sensors, source identification through object detection algorithms, and mitigation through automated vehicle maneuvers (lane changes, distance adjustments). This multi-functional approach addresses passenger health while managing system complexity through unified control architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces air quality sensors as intermediary detection devices that indirectly measure poor air quality conditions without requiring direct passenger feedback. These sensors act as mediators between the external environment and the vehicle's control systems, enabling automated responses to odor sources.
2Reliability
If the system performs object detection and recognition to identify air pollution sources, then response accuracy is improved, but measurement precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The source identification process is segmented into multiple stages: initial odor detection by sensors, preliminary object detection in the field of view, classification of detected objects (vehicles, smoke sources, industrial facilities), and final source confirmation. This segmentation allows the system to achieve reliable identification without requiring extremely high precision from individual sensor measurements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system employs feedback loops where sensor readings continuously monitor air quality conditions, trigger object detection when thresholds are exceeded, and adjust vehicle responses based on confirmed source identification. This feedback mechanism improves reliability by validating detections through multiple measurement cycles and cross-referencing sensor data with visual/object detection data.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to improving passenger compartment air quality in a vehicle. In one embodiment, a method includes, responsive to acquiring sensor data that includes at least air quality information about a surrounding environment of an ego vehicle, analyzing the sensor data to determine whether the air quality information satisfies an action threshold specifying that air around the ego vehicle is of a poor quality. The method includes identifying a source of the air having the poor quality, including whether a leading vehicle in front of the ego vehicle is the source. The method includes generating a response to the air having the poor quality according to the source. The method includes controlling the ego vehicle according to the response.