Vehicle Collision Warning Scaling Deceleration Dynamics

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Solution Overview

Problem

Collision warning systems in motor vehicles often generate unnecessary warnings when encountering vehicles that briefly brake, leading to false alarms and reduced prediction ability, as they struggle to differentiate between harmless and hazardous braking maneuvers.

Innovation Solution

A method that scales the detected deceleration acceleration of a leading vehicle using a dynamic assignment rule based on driving dynamics values, such as braking duration and magnitude, to generate a prediction signal that triggers a warning only when the scaled deceleration indicates a significant risk of collision, thereby avoiding false alarms and ensuring timely warnings.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the collision warning system uses high threshold values or weakens the detected deceleration acceleration to prevent false warnings, then false alarms are reduced, but the prediction ability is underused and warnings may be triggered undesirably late

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvereliability of collision warningVSAvoidwarning time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies dynamics by making the threshold value dynamic rather than static. The threshold is adapted based on the duration of detected deceleration: for short-duration decelerations, a higher threshold is applied to prevent false warnings, while for long-duration decelerations, a lower threshold enables earlier warnings. This dynamic adaptation resolves the contradiction between avoiding false alarms and maintaining timely warning capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the parameter of threshold value based on the duration parameter of detected deceleration. By varying the threshold parameter according to deceleration duration, the system achieves both reduced false alarms (through higher thresholds for brief events) and maintained prediction ability (through lower thresholds for sustained events), thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and warning timeliness.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

2Productivity

If the collision warning system triggers on brief strong braking of another vehicle, then the prediction ability is utilized, but false alarms occur that distract the driver unnecessarily

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprediction ability utilizationVSAvoidfalse alarm distraction
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adjusts the threshold based on deceleration duration to differentiate between harmful brief braking events and hazardous sustained braking events. For short-duration decelerations below the duration threshold, a higher effective threshold prevents false alarms, while maintaining full prediction ability for longer-duration decelerations where the lower threshold applies.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The duration threshold acts as an intermediary parameter that mediates between the detected deceleration and the final warning decision. By introducing this intermediate evaluation criterion, the system can filter out brief strong braking events that would otherwise trigger false alarms, while still responding appropriately to sustained deceleration patterns indicating real collision risk.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentEP3079959B1Motor vehicle with collision warning
Publication Date: 2017.11.01 VOLKSWAGEN AG
  • EP3079959B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3079959B1 patent drawingFigure 2

AI summary

The invention relates to a motor vehicle (10) which comprises: an environment sensor system (18) for detecting an actual acceleration delay (A) of a third-party vehicle (14) driving in front of the motor vehicle (10); a prediction unit (22) which is equipped to detect a prediction signal (B) for a collision danger of the motor vehicle (10) as a function of the actual acceleration delay (A); a control unit (24) for generating a trigger signal (S) in the event that the prediction signal (B) fulfils a prespecified risk criterion (B0). The problem addressed by the invention is to reliably signal a possible collision with a third-party vehicle (14) driving in front. For this purpose, a scaling unit (20) converts the actual acceleration delay (A) by means of a prespecified assignment rule (34) as a function of at least one driving dynamic value (A) of the third-party vehicle (14) into a scaled acceleration delay (A') and outputs the scaled acceleration delay (A') to the prediction unit (22) instead of the actual acceleration delay (A).