Vehicle-Crowdsourced Ice Hazard Mapping for Local Road Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems fail to accurately predict and address potential ice hazards on roads due to reliance on central weather data, which is inadequate for rapidly changing weather conditions and varies by location, and vehicles lack the necessary sensors for ice hazard prediction.
Innovation Solution
A crowdsourcing approach where vehicles collect and transmit weather data, including temperature and rain information, to a cloud server, which aggregates and analyzes this data to identify potential ice hazards, setting a hazard flag for geographic regions and communicating this information to vehicles and road treatment systems to enhance safety measures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If central weather data is used to predict road conditions, then the system structure is simple, but the prediction accuracy is insufficient for rapidly changing weather conditions and location-specific variations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines data from multiple vehicles (crowdsourcing) to create a comprehensive weather data set for road hazard prediction. By merging observations from numerous vehicles across different locations, the system achieves location-specific and time-specific weather condition accuracy without requiring a single complex centralized weather station at each road location.
Solution Approach 2:
The system divides the prediction task into segments by collecting data from individual vehicles at specific locations and times. Each vehicle contributes localized weather observations that are then aggregated to create a detailed spatial and temporal map of road conditions, enabling precise location-specific predictions.
2Measurement precision
If vehicles are equipped with sensors for ice hazard prediction, then the measurement capability is improved, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages existing multi-functional vehicle systems (telematics, navigation, communication) to collect weather data. These systems already serve multiple purposes including vehicle tracking, navigation, and communication, so adding weather data collection functionality does not significantly increase overall system complexity or cost.
Solution Approach 2:
Vehicles use their own existing sensors and systems to collect and transmit weather data for ice hazard prediction. The vehicle's communication system automatically transmits collected weather information to the server without requiring additional dedicated hardware or complex processing systems in the vehicle.
3Measurement precision
If real-time weather data from multiple vehicles is collected and analyzed, then the ice hazard detection accuracy is improved, but the data processing complexity and communication requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a central server as an intermediary that receives, aggregates, and processes weather data from multiple vehicles. This centralizes the complex data processing tasks, allowing individual vehicles to remain relatively simple while achieving sophisticated ice hazard prediction through server-side analysis of crowdsourced data.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, and apparatus related to determining ice hazards on roads based on crowdsourced data from vehicles. In one approach, a server receives weather data and location data from each of several vehicles. The weather data is timestamped when received. The server determines, using the location data, a geographic region in which each vehicle is located. The weather data is stored in a database associated with the respective geographic region for the vehicle that transmitted the weather data. The server periodically scans the database to select weather data received over a selected time period. The selected data is analyzed to determine whether an ice hazard exists for one or more regions. A communication is sent to vehicles in those regions having the determined ice hazard.