Vehicle Platoon Segmentation for Weight-Limited Road Sections
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicle platoons with heavily loaded trucks face the risk of exceeding weight limits on road sections, leading to potential damage and safety hazards when passing through weight-limited areas, as existing solutions do not adequately address this issue.
Innovation Solution
A method for controlling vehicle platoons involves determining whether they can safely pass through weight-limited road sections by segmenting the platoon based on specific information, including identifiers of sub-lead vehicles and distances between them, to distribute weight effectively and prevent overload.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If vehicle platoons with heavily loaded trucks travel together to improve transportation efficiency, then productivity increases, but the overall weight exceeds road section limits causing damage and safety hazards
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the vehicle platoon into multiple sub-platoons by inserting gap vehicles between heavily loaded trucks. This segmentation distributes the weight across different road sections, preventing any single section from bearing the excessive total weight of the entire platoon, thereby resolving the contradiction between maintaining platoon efficiency and avoiding road damage.
2Speed
If vehicles maintain close spacing in a platoon to reduce reaction time and improve synchronization, then speed and coordination improve, but the risk of accidents increases due to reduced safety margin
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inserts gap vehicles between heavily loaded trucks within the platoon to create predetermined safety buffers. These gap vehicles serve as cushioning elements that increase the spacing and reduce the risk of accidents, while still allowing the platoon to maintain high synchronization speed through V2V communication and coordinated control.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling a vehicle platoon includes determining whether a vehicle platoon is capable of safely passing through a weight-limited road section, generating segment information of the vehicle platoon when the vehicle platoon is incapable of safely passing through the weight-limited road section, and sending this information to a lead vehicle in the vehicle platoon. The lead vehicle can then segment the vehicle platoon based on the segment information.