Vehicle Running Control Apparatus Avoiding Stops in Poor Visibility Areas
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional vehicle running control systems may stop a vehicle in areas with poor visibility, such as curved roads, when determining that the driver has lost the ability to drive, leading to potential safety hazards for following vehicles that need to apply sudden brakes to avoid collisions.
Innovation Solution
The system includes abnormality determination means to assess the driver's ability to drive and running stopping means to control vehicle speed, avoiding stops in areas with poor visibility by defining stop prohibited areas, such as curved roads and sections with poor visibility, and decelerating the vehicle to a safe speed before stopping, ensuring the vehicle does not stop in these hazardous locations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If the vehicle stops immediately after determining driver abnormality, then the stopping response time is reduced, but the vehicle may stop in areas with poor visibility causing safety hazards
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary identification of stop prohibited areas (curved roads, intersections, slopes) before the vehicle stops. By anticipating potential hazardous locations in advance and planning alternative stopping positions, the system avoids stopping in poor visibility areas while maintaining rapid response to driver abnormality.
Solution Approach 2:
The control unit acts as an intermediary between the abnormality determination and the physical stopping action. It calculates the vehicle's current position and predicts future stopping positions, then adjusts the deceleration control to ensure the vehicle stops in a safe location rather than immediately, mediating between rapid response and safety requirements.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the vehicle decelerates to avoid stopping in stop prohibited areas, then the safety hazard is reduced, but the deceleration time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the deceleration rate based on the vehicle's current position, speed, and distance to stop prohibited areas. By optimizing the deceleration profile in real-time, the system achieves the minimum necessary deceleration time to reach a safe stopping position, balancing safety requirements with time efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The control unit changes deceleration parameters (deceleration rate, target stopping position) based on real-time vehicle state and road conditions. By adjusting these parameters dynamically, the system minimizes deceleration time while ensuring the vehicle stops outside stop prohibited areas, resolving the contradiction between safety and time.
Data Source
AI summary
The vehicle running control apparatus (driving support ECU 10) determines whether or not the driver of the vehicle is in an abnormal state in which the driver has lost an ability to drive the vehicle, and stops the vehicle by reducing the vehicle speed to 0 after an abnormality determination time point when the driver is determined to be in the abnormal state. The vehicle running control apparatus predicts a position at which the vehicle stops when the vehicle speed is reduced at a predetermined deceleration, when the predicted stop position is not within a stop prohibited area (for example, a curved road and a section within a predetermined distance from a point at which the road changes from the curved road to the straight road), it decelerates the vehicle with the deceleration and stops the vehicle. In contrast, the vehicle running control apparatus makes the vehicle ran with a constant speed when the predicted stop position is within the stop prohibited area.