Virtual Lane Generation for Unmarked Road Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles face challenges in maintaining stable driving and preventing collisions when navigating roads without lines, leading to potential congestion and increased accident risk due to limited functionality of existing lane-keeping assist systems.
Innovation Solution
The system generates virtual lanes on roads without lines, allowing autonomous vehicles to maintain safe distances and navigate around obstacles by determining the width of the road and the size of obstacles, and controlling the vehicle to bypass or maintain distance from front vehicles and fixed obstacles using image processing and communication technologies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the LKAS is applied to detect lines on the road, then the lane deviation can be prevented, but the system becomes ineffective on roads with no lines
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces virtual lane lines as an intermediary element that bridges the gap between the LKAS system (which requires line detection) and roads without physical lines. The virtual lines are generated based on road width detection and serve as reference guides for the steering control, enabling the LKAS to function on unmarked roads just as it does on marked roads.
2Productivity
If multiple vehicles travel on a narrow road with no lines, then driving congestion occurs, but reducing road width is not an option
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the undifferentiated road space into multiple virtual lanes by generating virtual line structures. This segmentation allows multiple vehicles to travel simultaneously in an organized manner, with each vehicle assigned to a specific virtual lane, thereby increasing road throughput while maintaining driving ease through clear spatial guidance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds the dimension of virtual visual guidance to the physical road space. By overlaying virtual lane lines on the actual road, it creates a two-layer structure (physical road + virtual guidance) that enables better spatial organization and vehicle distribution without altering the physical road dimensions.
3Reliability
If the autonomous vehicle travels on a curved road with no lines, then the visibility for front obstacles is reduced, but collision risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary road width detection and virtual lane generation before the vehicle encounters obstacles on curved sections. By pre-establishing the virtual lane structure and guiding the vehicle along the correct path, the system compensates for reduced visibility, allowing the vehicle to maintain proper position and detect obstacles earlier than would be possible with visual input alone.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention relates to an autonomous driving control apparatus and method. The autonomous driving control apparatus may include: an image capturing unit configured to capture a driving road image of an ego vehicle; and a control unit configured to generate virtual lanes on a road with no lines, the virtual lanes corresponding to the number of lanes which are decided based on the width of the road with no lines, when the road with no lines is detected in front of the ego vehicle through the driving road image captured by the image capturing unit, and control autonomous driving of the ego vehicle to drive on one of the generated virtual lanes. When a front object is detected from the driving road image, the control unit may control the autonomous driving of the ego vehicle to avoid the front object and drive on the road with no lines.