Dual-Mode Optoguidance Transport with Virtual Strip Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous vehicle technologies face challenges in navigating through varying weather conditions and maintaining operation when visual guides like colored strips are obscured.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a dual-mode transport system featuring vehicles equipped with inertial units and on-board computers that can digitize and follow a colored strip using optoguidance, even when the strip is not visible, by generating a virtual computer image of the strip.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the transport system uses a colored strip fixed to the roadway for optoguidance, then the vehicle can follow the path accurately, but the system becomes inoperative when the colored strip is obscured by snow, ice, sand or other factors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the colored strip in the computer's memory that replicates the physical strip's path information. This virtual strip serves as a backup guide when the physical colored strip becomes obscured by snow, ice, or sand, allowing the vehicle to continue following the intended path without interruption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-digitizes the colored strip's path information and stores it in the vehicle's computer before the vehicle begins its journey. This preliminary digitization ensures that the path data is available in advance, allowing the vehicle to switch to using the virtual strip immediately when the physical strip becomes invisible, without needing to re-detect or re-calculate the path.
2Ease of operation
If the system relies on visual detection of the colored strip, then the vehicle can track the path in clear conditions, but the system fails when the strip is no longer visible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a computer as an intermediary between the physical colored strip and the vehicle's navigation system. The computer stores the digitized path information from the colored strip and provides this information to the vehicle's control system, acting as a mediator that allows the vehicle to follow the path even when the physical strip is not directly visible.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a digital replica of the colored strip's path information that can be accessed and followed by the vehicle without requiring direct visual contact with the physical strip. This virtual copy enables continuous path following regardless of visibility conditions.
3Device complexity
If the colored strip is used as the primary guidance method, then the system is simple to implement, but the system stops after a few metres when the strip becomes obscured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent digitizes the colored strip's path information and stores it in the vehicle's computer, creating a virtual strip that can guide the vehicle for the entire journey. This virtual copy eliminates the limitation of the physical strip's visibility range, allowing the vehicle to travel continuous distances even when the physical strip is obscured, while maintaining relatively simple system architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-captures and stores the complete path information from the colored strip in digital form before the vehicle begins its journey. This preliminary digitization of the entire route allows the vehicle to access path guidance information for the full duration of its trip, rather than being limited to the short distance where the physical strip remains visible.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution enables the transport system to operate safely and efficiently in all weather conditions, reducing reliance on visual guides and enhancing the reliability and safety of the autonomous vehicle system.
Implementation Method 1
each vehicle incorporates an inertial unit capable of managing all the parameters relating to the vehicle's movements and defining the path of the said vehicle by identifying a succession of points on the path
Implementation Method 2
fully automatically by optoguidance following a coloured strip fixed to the roadway
Implementation Method 3
said coloured strip (10) incorporating RFID chips (acronym for Radio Frequency Identification) which enable precise location to be determined periodically
Data Source
AI summary
Automatic private public transport system, comprising a plurality of vehicles, operating by optoguidance along a colored strip, each vehicle incorporating an inertial unit, capable of managing all the parameters associated with the movements of a vehicle, namely: a starting point, the direction, accelerations, durations, as well as all the successive variations of these different parameters, the processing of the aforementioned data enables the on-board computer to calculate and define the vehicle's route and to store it, the said route data reproducing a succession of points on the said route, i.e. a virtual computer image of the colored strip of the route travelled. In this way, the on-board computer uses the virtual computer strip to continue its journey if the colored strip is no longer visible.