Zonal Hazard Association for Digital Map Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing navigation systems face challenges in accurately and efficiently alerting users to hazards on road networks, as they often rely on specific location-based warnings, which can be outdated or incorrect, and require significant processing and storage capacity on mobile devices.
Innovation Solution
A method and system where a central server associates hazards with zones on a digital map, generating and managing these zones to provide zonal-based alerts to mobile devices, reducing the burden on mobile devices by only transmitting zone associations and utilizing a detailed database for zone generation and updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If hazard locations are stored locally in the mobile device database, then the device can provide hazard warnings independently, but the device requires significant processing and storage capacity and the data may become outdated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex functions of zone generation, hazard association, and database management from the mobile device and relocates them to a central server. The server maintains the detailed digital map database and generates hazard zones, while mobile devices only receive and process simplified zone association data, dramatically reducing their processing and storage requirements while maintaining data accuracy through centralized updates
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a central server as an intermediary between the detailed hazard database and mobile devices. The server acts as a mediator that processes raw hazard data, generates zones, associates hazards with zones, and distributes the processed information to mobile devices, thereby reducing the computational burden on devices while ensuring data freshness through centralized control
2Measurement precision
If specific location-based warnings are used, then hazard alerts can be precise, but the system generates significant network traffic and requires frequent updates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple specific hazard locations that fall within the same geographic zone into a single zone-based warning. Instead of treating each hazard location independently, the system groups them into zones and issues unified zone association data to mobile devices, reducing network traffic while maintaining alert precision through the defined zone boundaries
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the continuous geographic space into discrete zones with defined boundaries. By dividing the map into manageable zone segments rather than treating it as a continuous space, the system can efficiently manage and transmit hazard information for specific zones without requiring frequent updates of the entire map database, thereby reducing network traffic
Data Source
AI summary
There is disclosed herein methods of operating a computing device, such as a server, to associate a hazard with a zone of a digital map. The method comprises the computing device: receiving data representative of a location of a hazard matched to a location on a digital map accessible to said computing device; and determining if the repository comprises data representative of a zone corresponding to a region of a digital map containing the location of the hazard, to which the hazard should be associated. If the repository does not comprise data representative of such a zone, the method further comprises generating data representative of a zone corresponding to a region of a digital map containing the location of the hazard, and storing the generated data representative of said zone in the data repository. There is also disclosed herein computing devices and software for carrying out these methods.