Suppression of LDW/LKA Prior to Tight Cornering of a Commercial Vehicle

Abstract

A vehicle lane management system and a method of operating a vehicle lane management system is provided. The lane management system minimizes unnecessary driver warnings regarding lane departure and/or vehicle operation intervention actions to alter lane position when a vehicle is to be operated in a turn in conditions where the driver is or will be intentionally placing wheels of the vehicle outside of lane boundaries. The conditions for suppressing lane departure warnings and/or interventions include a vehicle speed being below a threshold speed and an upcoming turn radius being below a predetermined minimum turn radius.

Claims

1. A vehicle lane management system, comprising: a plurality of vehicle-mounted sensors arranged to sense an environment outside of the vehicle at least in a travel direction of the vehicle; a lane positioning controller configured to receive environment information from the plurality of vehicle sensors, determine a lane position of the vehicle and whether there is a turn ahead in the travel direction of the vehicle based on the received environment information, determine, based on the determined lane position and turn presence, or based on the determined lane position, turn presence, and additional vehicle information based one or both of vehicle sensors and stored vehicle information, whether a wheel of the vehicle is, or is projected to, depart from the vehicle lane during the turn, and determine, based on the additional vehicle information, whether a vehicle operating parameter limit is outside a predetermined range, and suppress a lane management output if the vehicle operating parameter is outside of the predetermined range.

2. The vehicle lane management system of claim 1, wherein the predetermined range is variable, based on vehicle speed, lane width, turn radius or vehicle geometry or a combination of one or more of vehicle speed, lane width, turn radius, and vehicle geometry.

3. The vehicle lane management system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle is a commercial vehicle having a tractor in tandem with a trailer connected via a pivoting connection, and the received environment information includes information from sensors on the trailer.

4. The vehicle lane management system of claim 3, wherein the vehicle sensors include tractor sensors and trailer sensors, and the additional vehicle information includes tractor information based one or both of tractor sensors and stored trailer information, and trailer information based one or both of trailer sensors and stored trailer information.

5. The vehicle lane management system of claim 4, wherein the tractor information includes tractor geometry information including distance between a tractor steering axle and a tractor traction axle, a distance between the pivoting connection and the tractor traction axle, and a distance between the pivoting connection and a trailer axle.

6. The vehicle lane management system of claim 3, wherein the plurality of vehicle-mounted sensors includes tractor sensors and trailer sensors, and the tractor sensors and the trailer sensors include environment monitoring cameras.

7. The vehicle lane management system of claim 6, wherein the lane positioning controller includes a camera system image processing controller configured to process the received environmental information

8. A method of operation of a lane management system including a plurality of vehicle-mounted sensors arranged to sense an environment outside of the vehicle at least in a travel direction of the vehicle and a lane positioning controller, comprising the acts of: receiving at the lane positioning controller environment information from the plurality of vehicle sensors, determining using the lane positioning controller a lane position of the vehicle and whether there is a turn ahead in the travel direction of the vehicle based on the received environment information, determining using the lane positioning controller, based on the determined lane position and turn presence, or based on the determined lane position, turn presence, and additional vehicle information based one or both of vehicle sensors and stored vehicle information, whether a wheel of the vehicle is, or is projected to, depart from the vehicle lane during the turn, and determining, using the lane positioning controller whether a vehicle operating parameter limit is outside a predetermined range, based on the additional vehicle information, and suppressing a lane management output if the vehicle operating parameter is outside of the predetermined range.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010] FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a commercial vehicle.

[0011] FIG. 2A is a schematic illustration of the commercial vehicle of FIG. 1 approaching a turn.

[0012] FIGS. 2B is schematic illustration of the commercial vehicle of FIG. 1 in a turn.

[0013] FIG. 3 is a flow chart of processing logic of an embodiment of the present invention.

[0014] Common reference label numbers are used with common features in the figures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0015] FIG. 1 shown a schematic elevation view of a commercial vehicle 100 having a tractor 101 and a trailer 102. The tractor 101 includes a cab portion 111, a frame portion 112 supporting a towing connection 113, steering axle wheels 114 and traction axle wheel 115. In this embodiment the tractor is equipped with sensors 116 (optical, radar, etc.), and a plurality of electronic control units, including a camera controller 117 configured to receive and process signals from the cameras 116, a brake controller 118 configured to, among other functions, determine vehicle mass based on vehicle acceleration and/or deceleration behavior, and a lane departure warning and/or lane keeping assist controller 119. The present invention is not limited to the specific control units identified in this embodiment. The functions performed by the controllers 117, 118 may be performed in other vehicle control units, and/or integrated with other control units, such as a power train controller controlling engine and transmission functions.

[0016] The trailer 102 is connected to the tractor 101 at the towing connection 113, and pivots relative to the tractor about pivot point 201 (see FIG. 2A). A person familiar with commercial vehicles such as Class 8 trucks will recognize that typically the pivot point, i.e., the tractor's hitch plate, is located over its rear axles.

[0017] The trailer 102 is supported on trailer wheels 121, and in this embodiment is also equipped with cameras and/or radar units 126 whose signals are transferred to the tractor via umbilical cable 122. The trailer 102 has a trailer controller 127 which receives signals from sensors such as load sensors 128 and accelerometers 129. The trailer controller 127 in this embodiment has the ability to share trailer information with one or more of the tractor controllers 117, 118, 119, and to respond to instructions from the tractor, for example to manage actuation of the trailer brakes in response to commands from brake controller 118. The present invention does not require the presence of a trailer controller or the above-mentioned sensors, as trailer-related information may be provided to the tractor's controllers in other ways, such as using the vehicle's acceleration and/or deceleration response to determine trailer loading, and manual data entry. The present invention further does not require the use of a wired connection between the trailer and the tractor, as communications may be conducted wirelessly. The principles of the present invention may also be applied to vehicles having more than one trailer in the vehicle train.

[0018] FIG. 2A is a schematic overhead view of the commercial vehicle 100 of FIG. 1 approaching a left-hand turn 200. At this stage, the cameras and other sensors of the vehicle's LDW/LKA system 119 are monitoring the vehicle's position relative to the lane markings and outer edge of the road. Because the vehicle is centered in its lane, no lane keeping or departure outputs to the driver are being generated.

[0019] FIG. 2B is a schematic view of the positioning of the tractor 101 and trailer 102 in the turn 200 that may occur if the driver steers the vehicle to maintain its position in the center of the lane during the turn. In this case, the wheels 114 of the steering axle remain near the center of the lane, but due to vehicle geometry the trailer axle wheels 121 undesirably enter the adjacent lane by a distance d (i.e., off-tracking). Off-tracking may be minimized by the driver when approaching the turn in FIG. 2A by driving with the right wheel of the steering axle wheels 114 at or over the outside lane boundary when entering the turn, but the driver can expect to be distracted and/or annoyed by LDW/LKA system 119 alerts and/or interventions.

[0020] In the present invention, in the course of continuous monitoring of the vehicle surroundings the LDW/LKA system 119 assesses whether the anticipated vehicle travel path includes an upcoming turn, determines whether the turn radius is below a predetermined threshold, i.e., a threshold below which it may be anticipated that the driver may pre-position the vehicle toward the outside of a turn on minimize off-tracking), and determines whether a warning to the driver and/or an intervention action is needed. The turn radius threshold may be variable, based on parameters such as vehicle speed, lane width, etc. If it is determined that the current operating conditions are such that a LDW/LKA output to the driver is unnecessary (for example, speed relatively slow or turn radius being so small that off-tracking is unavoidable), the LDW/LKA system 119 may suppress the output.

[0021] An example of such an LDW/LKA processing logic is shown in FIG. 3. The FIG. 3 flow-chart shows a simplified embodiment of the present invention in which in step 300 the system determines whether the criteria for entering the LDW/LKA suppression routine is satisfied. These criteria may include, for example, a minimum speed threshold above which it is unlikely that a deliberate lane departure would be expected. If the LDW/LKA suppression routine entry criteria are not satisfied, LDW/LKA system warnings remain active and control reverts to the start of the routine.

[0022] If the entry criteria are met, in step 301 the vehicle system obtain data from vehicle, environment and stored parameters, including data 311 made available from a trailer communications link if available, lane departure and/or lane keeping system parameters 312 (such as pre-stored data regarding the configuration of the vehicle), camera data 313 (such as images of the vehicle surroundings, including at least a view of the road in the travel direction of the vehicle), and vehicle data 314, in this embodiment obtained from an electronic brake controller (such as vehicle speed, yaw rate, braking system status, wheelbase, steering angle, vehicle masses, etc.). In step 320 the system in this embodiment uses the stored data 312 and environment data 313 to determine whether an upcoming turn is present in the travel direction, and preferably the upcoming lane width. In step 330 the system uses the stored and/or sensed vehicle-related data 311 and 314 (including vehicle parameters such as vehicle width and geometry (i.e., tractor wheelbase, trailer distance between trailer wheels and hitch pivot point, etc.)) to determine the predicted path of the vehicle along the predicted road path determined in step 320. In step 340 a determination is made as to whether the predicted path of the vehicle along the predicted road path may result in a lane departure/off-tracking event during the upcoming turn. In step 350, if the result of the determination in step 340 is that the forward path cannot be negotiated by the vehicle without off-tracking, control shifts to step 360, in which generation of lane departure warning and/or an intervention output from the LDW/LKA system is suppressed. Otherwise, control reverts to the beginning of the routine.

[0023] The foregoing discusses the present invention in the context of a vehicle and/or trailer having multiple separate controllers for different functions. This is not a requirement of the present invention. Rather, the functions of these controllers may be integrated into fewer controllers or even combined into a single controller. Nor is the present invention limited to data being obtained from specific controllers, where the desired data may be obtained from other controllers.

[0024] In another embodiment of the present invention, the LDW/LKA system 119 may continuously monitor the vehicle's environment, assessing whether on any turn there is the potential for an off-tracking event.

[0025] The foregoing disclosure has been set forth merely to illustrate the invention and is not intended to be limiting. Since modifications of the disclosed embodiments incorporating the spirit and substance of the invention may occur to persons skilled in the art, the invention should be construed to include everything within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof.

LISTING OF REFERENCE LABELS

[0026] 100 vehicle [0027] 101 tractor [0028] 102 trailer [0029] 111 tractor cab portion [0030] 112 tractor frame portion [0031] 113 towing connection [0032] 114 steering axle wheels [0033] 115 traction axle wheels [0034] 116 cameras [0035] 117 camera controller [0036] 118 brake controller [0037] 119 LDW/LKA controller [0038] 121 trailer axle wheels [0039] 122 trailer umbilical cable [0040] 126 trailer camera and/or radar units [0041] 127 trailer controller [0042] 128 trailer load sensors [0043] 129 trailer accelerometer [0044] 201 pivot point