System and method for operating a vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11092969-B2
Application number	US-201716332730-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 14, 2017
Priority date	Sep 12, 2016
Publication date	Aug 17, 2021
Grant date	Aug 17, 2021

Abstract

In a system and method for operating a vehicle, the system includes the vehicle and a concrete floor, which has at least one reinforcement rod, the vehicle is disposed on the concrete floor so as to be movable, the vehicle has an evaluation device and a first sensor group, which has at least two sensors, the sensors are situated along a first reference line at a distance from one another, the sensors are adapted to detect the reinforcement rod, and the evaluation device is connected to the sensors and adapted to determine the driving direction based on the signals from the sensors.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a concrete floor including at least one reinforcement rod; and
a vehicle movable on the concrete floor and including an evaluation device and a first sensor group having at least two sensors arranged along a first reference line at a distance from each other, the sensors adapted to sense and/or detect the reinforcement rod, the evaluation device connected to the sensors and adapted to determine a driving direction of the vehicle based on signals from the sensors;
wherein the system is adapted to perform a method including:
determining a driving direction of the vehicle to be parallel to the reinforcement rod or to another predefined starting directional angle value until the vehicle drives across the reinforcement rod at a velocity;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a first instant by a first sensor of the first sensor group;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a second instant, following the first instant, by a second sensor of the first sensor group;
determining a time difference between the first instant and the second instant; and
determining an angle, based on the time difference, the velocity, and the distance, between the driving direction of the vehicle and an extension direction of the reinforcement rod at the first and/or second instant or determining that the driving direction is parallel to the reinforcement rod.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein includes a second sensor group having at least two sensors arranged along a second reference line and at a distance from each other, the first reference line and the second reference line being parallel and spaced apart from each other, the sensors of the second sensor group adapted to detect the reinforcement rod, the evaluation device connected to the sensors of the second sensor group and adapted to determine the driving direction based on signals from the sensors of the second sensor group.

3. The system according to claim 2 , wherein each sensor group includes a plurality of sensors, the evaluation device adapted to evaluate the signals from the sensors of the first sensor group and the second sensor group.

4. The system according to claim 3 , wherein the evaluation device is adapted to select individual sensors of at least one of the sensor groups to determine the driving direction of the vehicle.

5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the sensors are arranged on a vehicle bottom of the vehicle.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the sensors include radar sensors and/or inductive sensors adapted to determine a thickness, a density, and/or a depth of the reinforcement rod in the concrete floor.

7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the vehicle includes a vehicle control connected to the evaluation device and is arranged as a driverless transport vehicle.

8. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the evaluation device includes a processing unit adapted to calculate trigonometric functions.

9. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the evaluation device includes a time-measuring device adapted to determine a time between two detections of the reinforcement rod.

10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the time-measurement device is adapted to determine the time between an instant of detection of the reinforcement rod by a first sensor and an instant of detection of the reinforcement rod by a second sensor.

11. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising a velocity sensor adapted to determine a velocity of the vehicle in the driving direction.

12. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the concrete floor includes a plurality of reinforcement rods arranged parallel to one each other and/or in the form of a grid.

13. A system, comprising:
a vehicle movable on a concrete floor having at least one reinforcement rod, the vehicle including an evaluation device and a first sensor group having at least two sensors arranged along a first reference line at a distance from each other, the sensors adapted to sense and/or detect the reinforcement rod, the evaluation device connected to the sensors and adapted to determine a driving direction of the vehicle based on signals from the sensors;
wherein the system is adapted to perform a method including:
determining a driving direction of the vehicle to be parallel to the reinforcement rod or to another predefined starting directional angle value until the vehicle drives across the reinforcement rod at a velocity;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a first instant by a first sensor of the first sensor group;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a second instant, following the first instant, by a second sensor of the first sensor group;
determining a time difference between the first instant and the second instant; and
determining an angle, based on the time difference, the velocity, and the distance, between the driving direction of the vehicle and an extension direction of the reinforcement rod at the first and/or second instant or determining that the driving direction is parallel to the reinforcement rod.

14. A method for operating a vehicle including a first sensor group having a first sensor and a second sensor arranged along a first reference line at a distance from each other, the vehicle being movable on a concrete floor having at least one reinforcement rod, comprising:
determining a driving direction of the vehicle to be parallel to the reinforcement rod or to another predefined starting directional angle value until the vehicle drives across the reinforcement rod at a velocity;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a first instant by the first sensor;
detecting the reinforcement rod at a second instant, following the first instant, by the second sensor;
determining a time difference between the first instant and the second instant; and
determining an angle, based on the time difference, the velocity, and the distance, between the driving direction of the vehicle and an extension direction of the reinforcement rod at the first and/or second instant or determining that the driving direction is parallel to the reinforcement rod.

15. The method according to claim 14 , wherein the vehicle drives at a constant velocity, and the angle is calculated based on the relationship:

α
1

=

arctan
⁢

v
·

t

α
⁢

⁢
1

a
1

α 1 representing the angle, v representing the velocity, t α1 representing the time difference, and a 1 representing the distance.

16. The method according to claim 14 , wherein the vehicle includes a second sensor group having at least two sensors arranged along a second reference line and set apart from one each other by a distance, the first reference line and the second reference line arranged parallel to each other and set apart from each other by a distance, a first sensor of the second sensor group detecting the reinforcement rod at a

Assignees

• Sew Eurodrive Gmbh & Co

Inventors

• Schmidt Josef
• Böckle Jürgen
• Hua Zhidong
• SCHäFER THOMAS
• Wanjek Andreas

Classifications

• B60W2520/06

  Direction of travel · CPC title

• B60W40/10

  related to vehicle motion · CPC title

• G05D1/0257 Primary

  using a radar (radar systems designed for anti-collision purposes between land vehicles or between land vehicle and fixed obstacles G01S13/931) · CPC title

• G05D2201/0207

  Physics · mapped topic

• G05D1/0272

  comprising means for registering the travel distance, e.g. revolutions of wheels (measuring distance traversed on the ground by vehicles, e.g. using odometers G01C22/00) · CPC title