Driver assistance for a motor vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12420838-B2
Application number	US-202117922906-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 28, 2021
Priority date	May 5, 2020
Publication date	Sep 23, 2025
Grant date	Sep 23, 2025

Abstract

A driver-assistance method for a motor vehicle of interest, in which the vehicle of interest detects the third-party vehicles which are present at an initial instant in its environment is disclosed. During a first prediction cycle, an order of priority is assigned to the third-party vehicles which are detected at the initial instant and to the vehicle of interest, corresponding to an order in which the vehicles in the set follow one another in the travel zone starting from a vehicle detected in a position which is furthest ahead of the vehicle of interest. For each selected vehicle in the set, taken in the order of priority, another vehicle in the set is identified which is able to be a primary target vehicle for this selected vehicle. A manoeuvre which is in progress for the selected vehicle is estimated on the basis at least of the identified primary target vehicle.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A driver-assistance method for a motor vehicle of interest, comprising:
a detection step during which an on-board system on said motor vehicle of interest detects a plurality of third-party vehicles which are present at an initial instant in the environment of the motor vehicle of interest, in a multi-lane travel zone;
a first cycle of prediction, by said on-board system, of a first relative position and of a first relative speed of each vehicle O k in a set of K vehicles comprising the third-party vehicles which are detected at the initial instant and the vehicle of interest, in a first frame of reference linked to the vehicle of interest and for a first prediction instant following said initial instant, said first prediction cycle comprising:
storing, in a database of said on-board system, initial data for each vehicle O k in said set, said initial data comprising information relating to the current traffic lane, a current relative position and a current relative speed of each vehicle O k in said set at the initial instant and in said first frame of reference;
sorting, during which an order of priority is assigned to the K vehicles O k in the set, the order of priority being determined in accordance with the position and with the traffic lane of each vehicle O k in the set which are stored in the database, wherein the order of priority increases with increasing distance from the vehicle of interest;
selecting each vehicle O k in said set in the predetermined order of priority;
identifying, for each selected vehicle O* k , another vehicle in said set which is able to be a primary target vehicle for the selected vehicle O* k ;
estimating, for each selected vehicle O* k , a manoeuvre which is in progress or about to be performed by the selected vehicle O* k on the basis at least of the identified primary target vehicle, of information relating only to the selected vehicle O* k and of information relating to the current environment of the selected vehicle O* k ;
estimating, for each selected vehicle O* k , a movement of the selected vehicle O* k between the initial instant and said first prediction instant on the basis of the manoeuvre which is estimated for the selected vehicle O* k ;

wherein the first relative position and the first relative speed of the selected vehicle O* k for said first prediction instant is predicted on the basis of the estimated movement;
wherein identifying the primary target vehicle, estimating the manoeuvre, and estimating the movement is performed relative to a two-dimensional frame of reference in which the selected vehicle O* k is stationary.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the estimated manoeuvre is chosen from a predefined set of possible manoeuvres.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the predefined set of possible manoeuvres for a selected vehicle O* k comprises:
keeping the selected vehicle in a current lane;
changing the selected vehicle lane to the left lane;
changing the selected vehicle lane to the right lane;
stopping the selected vehicle in the current lane.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, identifying a potential primary target vehicle for the selected vehicle O* k comprises searching for a vehicle in the set located in the same lane, ahead of and closest to the selected vehicle O* k .

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the information relating only to the selected vehicle O* k comprises a sideways movement, and/or an on or off state of one of its indicators, and/or a history of its stored positions.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the information relating to the current environment of the selected vehicle O* k comprises the type of marking lines of the traffic lane in which the selected vehicle O* k is located and/or the occupancy of the traffic lanes which are adjacent to the current traffic lane of the selected vehicle O* k , and/or the current speed limit assigned to the traffic lane.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a second cycle of prediction, by said on-board system, of a second relative position and of a second relative speed of each vehicle O k in said set, in said first frame of reference and for a second prediction instant following said first prediction instant, the second prediction cycle comprising:
updating the database, in which the initial relative position and relative speed data are replaced by the first relative position and the first relative speed which are predicted in the first prediction cycle for each vehicle O k in the set;
the sorting, the selecting, the identifying, the estimating a manoeuvre, and the estimating a movement of the first prediction cycle, in which the initial instant has been replaced by the first prediction instant, and the first prediction instant has been replaced by the second prediction instant.

8. The method according to claim 7 , further comprising:
a number N, which is greater than 2, of successive prediction cycles, each n th prediction cycle making it possible to predict an n th relative position and an n th relative speed of each vehicle O k in said set, in said first frame of reference and for an n th prediction instant following a preceding prediction instant, each n th prediction cycle comprising:
updating the database, in which the relative position and relative speed data are replaced by the relative position and the relative speed which are predicted in the preceding prediction cycle for each vehicle O k in the set; and
the sorting, the selecting, the identifying, the estimating a manoeuvre, and the estimating a movement of the first prediction cycle, in which the initial instant has been replaced by the preceding prediction instant, and the first prediction instant has been replaced by the n th prediction instant.

9. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the successive prediction instants are separated by a constant time step.

10. The method according to claim 9 , in which N is equal to 33 and the constant time step is equal to 200 ms.

11. An on-board driver-assistance system on a vehicle of interest, configured to implement the method according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Valeo Schalter & Sensoren Gmbh

Inventors

• Wedajo Brouk
• Heitzmann Thomas

Classifications

• B60W40/10

  related to vehicle motion · CPC title

• B60W40/02

  related to ambient conditions · CPC title

• B60W30/0956

  the prediction being responsive to traffic or environmental parameters · CPC title

• B60W2554/80

  Spatial relation or speed relative to objects · CPC title

• B60W2554/801

  Lateral distance · CPC title