Method for the at least assisted merging of a motor vehicle into a traffic lane

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12479436-B2
Application number	US-202017637523-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2020
Priority date	Sep 23, 2019
Publication date	Nov 25, 2025
Grant date	Nov 25, 2025

Abstract

A method for the at least assisted merging of a motor vehicle into a traffic lane. The method includes: determining that a motor vehicle is to be merged into the traffic lane, receiving signals from the surroundings, which represent surroundings of the motor vehicle including at least partially the traffic lane, generating remote control signals for remotely controlling a lateral guidance and/or a longitudinal guidance of the motor vehicle based on the signals from the surroundings, in order to at least assist the motor vehicle during the remote control on the basis of the remote control signals in merging into the traffic lane, outputting the generated remote control signals. A device, a computer program, and a machine-readable memory medium, are also described.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for at least assisted merging of a motor vehicle into a traffic lane, the method comprising the following steps:
determining that the motor vehicle is to be merged into the traffic lane, wherein the traffic lane includes a combination of two streams of traffic into a single lane; receiving signals from surroundings, which represent surroundings of the motor vehicle that at least partially include the traffic lane; generating remote control signals for remotely controlling a lateral guidance and/or a longitudinal guidance of the motor vehicle based on the signals from the surroundings to at least assist the motor vehicle during a remote control, based on the remote control signals, in merging into the traffic lane; outputting the generated remote control signals, receiving safety condition signals which represent at least one safety condition that has to be met, so that the motor vehicle may be remotely controlled; and checking whether the at least one safety condition is met, the remote control signals being generated based on a result of the check whether the at least one safety condition is met, wherein the safety condition includes a presence of a maximum latency period of a communication between the motor vehicle and a remote control unit for remotely controlling the motor vehicle based on the remote control signals, wherein a measured latency period of a communication between the motor vehicle and the remote control unit is compared to a predefined maximum latency period, and the remote control signals are generated when the measured latency period is less than the predefined maximum latency period.

2 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the each of the at least one safety condition is an element further selected from the following groups of safety conditions:
presence of a predetermined safety integrity level (SIL) or automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) of at least the motor vehicle and of an infrastructure including a communication path and/or communication component for remotely controlling a motor vehicle with respect to the entire systems in the motor vehicle and in the infrastructure including components, algorithms, and interfaces; presence of a predetermined computer protection level of a device for carrying out the steps of the method; presence of a redundancy and/or diversity in predetermined components and/or in algorithms and/or in communication options, which are used for carrying out the steps of the method; presence of predetermined availability indications, which indicate an availability of predetermined components and/or of algorithms and/or of communication options' presence of predetermined quality criteria of the predetermined components and/or of algorithms and/or of communication options; presence of a plan that includes measures for reducing errors and/or measures in the case of failures of predetermined components and/or of algorithms and/or of communication options and/or measures for error analyses and/or measures in the case of misinterpretations; presence of one or of multiple fall-back scenarios; presence of a predetermined function; presence of a predetermined traffic situation; presence of predetermined weather' maximum possible time for respectively carrying out or executing one step or multiple steps of the method; presence of a check result that elements or functions that are used for carrying out the method presently function correctly.

3 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the remote control signals are generated only when the at least one safety condition is met.

4 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the check whether the at least one safety condition is met is carried out before and/or after and/or during one or multiple predetermined method steps.

5 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein, after outputting the remote control signals, a remote control of the motor vehicle based on the output remote control signals is checked in order to detect an error, the remote control being aborted upon detection of an error or emergency remote control signals being generated and output in a case of emergency for remotely controlling the motor vehicle.

6 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving merging request signals which represent a request for the at least assisted merging of the motor vehicle into the traffic lane; and determining based on the request that the motor vehicle is to be merged into the traffic lane.

7 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving signals from traffic lane surroundings, which represent a traffic lane surroundings of the traffic lane; processing the signals from the traffic lane surroundings to detect the motor vehicle to be merged into the traffic lane; and determining based on the processing of the signals from the traffic lane surroundings that the motor vehicle is to be merged into the traffic lane.

8 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving identification signals which represent an individual identification of the motor vehicle or an owner of the motor vehicle or a driver of the motor vehicle, wherein the remote control signals being generated based on the identification.

9 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving at least one motor vehicle parameter, the remote control signals being generated based on the at least one motor vehicle parameter.

10 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein lacking a reception of at least one motor vehicle parameter, the remote control signals are generated based on a motor vehicle standard parameter corresponding to the at least one motor vehicle parameter.

11 . The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the at least one motor vehicle parameter is in each case an element selected from the following group of motor vehicle parameters: maximum possible motor vehicle speed, maximum possible motor vehicle acceleration, instantaneous motor vehicle load, instantaneous motor vehicle weight, instantaneous motor vehicle length, instantaneous motor vehicle width, instantaneous motor vehicle height.

12 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving driving maneuver signals which represent an instantaneous and/or a planned driving maneuver by at least one further motor vehicle, in the surroundings of the motor vehicle, wherein the remote control signals are generated based on the driving maneuver signals.

13 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the remote control signals are generated in such a way that during a remote control of the lateral guidance and/or of the longitudinal guidance of the motor vehicle based on the generated remote control signals, the motor vehicle does not stop on a merging lane situated adjacent to the traffic lane, but accelerates immediately after negotiating the merging lane.

14 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein one or multiple method steps of the method, except for the steps of generating and outputting the remote control signals, are carried out on board the motor vehicle and/or one or multiple method steps are carried out off board the motor vehicle in an infrastructure.

15 . The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the infrastructure is a cloud infrastructure.

16 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein one or multiple method steps of the method are documented in a block chain.

17 . The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
checking whether a totality made up of motor vehicle

Assignees

• Bosch Gmbh Robert

Inventors

• Nordbruch Stefan
• Noack Carolin
• Zhang Di
• Eckert Kurt
• Kram Michael
• Nicodemus Rolf
• Henn Ruediger-Walter
• Schulmeister Ulrich
• Niem Wolfgang

Classifications

• G08G1/167

  Driving aids for lane monitoring, lane changing, e.g. blind spot detection · CPC title

• B60W50/04

  Monitoring the functioning of the control system · CPC title

• B60W40/04

  Traffic conditions · CPC title

• B60W2556/45

  External transmission of data to or from the vehicle · CPC title

• B60W60/0015

  specially adapted for safety · CPC title