FR2842009A1 - Pre-crash warning method involves detecting one or more theoretical situations or events by suitable sensors mounted on vehicle in order to detect a theoretical accident situation - Google Patents

Abstract

The method involves detecting a theoretical accident situation, generating an accident message, detecting whether the accident has occurred or not and generating a cancellation message if not. One or more theoretical situations or events is/are detected by suitable sensors mounted on the vehicle in order to detect a theoretical accident situation. The method involves detecting a theoretical accident situation (20), generating an accident message (22), detecting whether the accident has occurred or not (30) and generating a cancellation message if not (32). One or more theoretical situations or events is/are detected by suitable sensors mounted on the vehicle in order to detect a theoretical accident situation, e.g. simultaneous detection of a vehicle speed above a defined minimum value, a vehicle separation lower than a minimum value for the vehicle speed and an excessively rapid decrease in the distance for the vehicle speed. An independent claim is also included for the following: (a) a device for providing an accident message in a vehicle accident situation.

Description

STATE OF THE ART The invention relates to an accident notification method

  for a vehicle to allow safe and rapid implementation of the emergency measures and thus relates to a method for issuing an accident notice in a vehicle accident situation with the following steps: a) Recognition of a "situation of accident suspicion ", b) establishment 22 of the accident notice, c) recognition 30 of an accident which did not happen, d) establishment 32 of an accident termination notice for the case o

the accident would not have happened.

  Such an accident reporting method with the corresponding accident reporting device is known from document DE 199 17 207 AI. He must ensure that a distress signal announcement is transmitted to a backup antenna even if the vehicle's on-board electronics are damaged by an accident. This is achieved in this document in that immediately after recognizing an accident situation, an accident notice is sent over the air at a time just before the accident, during which the radio transmission device of the vehicle is not yet damaged with the vehicle. If it turns out that the accident has been avoided, for example by a skillful maneuver to avoid the driver or by other causes, a second announcement is sent, an accident avoidance notice which is announced. to the same emergency antenna with content announcing that there was no accident. Therefore, in this case of termination there is no need to

  implements measures for the implementation of relief actions.

  The disadvantage of this method known from the state of the art is that the criteria according to which an accident situation is recognized and an accident information is sent are defined with little precision. Thus, in the method according to the prior art, mention is made of sensors which determine an acceleration of translation and / or an increase in the angle of rotation of the vehicle and / or a modification of the shape of the vehicle body and / or braking processes and / or tilting movements. A computing unit must determine from sensor signals a means of

  exceeding significant setpoints, if you have a critical driving situation and if this critical driving situation has resulted in an accident.

  This catalog of measures by which an accident situation has been recognized is incomplete because it does not detect cases in which the accident surprises the driver without being able to prepare for it and the driver no longer has no possibility to brake or

  perform an avoidance maneuver.

  Another drawback of this known method according to the state of the art lies in the fact that the criteria according to which an accident termination information is sent are also defined.

  imprecisely. Therefore, this method is not usable in practice.

  Advantages of the invention The method according to the invention is characterized in that for the recognition of "the suspected accident situation" one or more of the following suspicion states or suspicion events are detected by the appropriate sensor device in the vehicle: e) simultaneous occurrence of the following events: aa) the vehicle speed is above a predefined minimum speed, bb) a minimum distance adapted down to the predetermined vehicle speed is exceeded, and cc ) the distance decreases per unit of time faster than a predefined threshold value adapted to the speed, t) an electronic "brake assistant" installed in the vehicle is activated, g) a pre-collision sensor installed in the vehicle emits " Crash in sight ", h) an air cushion in the vehicle is triggered, i) at least one transverse acceleration sensor or a shock sensor emits a value above of a predetermined minimum threshold value, k) an acoustic sensor announces a sound level above a predetermined threshold value, 1) ABS actuation longer than a minimum expected time interval and movements of atypical tilt occurring at the same time, and to recognize that the accident did not take place, one or more of the following states or events are detected by the appropriate vehicle sensor system: m) presence of a vehicle speed not having diminished after the expiration of a predetermined accident waiting time interval within which the accident was to be expected, n) a collision sensor in the vehicle does not announce any collision until the end of the accident waiting time interval,

  o) actuation of a control element to establish the notice of termination of an accident.

  In this way, an accident situation is recognized in a reliable manner as well as an accident report delivered in a reliable manner, before the accident takes place, and on the other hand, it is recognized reliably if an accident n has not taken place which allows notices of termination of an accident to be given in an equally reliable manner. This makes it possible to remedy the imperfections of the prior art mentioned above and makes the process reliable in practice.

  Because in order to recognize a suspected accident situation a large catalog of suspicions is queried, it is sufficient that only one of these suspicious conditions is fulfilled in order to reliably recognize very different accident situations . According to the program technique, the isolated suspicion reports are closed with OR and are processed by program using

  of a calculation program according to the invention.

  Another catalog of wide-ranging measures is provided according to the invention to recognize if the accident has not occurred after having sent an accident notice. Because this second catalog is also very extensive concerning states or criteria and that one of the states is linked in the calculation program by an OR link, the appearance of a single criterion is sufficient to send a new termination notice d 'accident. This ensures that the backup antenna is never started for nothing, which is a mandatory criterion in practice for the forecast of development and high traffic intensity. The present invention takes into account with the state / incident catalogs, the complexity of the reality in modern road traffic with a high density of traffic and the atypical situations increasing thereby which appear for example from the fact that vehicles overtake on the highway on the right, as vehicles follow each other with high speeds and a very small interval between them for relatively long distances. The present invention successfully and completely automatically avoids mistaken engagement of the emergency services. For this, threshold values from above or below below or above which a suspicion of an accident is announced, or it is recognized that an accident has not occurred,

  must be defined according to the invention in relation to the speed of the vehicle and significantly to be processed by program.

  According to the invention, it is moreover possible for the first time to dispense with mechanical protection measures of the emission system and thus to achieve savings in expenditure as well as great reliability as regards safety. Advantageously, the method according to the invention can be combined with the current current methods for reducing the consequences of accidents (collision mitigation) or for remedying accidents (collision avoidance) or the automatic detection of intervals with the automatic triggering of the emergency brake (ANB), which delivers the necessary information from the sensors. The present invention proposes a particular development for the case where an accident has not, however,

could be avoided.

  According to another advantageous characteristic of the invention, an accident notice can be drawn up which cannot be canceled even when there is no suspected accident situation, but the sensors have recognized an accident situation. in the vehicle.

  When, according to the invention, in an advantageous manner, an information of accident which is not terminated is delivered, also if one has not recognized a situation of suspected accident but if one has recognized for this a result vehicle sensors, this new type of accident notification offers additional security in such cases.

  The invention also provides an installation for establishing an accident notice in the event of a vehicle accident, comprising devices for implementing the method according to one of the preceding claims.

  Drawings An exemplary embodiment will be described in more detail below with the aid of the drawings, as follows: - Figure 1 is a schematic overall representation for the essential components of the invention in a vehicle, - Figure 2 is a diagram sequence with the important calculation steps of the method according to the invention when an accident occurs, - Figure 3 is a representation according to Figure 2 of the avoidance of the accident.

  Description of the exemplary embodiments

  In the figures, similar references designate

  components with similar functions.

  FIG. 1 shows the arrangement of components 10, 12, 14 and 16 and an installation for sending a call for help or for lessons from a vehicle. In particular, an accident detection unit 10 is shown diagrammatically, this unit is connected with a large number of sensor devices not shown and these signals are transmitted to the calculation and control unit 12.

  The accident detection unit is used according to the invention to detect the "suspected accident situations" described above. Among other things the sensor devices, preferably connected with a speed measurement device for the vehicle, a unit for determining the distance to the nearest vehicle in the direction of travel, if necessary with a unit for determining the distance to the next vehicle, to determine the changes

  distance cations by a unit of time or to transmit to the calculation unit, with a braking assistant as in modern vehicles or with these sensors with a pre-accident sensor known from the state of the art, preferably with all the airbags in the vehicle and in addition with the transverse acceleration sensors or the shock sensors in the vehicle, as well as an acoustic sensor which can transmit an alarm signal when a peak noise measured by this is above a predetermined threshold value, as well as with the anti-lock system (ABS), and towards a unit which monitors the intensity and the course of the oscillation movements in case a such a unit is in the vehicle. All these sensor devices are equipped with known cabling according to the state of the art or radio links and transmit their respective signals to the computing unit.

and control 12.

  The unit 12 is preferably produced in the form of a microcontroller in which a program is implemented, this program processes the incoming signals according to their semantic content

  and as described above can generate an accident report.

  In addition, the calculation and control unit 12 is connected if necessary with a navigation system 17 so that it can read the instantaneous location of the vehicle and be able to integrate it into the accident report. In addition, the unit 12 is operatively connected with a control element 18 for the driver which activates a ra25 dio modem 14 to deliver a signal in order to be able to transmit if necessary

  manual termination of accident reports.

  The calculation and control unit 12 is connected with a transmission unit 14, for example the radio modem mentioned above which sends over the air a signal to a rescue station by means

  an antenna 16 provided in the vehicle.

  Referring to Figure 2 which shows the course of an accident, the most important steps performed according to the invention will be described in more detail. The process takes place almost in an endless loop so that the current driving state

  can be determined, continuously renewed and processed.

  The likelihood of an accident is determined in a first step 20. For this, the catalog specified in more detail in the main claim or in one of the sub-claims is used to check whether or not one of the events has occurred. When one

  criteria appear then we are in a situation of suspected accident.

  For example, the vehicle speed could be 160 km / h, the interval sensor for the distance to the nearest obstacle, forward, in the direction of travel announces an in10 tervalle of only 30 meters, and a subsequent distance measurement which was taken only 5/10 seconds later gives only an interval of 20 meters.

  Then, the calculation and control unit 12 determines from the change of interval per time unit of 10 meters 15 of interval within 0.5 seconds, that the threshold value for the change d The interval for the speed of 160 km / ha in this case was largely exceeded, the braking distance still available is much too short, which gives a state of suspicion of an accident.

  As a result, there is a situation of suspected accident and an announcement of suspected accident delivered to a preprogrammed address via the radio modem 14 and the antenna 16 in step 22. Advantageously, it also integrates before sending the news, the current position of the vehicle obtained from a GPS positioning unit, if any, in the vehicle or a navigation system. Such a situation of suspected accident would, for example, occur when a driver driving on the motorway with a relatively high speed dozes off and his vehicle heads in total absence of braking towards the preceding vehicle. Prior to the collision, no other criteria for suspicion of an accident were met positively

  because no protective cushion was lit, all the acceleration sensors show normal values, the acoustic sensor announces a normal noise level and there is no actuation of the ABS, there is no there is also no atypical tilt movement.

  It is also remarkable that other measurement variables can also be used for calculating the braking distance. When a threshold value is reached, the accident is then relatively likely and is announced. Thus, for example, it is also possible to interrogate an additional rain sensor whose "rain presence" signal automatically lengthens the braking distance and announces a suspected accident situation already in the presence of

  less critical interval modification criteria.

  The news of the accident is received by the emergency antenna,

  step 24, and we await the corresponding termination news.

  In the case of Figure 2, the vehicle will cause an accident, step 28, and there will be no accident termination news sent by the radio modem. Then either the transmission unit 14 is destroyed by the accident itself so that it is unable to function, or it is intact, and in this case the collision sensor in the vehicle will announce a collision. When a collision has been announced, an accident termination notice is not sent. When the notice of termination of an accident takes, for example, more than 10 seconds to be received, the position of the news is calculated and the

  rescue forces are notified, step 26.

  FIG. 3 shows a similar sequence in which the accident could have been narrowly avoided. This can for example happen because the driver softening for a short time has been woken up by an audible signal from another driver or by an alarm signal from an interval sensor in the vehicle and

  the vehicle can avoid the previous vehicle just in time.

  In this case, steps 20 and 22 as well as previous 24 have been carried out, that is to say a situation of suspected accident has been recognized and that the accident notice has already been sent. Then an accident could have been avoided, step 30. This has been recognized according to the invention in that at least one of the following states has been detected by the sensor device in the vehicle: a) there is no decrease in vehicle speed after the time interval in which the accident was expected to elapse, for example 5 seconds after the collision, b) the collision sensor, if any, located in the vehicle n announcement of an accident until the expiration of the above-mentioned accident waiting time interval, or c) the control element 18 located in the vehicle and connected to the control unit calculation 12, activated the manual termination of the accident,

  that is to say that the driver manually triggered the notice of termination within a second predetermined time interval of for example 10 seconds.

  We therefore sent an accident termination notice, step 10 32. In this case, the emergency center waiting since step 24 to possibly receive an accident termination notice actually received this termination notice before the flow of another time interval

  predetermined and no relief action is taken.

  Due to the high traffic density, notices must be provided with an identification in order to be able to link suspicion notices and termination notices in pairs. This applies at least to the area of responsibility of a backup antenna.

  When the GSM mobile radio system is used according to the invention, the telephone number of the mobile telephone used can be used as identification.

  For all other cases in which there is no such identification or when access to the identification is difficult, the identification can be done economically with a random number generator known according to the state of the art, the series of bits 25 having for example a length of 16 or 24 bits. Thus, the possibility would be very reduced that we have the same identification for two different vehicles. In addition, the time available in the system can also be coded. Subsequently, you can also, in the notice of termination of an accident, mention the place, so that you can identify the

  vehicle by comparing these positions.

  Advantageously, the number of passengers can be entered before or during entry into the vehicle in the vehicle information system according to the invention so that, in the event of an accident, a sufficient number of vehicles of relief is sent.

  Although the present invention has been described with the aid of a preferred embodiment, it is not limited to this but may have a large number of variants.

  Basically, for the transmission frequency used, any suitable frequency can be used. Depending on the covering air, the Short Message Service (SMS) short message system is suitable. On the other hand, technologies such as GPRS or UMTS can be used advantageously in the process according to the invention. The sequences can be accelerated to ensure that the transmission of the suspicion information takes place fairly quickly. On the other hand, it is also possible to add to the sensors mentioned above other measurement variables such as for example the temperature or the activity of the wiper and in combination with this, at least roughly determining the adhesion of the floor. Because from a temperature below O0Celsius and a long-term actuation of the wiper, it can be concluded that there is snowfall and if necessary icy roads. These results can advantageously be used to increase the critical braking distance relative to a dry road and announce in a manner

  corresponding to the suspected accident earlier.

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Claims (1)

  ) Method for issuing a notice of accident in a vehicle accident situation with the following steps: e) recognition (20) of a "suspected accident situation", f) establishment (22) of the accident notification, g) acknowledgment (30) of an accident that did not happen, h) establishment (32) of an accident termination notice in the event that the accident did not happen, characterized in that for the recognition (20) of "the suspected accident situation" one or more of the following suspicion states or suspicion events are detected by the appropriate sensor device in the vehicle: e) simultaneous appearance of following events: aa) the vehicle speed is above a predefined minimum speed, bb) a minimum distance adapted to the predetermined vehicle speed is exceeded, and cc) the distance decreases per unit of time more quickly that a predefined threshold value adapted to the at speed, t an electronic "brake assistant" installed in the vehicle is activated, g) a pre-collision sensor installed in the vehicle emits "Crash in sight", h) an air cushion disposed in the vehicle is triggered, i ) at least one transverse acceleration sensor or a shock sensor emits a value above a predetermined minimum threshold value, k) an acoustic sensor announces a sound level above a predetermined threshold value, 1 ) ABS actuation longer than a minimum expected time interval and atypical tilt movements occurring at the same time, and to recognize (30) that the accident did not take place, one or more of the states or the following events are detected by the appropriate vehicle sensor system: m) presence of a vehicle speed that has not decreased after the expiration of a predetermined accident waiting time interval within which the accident was to wait, n) a collision sensor in the vehicle does not announce a collision until the expiration of the accident waiting time interval, o) the actuation of a command (18) to establish the opinion of accident termination.   ) Method according to claim 1, characterized in that   an accident notice is drawn up which cannot be canceled even when there is no suspected accident situation, but the sensors have recognized an accident situation in the vehicle.   ) Installation for establishing an accident report in the event of an accident 20 of a vehicle, comprising devices (10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18) for   implement the method according to one of the preceding claims.