CN113838299A

CN113838299A - Method and equipment for inquiring road condition information of vehicle

Info

Publication number: CN113838299A
Application number: CN202010580499.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 唐帅
Original assignee: Audi AG
Current assignee: Audi AG
Priority date: 2020-06-23
Filing date: 2020-06-23
Publication date: 2021-12-24

Abstract

A method and apparatus for inquiring traffic information of a vehicle are provided. The method comprises the following steps: requesting a vehicle to broadcast a first request for detecting at least one vehicle capable of image data transmission with the requesting vehicle in response to a first signal, the first request including location information of the requesting vehicle; determining a first vehicle from feedback information of the at least one vehicle in response to the first request; and receiving real-time image data shot by a camera of the first vehicle from the first vehicle.

Description

Method and equipment for inquiring road condition information of vehicle

Technical Field

The disclosure relates to the technical field of vehicle-mounted systems, in particular to the technical field of vehicle-mounted systems based on information sharing.

Background

With the development of automobile technology, especially the development of vehicle-mounted system technology, people increasingly expect that vehicle-mounted systems can provide intelligent driving assistance function for drivers besides the requirements on entertainment and comfort of automobiles. Especially, the vehicle-mounted system based on information sharing can provide very wide auxiliary functions for driving.

The development of the communication technology provides a foundation for information sharing among vehicle-mounted systems, and therefore the vehicle-mounted systems under the internet of vehicles provide more applications for intelligent traffic development.

Disclosure of Invention

The present disclosure is directed to a method and apparatus for querying traffic information of a vehicle, in which traffic information is provided for driving the vehicle based on real-time image data sharing.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for querying traffic information of a vehicle, including: requesting a vehicle to broadcast a first request for detecting at least one vehicle capable of image data transmission with the requesting vehicle in response to a first signal, the first request including location information of the requesting vehicle; determining a first vehicle from feedback information of the at least one vehicle in response to the first request; and receiving real-time image data shot by a camera of the first vehicle from the first vehicle.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus for inquiring traffic information of a vehicle, including: a processor, and a memory storing a program comprising instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the above method.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a vehicle is provided, which includes the above apparatus for querying vehicle traffic information.

According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program, the program comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the above-described method.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the embodiments and, together with the description, serve to explain the exemplary implementations of the embodiments. The illustrated embodiments are for purposes of illustration only and do not limit the scope of the claims. Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an application scenario for a motor vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for inquiring traffic information according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a vehicle in the flow of a vehicle and a capture area of a forward camera according to an exemplary embodiment;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram showing the photographing areas of front photographing devices of other vehicles in front of a request vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a photographing region of a front camera of another other vehicle in front of a request vehicle according to an exemplary embodiment.

Detailed Description

In the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the use of the terms "first", "second", etc. to describe various elements is not intended to limit the positional relationship, the timing relationship, or the importance relationship of the elements, and such terms are used only to distinguish one element from another. In some examples, a first element and a second element may refer to the same instance of the element, and in some cases, based on the context, they may also refer to different instances.

The terminology used in the description of the various described examples in this disclosure is for the purpose of describing particular examples only and is not intended to be limiting. Unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, if the number of elements is not specifically limited, the elements may be one or more. Furthermore, the term "and/or" as used in this disclosure is intended to encompass any and all possible combinations of the listed items.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an application scenario comprising a motor vehicle 10 and a communication and control system for the motor vehicle 10.

The motor vehicle 10 may include sensors 110 for sensing the surrounding environment. The sensors 110 may include one or more of the following sensors: ultrasonic sensors, millimeter wave radar, LiDAR (LiDAR), vision cameras, and infrared cameras. Different sensors may provide different detection accuracies and ranges. The ultrasonic sensors can be arranged around the vehicle and used for measuring the distance between an object outside the vehicle and the vehicle by utilizing the characteristics of strong ultrasonic directionality and the like. The millimeter wave radar may be installed in front of, behind, or other positions of the vehicle for measuring the distance of an object outside the vehicle from the vehicle using the characteristics of electromagnetic waves. The lidar may be mounted in front of, behind, or otherwise of the vehicle for detecting object edges, shape information, and thus object identification and tracking. The radar apparatus can also measure a speed variation of the vehicle and the moving object due to the doppler effect. The camera may be mounted in front of, behind, or otherwise on the vehicle. The visual camera may capture conditions inside and outside the vehicle in real time and present to the driver and/or passengers. In addition, by analyzing the picture captured by the visual camera, information such as traffic light indication, intersection situation, other vehicle running state, and the like can be acquired. The infrared camera can capture objects under night vision conditions.

The motor vehicle 10 may also include an output device 120. The output device 120 includes, for example, a display, a speaker, and the like, to present various outputs or instructions. Furthermore, the display may be implemented as a touch screen, so that input may also be detected in different ways. A user graphical interface may be presented on the touch screen to enable a user to access and control the corresponding controls.

The motor vehicle 10 may also include one or more controllers 130. The controller 130 may include a processor, such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU) or a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), or other special purpose processor, etc., in communication with various types of computer-readable storage devices or media. A computer-readable storage apparatus or medium may include any non-transitory storage device, which may be non-transitory and may implement any storage device that stores data, and may include, but is not limited to, a magnetic disk drive, an optical storage device, solid state memory, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, an optical disk or any other optical medium, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a cache memory, and/or any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a computer may read data, instructions, and/or code. Some of the data in the computer readable storage device or medium represents executable instructions used by the controller 130 to control the vehicle. Controller 130 may include an autopilot system for automatically controlling various actuators in a vehicle. The autopilot system is configured to control the powertrain, steering system, and braking system, etc. of the motor vehicle 10 via a plurality of actuators in response to inputs from a plurality of sensors 110 or other input devices to control acceleration, steering, and braking, respectively, without human intervention or limited human intervention. Part of the processing functions of the controller 130 may be implemented by cloud computing. For example, some processing may be performed using an onboard processor while other processing may be performed using the computing resources in the cloud.

The motor vehicle 10 also includes a communication device 140. The communication device 140 includes a satellite positioning module capable of receiving satellite positioning signals from the satellites 12 and generating coordinates based on these signals. The communication device 140 also includes modules for communicating with the mobile communication network 13, which may implement any suitable communication technology, such as current or evolving wireless communication technologies (e.g., 5G technologies) like GSM/GPRS, CDMA, LTE, etc. The communication device 140 may also have a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2X) module configured to enable Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication with other vehicles 11 and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication with the outside world, for example. Furthermore, the communication device 140 may also have a module configured to communicate with the user terminal 14 (including but not limited to a smartphone, a tablet, or a wearable device such as a watch), for example, by wireless local area network using IEEE802.11 standards or bluetooth. With the communication device 140, the motor vehicle 10 can access the online server 15 or the cloud server 16 via the wireless communication system, and the online server or the cloud server is configured to provide services such as data processing, data storage and data transmission for the motor vehicle.

In addition, the motor vehicle 10 includes a drive train, a steering system, a braking system, and the like, which are not shown in fig. 1, for implementing a driving function of the motor vehicle.

The present vehicle 10 can capture and monitor the surroundings of the vehicle 10 based on its own sensor 110 (especially, the camera device), and display the captured image on the output device 120 (such as the aforementioned display in the cabin) to help the driver to better understand the surrounding road conditions, so as to help the driver to predict possible accidents around the vehicle and to implement the preventive measures as early as possible. However, the effective capture area (or field of view) of the camera device of the vehicle 10 is limited, and once the field of view of the camera device is blocked by an object, such as another vehicle, the road condition information provided by the image captured by such a camera device is very limited.

For example, in the case of a traffic jam ahead, a vehicle located behind the vehicle in a traffic jam team cannot capture the road condition at a position where the vehicle is jammed several tens of meters or even several hundreds of meters ahead by its own camera, so that a driver of the vehicle located behind cannot know the traffic jam ahead, such as the jam distance and the cause of the jam (traffic light, accident, etc.). At this time, if the driver in the vehicle behind wants to know or "see" the road condition in a remote place through the image playing device in the vehicle, the method for inquiring the road condition information according to the present disclosure may be implemented.

The following is exemplified with vehicles in a traffic congestion road segment, but the method of the present disclosure is not limited to use in this context. In addition, only the embodiment of viewing the road condition in front is shown here, and the method of the present disclosure can also view the road condition in other directions, such as the rear and the side.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for inquiring traffic information according to an exemplary embodiment. First, in step S201, a first request is broadcast by the controller 130 of the requesting vehicle 10 through the communication device 140 in response to an input from the driver or a first signal automatically generated by the vehicle according to the road condition. The broadcast may be in accordance with the vehicle-to-vehicle communication V2V described above. The first request is for detecting at least one vehicle that can communicate with the requesting vehicle 10, in particular has a picture-taking device and is capable of transmitting picture data (picture refers to picture pictures, typically including video, photographs, animation, etc.) to the requesting vehicle 10. The first request includes requesting location information of the vehicle 10. In step S203, it is determined that live image data needs to be captured and transmitted to the first vehicle of the requesting vehicle 10 according to the feedback information of the at least one vehicle in response to the first request. In step S205, live image data captured by a camera of the first vehicle is received from the first vehicle.

The method for inquiring traffic information of a vehicle according to the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to fig. 3 to 5.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the request vehicle 10 (own vehicle) and the shooting areas of the front camera in the flow according to an exemplary embodiment.

The host vehicle 10 and several vehicles in front of and to the side of it are schematically shown here, but it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that in practice the distribution of vehicles around the host vehicle 10 is not necessarily exactly the same as in this view, and in particular the size of the vehicles themselves, the spacing between the vehicles may not be uniform. In addition, other vehicles may exist behind the host vehicle 10, but the present embodiment is described only with reference to a method of viewing a road condition in front of the host vehicle 10, and therefore, other vehicles behind the host vehicle 10, which are not important to the method, are not shown here.

In fig. 3, the host vehicle 10 is located in the traffic flow, and an image in front of the vehicle can be captured in real time by the sensor 110 (front camera) provided in the host vehicle 10, and the image can be played on an output device 120, for example, an imaging device (particularly, an on-board integrated display device) in the cockpit. The (unobstructed) image capture area 310 of the image capture device disposed in front of the host vehicle 10 is shown schematically in fig. 3.

Since the image pickup device provided in front of the host vehicle 10 is usually mounted in the front windshield or at the vehicle foremost end, the image pickup device is not positioned substantially higher than the front vehicle 20 positioned at substantially the same height in front of the host vehicle 10. Obviously, the image pickup device of the host vehicle 10 cannot capture a road condition further forward due to the obstruction of the preceding vehicle 20 located in the capturing area 310. At this time, on the imaging device of the cockpit, the driver can see only the rear portion (right front) of the preceding vehicle 20 located in front of and immediately adjacent to the own vehicle 10 and some other images (left front and right front). That is, the live view image captured by the imaging device provided in front of the host vehicle 10 is substantially equivalent to the field of view of the driver. When a traffic jam occurs, if the driver desires to know the road condition ahead, for example, in front of the preceding vehicle 20, the live view captured by the imaging device provided in front of the host vehicle 10 is not satisfactory.

According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, the driver may input (by means of a keyboard, a touch screen, or voice, etc.) a signal requesting viewing. Upon receiving the signal, the controller 130 of the host-vehicle 10 transmits a first request broadcast (particularly in the V2V mode) to at least one vehicle that can communicate with the host-vehicle 10 via the communication device 140. The at least one vehicle here includes all vehicles that can communicate with the host vehicle 10, not just the front vehicle 20. In fig. 3, at least one vehicle further includes vehicles positioned in front left and right of the host vehicle 10, and in the following explanation, it will be explained with reference to a vehicle 20 'positioned in front right of the host vehicle 10, but it is apparent that, in addition to this vehicle 20', other vehicles adjacent or not to the host vehicle 10 may be included in the range of at least one vehicle as long as they conform to what will be described below.

In the first request, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) position information of the own vehicle 10 is included, and the first request is for detecting at least one vehicle that is capable of communication and that is capable of image data transmission. The first request may include other information in addition to the position information of the host vehicle 10. The vehicle receiving the first request may give different feedback information based on the information in the first request. Based on the different feedback information received from at least one vehicle, the host vehicle 10 determines in different ways the first vehicle to capture real-time image data and transmit back to the host vehicle 10. After the first vehicle is determined, the host vehicle 10 receives the live image data captured by the first vehicle from the first vehicle, and plays the live image through the output device 120 of the host vehicle 10 for the driver to make a judgment of the road condition, for example.

Two different ways of determining the first vehicle will be exemplified below, corresponding to two possibilities of the first request for different further information, which is further contained in addition to the position information of the own vehicle, respectively.

In some embodiments, the first request further includes, for example, heading information of the host-vehicle 10, direction information of the request inquiry, and information relating to the inquiry range, in addition to the position information of the host-vehicle 10. For example, in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, the direction in which the inquiry is requested is directly in front of the host vehicle 10, and this direction information may be calculated by the controller 130 based on the position information and the heading direction information of the host vehicle 10. The information about the query range may comprise a desired distance, which is, for example, a predefined length. If the inquiry range is represented by the desired distance, the vehicles that meet the inquiry range are located within a circle having the host vehicle 10 as the origin and the desired distance as the radius. The query range may also be expressed in terms of two distances, for example two predefined lengths. For such a query range represented by two distances, the vehicle satisfying this condition is located in an annular region formed by concentric circles with the host vehicle 10 as the origin and with the two distances as the radii. Of course, other search ranges may be set in advance within a range in which broadcasting can be performed efficiently.

For further accurate searching, the information about the query range included in the first request may also include a request for obtaining a heading of the target vehicle. In the embodiment shown in fig. 3, all vehicles receiving the first request, including the preceding vehicle 20 and the vehicle 20', determine whether they satisfy the first request. Since the first request gives the position information, the traveling direction information, the request for viewing the information directly in front of the host vehicle 10, and the range is a predetermined length as in the above-mentioned embodiment, that is, the host vehicle 10 requests to view the road condition directly in front of the host vehicle by a certain length, for example, only the front vehicle 20 satisfies the first request. While the vehicle 20' shown in the figure may satisfy the desired distance, it does not satisfy the first request because its relative position does not satisfy the condition that the direction from which the query is requested is directly in front of the host-vehicle 10. While vehicles located in front of the front vehicle 20, which may be in the direction of the requested query, do not meet the desired distance. Therefore, although all the communication-capable vehicles within a certain distance around the host vehicle 10 (the distance depends on the mode adopted by the communication) receive the first request broadcasted by the host vehicle, only the front vehicle 20 satisfies the first request, so only the front vehicle 20 will send the real-time traffic image data captured by the front vehicle to the host vehicle 10, and the host vehicle 10 only needs to receive the real-time image data sent back by one vehicle, namely the front vehicle 20.

In this way, the vehicle only needs to receive the image data returned by one vehicle, so the communication is simple. However, in this manner, the first request needs to be described relatively specifically so that there is only one vehicle that satisfies the first request and returns a feedback signal. If the range defined by the first request is larger, a plurality of vehicles may be in accordance, so that the plurality of vehicles all send back feedback information to indicate that the vehicles meet the requirements of the first request. At this time, the host vehicle 10 needs to determine a vehicle as the first vehicle that needs to send real-time image data to the host vehicle 10. The selection may be, for example, a random selection; or the vehicle that sends the feedback information back to the host vehicle 10 the fastest in the order of response is selected as the first vehicle, which is advantageous because the speed of response typically reflects the speed of communication and the processing speed of the controller of the target vehicle, so the speed at which the target vehicle that responds quickly processes information and transmits image data next is correspondingly fast. If the range defined by the first request is too small, it may result in a failure to find a qualified first vehicle. It is then necessary to modify the first request and then resend the modified first request. To avoid the response delay caused by such modifications and retransmissions, the present disclosure also provides the following second way of determining the first vehicle.

In some embodiments, the first request further includes, in addition to the location information of the host-vehicle 10, request information requesting that the vehicle that received the first request send back its own location information. At this time, all the communicable vehicles send their own position information back to the host vehicle 10, and the host vehicle 10 determines which vehicle's image is the most desirable vehicle to see based on the position information, and further determines that the vehicle is the first vehicle to send the image data back to the host vehicle 10. For example, the controller of the host vehicle 10 may calculate the information to identify the first vehicle, or the output device 120 of the host vehicle 10 may output information such as the position of the target vehicle for selection by the driver, for example, the positions of the respective vehicles may be displayed as images on a touch screen, and the driver may select a desired vehicle by clicking. For example, if the traffic congestion is relatively long ahead, feedback information of a plurality of vehicles is received at the same time, and a vehicle having the farthest distance to the host vehicle 10 may be selected as the first vehicle so that the vehicle can "see" farther, that is, the information of a relatively forward position is obtained from the returned image. This way of determining the first vehicle is relatively complex in communication and requires more calculations for the host vehicle 10 than the previously described way, but this has the advantage that a relatively large distance may be seen after a data return and avoids the above-mentioned need to modify and resend the modified first request, which may be due to the lack of a suitable vehicle being found.

The driver of the host vehicle 10 may view the live traffic image captured by the preceding vehicle 20 on an output device 120 of the host vehicle 10, such as an imaging device. If the front vehicle 20 is located at the forefront of the traffic flow at this time, or if the real-time image captured by the front camera device reflects the road condition that the vehicle 10 wants to inquire although the real-time image is not located at the forefront of the traffic flow, the inquiry is completed. However, if the road condition is captured in the capture area 320 of the front vehicle 20 as shown in fig. 4, it is obvious that the real-time image is not enough to make the vehicle 10 or the driver in the vehicle 10 know the road condition that the driver wants to query. In fig. 4, the marks on the left sides of the host vehicle 10 and the preceding vehicle 20 indicate that the preceding vehicle 20 is currently transmitting the real-time video data back to the host vehicle 10. Similar to the capturing area 310 in fig. 1, the capturing area 320 is also blocked by another front vehicle 30 in the front direction, so that the image capturing device disposed in front of the front vehicle 20 can capture only the rear of the other front vehicle 30 (and the images of the left and right front sides of the front vehicle 20), that is, the rear of the other front vehicle 30 (and the images of the left and right front sides of the front vehicle 20) is seen in the live traffic image captured by the front vehicle 20 displayed on the image device of the host vehicle 10.

After seeing the real-time road condition photographed by the front vehicle 20, the driver in the host vehicle 10 can know that the front vehicle 20 is also in the middle of the traffic flow, and the real-time road condition photographed by the front vehicle 20 cannot make him know the current traffic jam condition (length of traffic jam, reason of traffic jam, etc.). The driver in the host-vehicle 10 may input a second signal in response to which the host-vehicle 10 sends a second request broadcast to another vehicle capable of communicating with the host-vehicle 10, where the other vehicle may not be just one vehicle, but several vehicles located around the host-vehicle 10 and capable of communicating with the host-vehicle 10. Unlike the first request, the second request includes Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) location information of the preceding vehicle 20 that is transmitted back to the host-vehicle 10 by the preceding vehicle 20. And then, similarly to the previous step, according to the feedback information returned by another vehicle, determining a second vehicle needing to return the shot real-time image data and receiving the shot real-time image data from the second vehicle.

Here, similarly to the method of determining the first vehicle, the determination of the second vehicle is also performed in two ways.

The first method is to include, in the second request, for example, the traveling direction information of the host vehicle 10, the direction information requested to be inquired, and information on the inquiry range, in addition to the position information of the first vehicle (the preceding vehicle 20). For example, after the preceding vehicle 20 shown in fig. 4 shares the real-time image data captured by the preceding vehicle, the driver of the own vehicle 10 considers that the traffic information required by the driver is not obtained from the image data, and wishes to "look" forward again, and inputs the second information. At this time, the second request from the controller 130 of the host vehicle 10 via the communication device 140 includes the position information of the preceding vehicle 20, the traveling direction of the host vehicle 10, and the direction in which the inquiry is requested is the front direction and the inquiry range. All vehicles may now receive the second request within a certain range around the host vehicle 10 (which range is also dependent on the manner of communication). However, as in the method already described above, it is possible that only the other preceding vehicle 30 meets all the conditions of the second request, whereas the vehicle 30', although meeting the inquiry range, does not meet the inquiry direction. Therefore, only the other front vehicle 30 will transmit the real-time image data captured by the other front vehicle back to the host vehicle 10, and the host vehicle 10 will also only receive the real-time image data transmitted back from the other front vehicle 30. Or, as described above, a plurality of vehicles meet all the conditions of the second request, the second vehicle is determined by the host vehicle 10 in the above-described manner. Or no vehicle meets all the conditions of the second request, the second request is modified by the host vehicle 10 and the modified second request is sent again.

In the second mode, the second request further includes request information requesting that the vehicle receiving the second request send back its own position information in addition to the position information of the preceding vehicle 20. At this time, all the communicable vehicles send their own position information back to the host vehicle 10, and the host vehicle 10 determines which vehicle's image is the most desirable vehicle to see based on the position information, and further determines the vehicle as the second vehicle whose image data is sent back to the host vehicle 10. For example, after comparing the position information of the vehicle 30' and the other preceding vehicle 30 in fig. 4, the host vehicle 10 determines that the other preceding vehicle 30 is the second vehicle, and receives the real-time image data transmitted by the other preceding vehicle 30. The comparison can likewise be performed by the control unit of the vehicle 10 or by the driver, and is not described in detail here.

At this time, real-time image data captured by the camera of the other preceding vehicle 30, i.e., the road condition captured in the capturing area 330 in fig. 5, is played in the host vehicle 10. If another front vehicle 30 is located at the front end of the traffic stream (as shown in fig. 5) or the real-time image captured by the front camera device although it is not located at the front end of the traffic stream already reflects the road condition that the vehicle 10 wants to query, the query is completed. If the shooting area of another front vehicle 30 is not enough to provide the road condition information to be inquired by the vehicle 10 or the driver of the vehicle 10, the inquiry is continued forward again, and the specific steps are as follows:

in response to the nth signal, the host-vehicle 10 broadcasts an nth request for detecting at least one other vehicle capable of image data transmission with the host-vehicle 10, the nth request including location information of an (n-1) th vehicle, wherein the location information of the (n-1) th vehicle is included in the feedback information in response to the (n-1) th signal; determining an nth vehicle according to feedback information of at least one other vehicle in response to the nth request; and receiving real-time image data shot by a camera of the nth vehicle from the nth vehicle.

In this step of continuing the forward inquiry, n represents a natural number greater than 2, for example, n is 3 after the real-time image data taken by the first vehicle and the second vehicle has been received. In other words, after the real-time image data shot by the (n-1) th vehicle and the position information of the (n-1) th vehicle are received, if the inquiry is needed to be continued, the nth signal is input to continue the inquiry until the received real-time image data shot by the camera of the nth vehicle is enough to provide the needed road condition information. Here, the driver continuously inquires about the real-time image data captured by another vehicle, for example, by means of an orientation key (up, down, left, and right keys) on a keyboard, an orientation key (up, down, left, and right keys) on a touch screen, or voice (for example, looking at the previous vehicle, looking at the previous n vehicles), or the like.

As described above, although the above embodiments have been described using the example of inquiring about the road condition in front of the host vehicle 10, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the road condition behind and to the side of the host vehicle 10 may be inquired based on this method. Only the direction of the request query needs to be modified to be the rear or the side, and the real-time image data shot by the camera at the rear or the side of other vehicles needs to be received correspondingly.

In the method of the present disclosure, data transmission between vehicles can be via one or a combination of mobile networks, Wi-Fi/bluetooth/V2V.

Although embodiments or examples of the present disclosure have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the above-described methods, systems and apparatus are merely exemplary embodiments or examples and that the scope of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments or examples, but only by the claims as issued and their equivalents. Various elements in the embodiments or examples may be omitted or may be replaced with equivalents thereof. Further, the steps may be performed in an order different from that described in the present disclosure. Further, various elements in the embodiments or examples may be combined in various ways. It is important that as technology evolves, many of the elements described herein may be replaced with equivalent elements that appear after the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A method for querying vehicle traffic information, comprising:

requesting a vehicle to broadcast a first request for detecting at least one vehicle capable of image data transmission with the requesting vehicle in response to a first signal, the first request including location information of the requesting vehicle;

determining a first vehicle from feedback information of the at least one vehicle in response to the first request; and the number of the first and second groups,

receiving real-time image data from the first vehicle captured by a camera of the first vehicle.

2. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the steps of:

in response to a second signal, the requesting vehicle broadcasting a second request for detecting at least one other vehicle capable of image data transmission with the requesting vehicle, the second request including location information of the first vehicle, wherein the location information of the first vehicle is included in the feedback information in response to the first request;

determining a second vehicle from feedback information of the at least one other vehicle in response to the second request; and the number of the first and second groups,

receiving real-time image data from the second vehicle captured by a camera of the second vehicle.

3. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles according to claim 1,

the first request further includes heading information of the requesting vehicle, heading information of the requesting inquiry, and information about an inquiry range.

4. A method for querying traffic information of vehicles according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein said step of determining the first vehicle comprises:

selecting a vehicle of the at least one vehicle for which feedback information is first received by the requesting vehicle as the first vehicle.

5. A method for querying vehicle traffic information according to any of claims 1-3, wherein the feedback information comprises location information and the step of determining the first vehicle comprises:

determining the first vehicle from the at least one vehicle based on the location information.

6. The method for querying road condition information of vehicles according to claim 5, wherein the vehicle farthest from the requesting vehicle among the at least one vehicle is determined as the first vehicle.

7. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles according to claim 2, wherein the step of determining the second vehicle comprises:

selecting a vehicle of the at least one other vehicle for which feedback information is first received by the requesting vehicle as the second vehicle.

8. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles according to claim 2, wherein the feedback information includes location information and the step of determining the second vehicle includes:

determining the second vehicle from the at least one other vehicle according to the location information.

9. The method for inquiring vehicle road condition information according to claim 8, wherein a vehicle farthest from the requesting vehicle among the at least one other vehicle is determined as the second vehicle.

10. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein said first signal comprises a signal input by a driver or a signal automatically generated by said requesting vehicle according to a traffic condition.

11. The method for inquiring traffic information of vehicles according to claim 2, wherein said second signal comprises a signal inputted by a driver or a signal automatically generated by said requesting vehicle according to the traffic condition.

12. An apparatus for inquiring traffic information of a vehicle, comprising:

a processor, and

a memory storing a program comprising instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the method for querying vehicle traffic information according to any one of claims 1 to 11.

13. A vehicle, comprising:

the apparatus for inquiring traffic information of vehicle as claimed in claim 12.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program, the program comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method for querying vehicle road condition information according to any one of claims 1 to 11.