ITVA20000036A1 - AUTOMATIC ACQUISITION SYSTEM OF INFORMATION RELEVANT TO PROHIBITIONS AND / OR NOTICES TO THE DRIVER OF A VEHICLE BY PASSIVE VEHICLES. - Google Patents

Description

The present invention generally relates to automatic data acquisition systems by a data detection, processing and recording system installed on a road vehicle. More specifically, the invention relates to systems compatible with the use of driving licenses in the form of electronic cards that can be inserted in a suitable reading device and possible recording of the data of the system present on board a vehicle on which penalties can be entered in the event of violation of road traffic regulation rules.

It is now widespread the opinion that in order to stop and reverse the trend of an unstoppable growth in the tragic statistics of road accidents, it is necessary to focus on a widespread cultural change based on education in responsible and prudent behavior, especially of future generations of drivers, accompanied by some new form of sanctions effective at discouraging illegal and dangerous behavior by drivers.

More than the fines, the threat of suspension and / or withdrawal of the driving license seems to be more and more effective, the effects of which seem much more dissuasive than traditional fines as they impose more or less long periods in which the repeat driver is forced to refrain from driving with serious consequences both from the point of view of work and freedom of movement. These systems can also provide for the revocation of the driving license in the event of relapse, in which case the driver will necessarily have to take and pass an exam again to obtain a new driving license.

These sanctioned systems, currently undergoing legislative debate, are based on the concept of the so-called "license with points" or a driving license that has a predefined measure of registration of fines relating to certain illegal driving behaviors, reached or exceeded the which, the license itself is automatically suspended for a certain period of time or, in the most serious cases, is revoked.

These systems, based on the "points license", presuppose or in any case would favor the establishment of a driving license in the form of a magnetic card or much more effectively an electronic card ("smart card") whose data can be read by inserting the card in a appropriate device (for example by the agents in charge of traffic safety control) and on which any infringements and the payment of fines can also be recorded in a non-volatile and inviolable way and possibly recorded the enute sanction for suspension of validity for a given period of time from the date of registration of the sanction on the electronic license, until the registration of the permanent revocation or cancellation of the license itself.

It is evident that beyond the commendable intentions and the undoubted effectiveness of such a sanctioning system, based on the introduction of the "points license", the aspect that objectively represents the unbridgeable risk in which they would continue to have good game in getting away with hardened lovers of speed and risk, and that is represented by the fact that it is almost unthinkable to establish a presence of police or personnel in charge of controlling the distribution of sanctions widespread throughout the entire road network. Such characters would continue to "bet" on the relatively low probability of hitting a speed detection station and / or an infringement detection by a traffic warden or policeman, even more so during the night or on unsupervised routes.

A particularly effective use of electronic driving licenses has been proposed, the insertion of which in a special housing of a data reading and writing device installed on the vehicle constitutes a necessary act to start the vehicle engine, or the use of the electronic driving license as real personalized ignition key.

It has also been proposed that on the electronic license thus inserted in the reading and possible writing device, any sanctions can be recorded in a completely automatic way, for example when the vehicle exceeds a limit speed for a time interval, following a acoustic or visual warning signal, higher than a certain predetermined value.

It has also been hypothesized an effective and expensive transmission system based on the use of signal poles of the speed limits equipped with transmitters of a signal representative of the speed set in the distance following the point of installation of the pole (radio beacon), signal radio which would be automatically picked up by a special receiver which is part of the processing system installed on board the vehicle so as to automatically update the speed limit imposed in a particular section traveled by the vehicle with which the vehicle speed would be continuously compared, producing firstly, an audible visual warning to the driver of the fact that he is exceeding the imposed speed limit. Subsequently, if the driver does not reduce the speed below the imposed speed limit, a second warning signal would be generated warning the driver of an imminent registration of a contravention on the electronic license, again to follow which, after a short period , the infringement thus motivated would be definitively written in a special non-volatile memory buffer of the electronic license.

It is evident that, beyond the extreme effectiveness of such a system, described in the previous Italian patent application No.VA2000A000013, in the name of the same applicants, the installation along the entire road network or at least along considerable stretches of networks roads of a certain territory of transmitting poles of this type would be relatively expensive both in terms of investment and in terms of maintenance of delicate electronic devices, each of which should be equipped with a self-powering system, probably by means of a solar cell and relative plant accumulation, etc ..

Another undoubted disadvantage of a system of this type is the environmental impact of the spread of radio signal irradiation points which would add up to an infinity of other telecommunication systems over the air and thus increase electromagnetic pollution.

A method and a relative automatic acquisition system by a data detection, processing and recording system installed on a road vehicle of information relating to the speed limit imposed on the stretch has now been found and constitutes the object of the present invention. of road that the vehicle is traveling on and / or other information relevant to prohibitions and / or warnings to the driver, who uses only passive means of negligible cost, compared to a solution such as that proposed in the aforementioned prior patent application.

Essentially, the method of the invention consists in establishing a "digital" coding of the information detectable by a system installed on a road vehicle, in equipping the system on board the vehicle with at least one accelerometer or a sensor of the fluid pressure of at least one shock absorber of the vehicle suspensions or equivalent dynamic or acoustic sensor sensitive to sudden stresses of the vehicle or more preferably of its suspensions, and in fixing transversely to the carriageway or to the lanes relating to a certain direction of travel, a plurality of reliefs or thin curbs, parallel to the one to the other and spaced from each other according to a scheme reproducing the binary code corresponding to a certain information detectable by the system according to said predetermined coding.

This dynamic sensor on board the vehicle is coupled to an analog and / or digital filtering circuitry, for the detection and generation of corresponding logic signals that can be managed by the system which detects the binary "pattern" of the transverse measurements, recognizing a corresponding series of peaks of response of the signal produced by the sensor.

The corresponding logic signal, processed by the system, can commonly activate a signal to the driver and / or the recording of the data thus detected in a suitable RAM memory buffer of the system.

If the information thus detected automatically by the vehicle simply by passing over the coded pattern of transversal readings to the vehicle's lane corresponds to the new speed limit set, the system thus recognizing the information, updates the comparison value with which the current speed of the vehicle is constantly compared, and if it is higher than the speed limit in force on the stretch of road that the vehicle is traveling on, the system can optionally warn the driver by means of an acoustic signal and / or by means of a light signal of this overspeed condition and at the same time start a timer for a certain predetermined period of time, after which the system can issue a second acoustic and visual warning signal, warning the driver that if an overspeed condition persists, the system is preparing to register permanently on the paten the driving electronics inserted in the housing a violation of the speed limit after a second predetermined interval of time from the signaling.

The plurality of parallel and spaced reliefs according to the digital coding adopted, can be in any shape and material suitable to withstand the wear and stresses that are normally subjected to the passage of vehicle tires.

Preferably and in a particularly convenient and effective way, each data or information to be made detectable to the system installed on the vehicle can be coded and for each such information or speed values, a continuous belt of artificial rubber or other exhaustive plastic material can be produced. on one face of which the coding reliefs of the information or value can be formed in the order and relative spacing predetermined by the binary coding adopted.

From the continuous belt, which can be stored in rolls of considerable length, segments of length corresponding to the width of the carriageway or lanes to be equipped can be cut.

The belt segment placed transversely on the carriageway can be fixed by means of suitable nails or equivalent fastening devices and / or glued to the asphalt, thus constituting the passive means of "transmission" of information to the dynamic detection system installed on each vehicle. passing over the series of reliefs present on the face of the belt fixed transversely to the carriageway.

Naturally, each tape can be produced with natural language stamping of the coded digital information it represents as well as the direction of installation, for example arrows indicating the direction of transit of the vehicles above the coded profile, so as to allow the use and installation by of personnel also not specifically qualified.

The device for detecting the information thus dynamically "transmitted" by essentially passive means to the system installed on the vehicle can be made using analog and / or digital devices and circuits. The latter embodiment is definitely preferable for its intrinsic compatibility with data processing, storage and recording systems.

The dynamic sensor, for example a common accelerometer, can provide an analog output signal or already converted into a digital signal, for example of the PWM type.

Even in the case of accelerometers, pressure sensors or other dynamic sensors delivering an analog type signal, the signal can be filtered and converted into a digital signal according to common circuit techniques similar in some respects to those used in the data reading channels through heads. magnetic detection.

Naturally, since the speed of the vehicle passing over a certain fixed pattern of measurements, highly variable, the clock signal used to "read" the digital signal obtained by the dynamic sensor, after filtering and analog / digital conversion, will have a strictly correlated frequency and therefore variable in a directly proportional way with the instantaneous speed of the vehicle so as to constitute a time base to discriminate the computer content of the pattern of peaks (for example corresponding to logical "ones" interspersed with logical "zero") regardless of the vehicle transit speed above the codified series of reliefs arranged transversely to the carriageway.

However, these circuit techniques are commonly used and well known to any designer of digital circuitry.

The binary coding of the information to be made automatically detectable by the system installed on the vehicle passing over the series of coded surveys, can be of any type effective to allow easy recognition of the information by the dynamic detection system.

For example, the coding system can be based on a single byte of information consisting of eight bits. In this case, the encoded carpet or tape may have a maximum number of eight parallel curbs equally spaced from each other by a certain "guard" distance representing a byte consisting of eight bits, all of a logical "one" value.

The information can then be encoded using the number of bits available in the most appropriate way. For example, refinement can be encoded using a certain number of "internal" bits or a certain distribution pattern of the internal curbs, and dedicating at least the two extreme bits to the resolution (elimination) of any indeterminacy.

Even reserving the use of the two extreme bits or even more bits to resolve cases of possible indeterminacy (as will be exemplified below), the number of information that can be encoded using the remaining available bits remains very high.

For example, in the case of wanting to transfer to the dynamic detection system on board the vehicle a certain speed limit information at a certain entry point in an urban area, coincident, for the opposite direction of travel to the point at which this limit of travel speed stops (leaving the urban area in question), the tape encoded with the limit speed value imposed within the area crossed by the road can be spread across the entire carriageway, thus affecting both directions of travel.

In this case, one of the two extreme bits (or even adjacent to the relative external bit), read by the system of a vehicle entering the speed limit zone as a significant attack bit, i.e. the first bit of the next sequence containing the information of the value speed limit, will cause the system to update the reference speed limit. On the contrary, the system on board a vehicle traveling on the same belt containing the coded information of the speed limit, will read this extreme bit as the last significant bit of the sequence and the processing system will interpret the information detected as reciprocal (mirror code) of the code read when entering the urban area and therefore will restore the reference speed limit that pre-existed the passage of the vehicle on the belt entering the urban area with this speed limit set. Of course, other equally effective binary coding methods can be implemented to solve the same situation taken as an example.

In practice, the same coded strip arranged transversely to the entire carriageway, crossed in one direction of travel, will establish the entry into the area with a certain speed limit imposed, while in the other direction of travel, the exit from that area. This solution nullifies evasive maneuvers that could be deliberately implemented (obviously traffic permitting) in order not to make the system installed on the vehicle register the speed limit imposed, especially in the case of state or provincial roads with a single carriageway.

Alternatively, given that the series of dynamic impulses is impressed on the vehicle at least twice consecutively, that is when it passes over the reliefs of the front and rear wheels (or wheel), the system can also make use of the computer capacity thus "doubled" for coding or to implement redundancy techniques to increase the security of discrimination.

An advantageous feature of the system of the invention is that it lends itself to implementing redundancies whenever it is necessary or useful to arrange that the information (for example a city speed limit) is surely detected by vehicles in transit in a certain area. The series of coded profiles can be placed on the lanes within an urban area even repetitively, especially in sections of particular protection, such as near schools, kindergartens, etc.

The different aspects and advantages of the system of the invention will become even more evident through the following description of some embodiments and by referring to the attached drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic view of a roadway equipped with passive means for transmitting speed limit information to vehicles passing in a direction over the strip;

Figure 2 shows a sectional profile of the passive means for transmitting the speed limit information, the corresponding logic signal extracted from the signal supplied by the sensor and the relative data read by the system of a vehicle passing over the carpet with coded reliefs, respectively in a sense and in the opposite sense;

Figure 3 is a diagram of the data detection, processing and recording system installed on the vehicle.

Purely for illustrative and non-limiting purposes, Fig. 1 shows a possible embodiment of the passive information transmission means object of the present invention.

In the example considered in Fig. 1, the passive vehicle contains the coded information relating to the speed limit in force at the entrance to an urbanized area crossed by a road (state or provincial) with two lanes, not divided by a median. .

The passive means of transmitting information on the speed limit is, in the case in question, placed transversely on the carriageway, at the entrance and exit of the urbanized area within which the speed limit is imposed (for example 50 Km / h),

In other words, a carpet with the same coded reliefs is fixed transversely on the carriageway of the road (see Fig. 1) both at the entrance and at the exit of the urbanized area, obviously reversing the fixing orientation on the carriageway.

The carpet 1 can be produced by extrusion with a synthetic material resistant to wear and atmospheric agents. For example, a suitable material for manufacturing a continuous belt can be a high-strength artificial rubber, such as that used to make soles of technical shoes and boots, for example the commercial product known under the Vibram® trademark of the homonymous company. Italian.

Conveniently, the coded information and the correct fixing direction on a carriageway can be printed during the manufacturing phase of the coded carpet, as schematically shown by the arrow symbol and the number 50 printed at regular intervals in a flat band of the carpet with coded reliefs. of Fig. 1.

The reliefs 2 can have a height with respect to the flat face of the carpet and a width of a few millimeters.

The sensitivity of modern accelerometers or alternatively of fluid pressure sensors of at least one vehicle suspension shock absorber or other type of functionally equivalent dynamic sensor, usable to detect coded information dynamically transmitted through the wheels and suspension to the vehicle body it is such as to allow the detection of dynamic impulse patterns imposed on the vehicle as it passes over the carpet with coded reliefs even if these reliefs have a height of a few millimeters, for example between 2 and 5 millimeters.

Depending on the type of binary coding used, the information coding measurements to be made detectable by the system on board a vehicle will be present or absent in the precisely pre-ordered positions, each of which is spaced from the positions adjacent to it by a certain interval " of guard ", of constant value, which can be one or more centimeters, ie preferably an order of magnitude greater than the width (dimensions) of the profiles themselves.

This guard interval or spacing helps the discrimination of the dynamic pulse sequence containing the information code to be dynamically detected by the accelerometer or pressure sensor or other similar sensor installed on the vehicle, upstream or downstream of the vehicle suspension.

The positioning of a suitable sensor "upstream" of the shock absorber exposes the sensitive organ to acceleration peaks not attenuated by the action of the suspensions, requiring more sophisticated filtering of the primary analog signal.

The predetermined spacing of the individual bits, i.e. of the predetermined positions that can be occupied or not by a curb or relief, according to the type of coding adapted to the information to be made detectable, is functional to the need to establish a time base for reading the encoded data regardless of the speed of transit of the vehicle over the carpet with coded reliefs.

In fact, the system on board the vehicle generates a reading signal (clock) which, taking into account the diameter of the tires, varies its instantaneous frequency as a function of the instantaneous speed of the vehicle, thus forming the necessary time base for reading the data, independently the transit speed.

The carpet with coded reliefs 1 can be stably fixed to the roadway, by gluing and / or by means of a plurality of nails 3 or equivalent mechanical fastening members.

In the example illustrated, the encoded relief carpet of invention 1 is fixed across the entire carriageway of the road and is therefore crossed by traffic in both directions. However, this is not a necessary or common condition as the coded carpet can also be arranged transversely only to the traffic lanes in a certain direction of a dual carriageway or carriageway divided by a traffic divider.

Fig. 2 shows the physical profile of carpet 1.

In the example shown, a binary coding based on bytes consisting of eight bits is assumed, although other types of coding can obviously be adopted.

According to this binary coding option, Fig. 2 shows the logic signal which is extracted from the signal produced by the dynamic sensor through a common processing circuitry (peak discrimination) and analog / digital conversion of the signal.

The light bands identify, in relation to the physical profile of the carpet with coded reliefs, the temporal position of the individual bits (in the example eight in number) making up the information byte.

For the particular case illustrated in Fig. 1, both the data read by the automatic dynamic detection system installed on a vehicle passing in the direction of the arrow IN of Fig. 1 are also shown in Fig. 'area on which the speed limit of 50 km / h is in force and the reciprocal digital data that is read by the dynamic detection system installed on a vehicle passing in the direction of the arrow OUT of Fig. 1, or of a vehicle exiting the urbanized area in which the speed limit of 50 km / h applies.

The system installed on board the vehicle, whose basic functional diagram is shown in Fig. 3, will detect the new speed limit value when the vehicle passes over the carpet encoded in the direction of travel of the arrow IN in Fig. 1. in the area where the vehicle has just entered and will update the reference speed value with which the instantaneous speed of the vehicle, determined by common measuring devices, is constantly compared.

According to a preordained scheme of monitoring time windows with speed analysis, the system will be able to signal to the driver both acoustically and visually a condition of excessive speed of the vehicle relative to the imposed speed limit currently acquired by the system and start a timer, after which the driver will be alerted to the fact that if an excessive speed condition persists, the system is preparing to issue a penalty.

Eventually, the sanction issued will be permanently recorded, in an inviolable way, by the system itself in a specific buffer for storing data of the driver's electronic license (also with the function of personalized key to start the engine).

A system based on the use of electronic licenses capable of self-sanctioning according to the method of the invention, may provide that each sanction thus delivered automatically is due to pay, within a pre-established term, a fine by the holder of the license. The compliance of the license holder with the due or due payments of fines would remain verifiable by the police in charge of traffic control, whenever the driver is called to show his electronic license which, inserted in a special device reading supplied to the agents, will report any failure to pay fines, which can be remedied instantly with the payment of expected aggravation of arrears, or will produce the drafting of a real infringement report.

Of course, the systems installed on board the vehicles may also provide suitable automatic means of transmitting via mobile radio any penalties paid to the holder of a specific electronic license to a processing and control center for compliance with the terms of payment of the related fines.

Even a "points license" system can be effectively implemented in a fully automatic way by a self-sanctioning system according to the present invention. A special algorithm resident in the system (programmed in an inviolable way for example by means of a ROM device or even FLASH EPROM programmed with encrypted data), on the basis of which, the legal provisions that lead to the occurrence of a certain number of a certain type within a certain period of time, upon an automatic suspension of the validity of the license, can automatically sanction and enforce the suspension of the license.

Also in this case, the system on board the vehicle can, in a transparent way, signal the validity status of the electronic license currently inserted in the system, the driver holder can thus always be perfectly aware of the fact that if plus further sanctions of a certain type, which are also delivered in a completely automatic way by the system on board the vehicle, your license may be suspended for a predetermined period of time or even, depending on a previous history of suspensions permanently registered on the electronic license , of a definitive revocation of the license.

Both in the event of automatic license suspension or revocation, the system can even disable the electronic license itself, preventing it from being further used as a starter key for any engine, until the suspension period expires or permanently in the event of revocation. .

Alternatively, where this automatic functional disabling of the electronic license may constitute a risk in terms of safety (in constituting a real impediment to starting a vehicle to escape a dangerous condition), the state of suspension or revocation will in any case be detectable by the agents of the traffic when checking the validity of the license in carrying out normal road checks.

Claims (8)

CLAIMS 1. Method of automatic acquisition by a data detection, processing and recording system installed on a road vehicle, of information relating to the speed limit imposed on the stretch of road that the vehicle is traveling on and / or other information relevant to prohibitions give warnings to the driver, using exclusively passive means, characterized by the fact that he understands establish a digital coding of the information detectable by said system; equipping said system with at least one dynamic sensor sensitive to sudden stresses imparted to the vehicle through the suspensions; fix transversely to the carriageway or to the lanes relating to a certain direction of travel a plurality of reliefs parallel to each other and spaced from each other reproducing the code corresponding to a certain information detectable by the system of each vehicle passing over said transverse reliefs in a given direction of travel; processing the signals produced by said dynamic sensor, detecting the pattern of said transverse reliefs corresponding to said coded information; activate a notification to the driver and / or record the information in a special system storage buffer. 2. The method of claim 1, characterized by the fact that the recorded information is compared with current parameters of the vehicle's travel, establishing a possible condition of illegality that can be reported to the driver up to possibly delivering a penalty by recording it on a non-volatile storage medium and inviolable of an electronic driver's driving license, necessarily inserted in a reading / writing device of a vehicle enabling system at the moment of starting the engine. 3. System for the automatic acquisition of information relating to the speed limit imposed on the stretch of road that a vehicle is traveling on and / or other information relevant to prohibitions and / or warnings to the driver using exclusively passive means, characterized by the fact that it includes at least one dynamic sensor sensitive to sudden stresses imparted to the vehicle through the suspensions; a plurality of parallel reliefs to each other and spaced from each other reproducing a code corresponding to a certain digitally coded information detectable by the system of a vehicle passing over said transverse reliefs in a given direction of travel; circuit means for processing the signals produced by said dynamic sensor relevant to the pattern of dynamic pulses impressed by said transversal reliefs fixed transversely on the carriageway corresponding to said coded information; signaling means to the driver of the vehicle and means for recording the information in a suitable system storage buffer. 4. The system according to claim 3, characterized in that it comprises a device for reading / writing an electronic driving license card designed to enable the vehicle to be started; said electronic license card being provided with a non-volatile and inviolable storage medium on which the system can record any sanctions automatically paid. 5. The system of claim 4, characterized in that it comprises means comparing the recorded information with current parameters of the travel of the vehicle, establishing any conditions of illegality, which can be reported to the driver up to possibly delivering a penalty by recording it on said non-volatile and inviolable storage medium of said electronic driving license. 6. The system according to claim 5, characterized in that said detectable information is the speed limit imposed on the stretch of road that the vehicle is traveling on; said comparison means compares the instantaneous speed of the vehicle with said imposed speed limit recorded in said appropriate system storage buffer. 7. The system of claim 3, characterized in that said protrusions fixed transversely to the carriageway consist of a carpet of a wear-resistant material which can be fixed transversely above the carriageway or part of it and having on the upper face said plurality of parallel protrusions present or absent in predetermined positions, uniformly spaced from each other by a guard separation distance reproducing the code corresponding to a certain digitally encoded information. 8. The system of claim 3, characterized in that it comprises means generating a reading clock signal whose frequency varies proportionally to the speed of the vehicle, said circuit means for processing the signals produced by said dynamic sensor by detecting the pattern of dynamic impulses impressed from said transverse readings as a function of said read clock signal.