CN107818687B

CN107818687B - Method, device and system for controlling vehicle release on road

Info

Publication number: CN107818687B
Application number: CN201710792439.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张云飞; 郁浩; 闫泳杉; 郑超; 唐坤; 姜雨
Original assignee: Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-09-05
Filing date: 2017-09-05
Publication date: 2023-01-31
Anticipated expiration: 2037-09-05
Also published as: CN107818687A; WO2019047594A1

Abstract

The invention discloses a control method for releasing vehicles on the road, which is realized by a control device and comprises the following steps: determining a driving direction of a plurality of vehicles; determining a release direction and a release duration based on a voting method according to the driving directions of the plurality of vehicles; releasing the determined duration in the determined release direction. Through the interactive communication between the vehicle and the control device/system, the creation of controlling the traffic lights by the vehicle is realized to a certain extent, the existing control mode is changed, and the problems of low efficiency and high manufacturing cost of the original traffic light scheme are greatly improved. The invention is also particularly suitable for driving environments with more autonomous vehicles, since these vehicles are often equipped with functional modules that are more suitable for implementing the invention, the additional cost required for modification is less, and the technical gap in the field is filled by applying the V2X technology to the control of vehicle traffic for the first time.

Description

Method, device and system for controlling vehicle release on road

Technical Field

The invention discloses a method, a device and a system for controlling vehicles on a road to pass through.

Background

One characteristic of urban roads is that there are many traffic light intersections, and dozens of traffic light intersections are often passed by one trip. Along with the improvement of income of people in the development of economy, the retention amount of automobiles is greatly increased, and the congestion indexes of various cities are continuously increased. Traffic congestion is almost a common problem in every large city.

Manually driven automobiles (also called intelligent automobiles) are attracting wide attention at present, and many automobile companies, IT companies and even internet companies are actively investing in the research and development of new technologies to bring the new travel mode to the lives of ordinary people as soon as possible.

At present, many intersections have the problem that the passing time is not matched with the number of vehicles in the direction.

Disclosure of Invention

According to embodiments of the present invention, it is desirable to provide a method, apparatus and system that enables intelligent control of vehicle clearance on a road, by which it is desirable to have clearance times (e.g., green duration) more closely match the traffic demands of vehicles in respective directions (e.g., number of vehicles waiting to be cleared), it is desirable to have more directions for vehicles to be assigned longer clearance times, and less directions for vehicles to be assigned shorter clearance times.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control method implemented by a control apparatus for releasing a vehicle on a road, including:

a. determining a driving direction of a plurality of vehicles;

b. determining a release direction and a release duration based on a voting method according to the driving directions of the plurality of vehicles;

c. releasing the determined duration in the determined release direction.

Further, the traveling directions of the vehicles are reported by the vehicles.

Further, the plurality of vehicles include a vehicle in a waiting area.

Further, step b comprises: and determining the driving direction of the vehicle with the maximum number as the releasing direction.

Further, step b also includes: the time required for the vehicle in the release direction to decrease to satisfy the predetermined condition is calculated, and the time is determined as the duration of release.

Further, step b comprises: the time required for the vehicle in the release direction to decrease to about 1/4 of the original is calculated and determined as the duration of release.

Further, the determined direction of release and the program time of release are notified to these vehicles.

Further, the method further comprises: when the duration of this pass expires, steps a-c are repeated.

Further, the method further comprises: when the duration of this release expires, the other direction of travel is released until a predetermined condition is met.

Further, the predetermined condition comprises one of: the other driving direction has been released for a predetermined time; the vehicles in the other driving direction are reduced to the original predetermined ratio.

Preferably, the method is used for controlling traffic lights to enable control of vehicle clearance on the road.

According to an embodiment of another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control apparatus for releasing a vehicle on a road, including:

a first unit configured to determine a traveling direction of a plurality of vehicles;

a second unit configured to determine a release direction and a release duration based on a voting method according to the traveling directions of the plurality of vehicles;

a third unit configured to release the determined release time in the release direction.

Further, the traveling directions of the plurality of vehicles are reported to the control device by the vehicles.

Further, the plurality of vehicles include a vehicle in a waiting area.

Further, the second unit is configured to determine a traveling direction of the vehicle that is the most as a clear direction.

Further, the second unit is also configured to calculate a time required for the vehicle in the above-described release direction to decrease to a time when a predetermined condition is satisfied, and determine the time as the duration of release.

Further, the second unit is also configured to calculate a time required for the vehicle in the release direction to decrease to about 1/4 of the original time, and determine the time as the duration of the release.

Further, the control apparatus further includes a fourth unit configured to notify the vehicles of the determined direction of release and the duration of release.

Further, the first unit, the second unit and the third unit are further configured to repeat the above operations after the duration of the current release expires.

Further, the third unit is further configured to: when the duration of the release has expired, the other direction of travel is released until a predetermined condition is met.

Further, the predetermined condition comprises one of:

-the further direction of travel has been released for a predetermined time;

-the vehicles in the other direction of travel are reduced to the original predetermined proportion.

Preferably, the control device is used for controlling traffic lights to effect control of vehicle clearance on the road.

According to an embodiment of another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an intelligent traffic light system, including: a traffic light; a control device as previously described operatively connected to the traffic light.

According to an embodiment of a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer apparatus comprising:

-one or more processors;

a memory for storing one or more programs,

-when the one or more programs are executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the aforementioned control method of releasing a vehicle on a road.

According to an embodiment of still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium storing computer code which, when executed, performs the aforementioned control method of releasing a vehicle on a road.

According to an embodiment of a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program product which, when executed by a computer device, performs the method of controlling the release of a vehicle on a road as described above.

Some embodiments of the invention are implemented by applying V2X (exchange of information between the vehicle and the outside) for the first time to the control of traffic lights. In particular, the control devices/systems of the vehicle and its communicating objects, such as traffic lights, are equipped with corresponding communication units to realize this entirely new traffic light control solution.

The invention realizes the creation of controlling the traffic lights by the vehicles to a certain extent through the interactive communication between the vehicles and the control device/system, changes the existing control mode, and greatly improves the problems of low efficiency and high cost of the original traffic light scheme. The invention is also particularly suitable for driving environments with a large number of autonomous vehicles, since these vehicles are often equipped with functional modules that are more suitable for implementing the invention, with little additional cost required for modification. Moreover, the invention also expands the application field of V2X, so that the invention can be well applied to the traffic light control of roads.

Drawings

Other features, objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon reading the following detailed description of non-limiting embodiments thereof, made with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a driving environment to which embodiments of the present invention are applicable;

FIG. 2 illustrates a computer system/server block diagram that may be used to implement a control device in an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3a shows a flow chart of a method for controlling vehicle clearance on a road according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3b shows a flow chart of a method for controlling vehicle clearance on a road according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4a shows a functional block diagram of a control device for controlling vehicle clearance on a road according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4b shows a functional block diagram of a control device for controlling vehicle clearance on a road according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

The same or similar reference numbers in the drawings identify the same or similar elements.

Detailed Description

Before discussing exemplary embodiments in more detail, it should be noted that some exemplary embodiments are described as processes or methods depicted as flowcharts. Although a flowchart may describe the operations as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel, concurrently, or simultaneously. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. The process may be terminated when its operations are completed, but may have additional steps not included in the figure. The processes may correspond to methods, functions, procedures, subroutines, and the like.

The term "computer device" or "computer" in this context refers to an intelligent electronic device that can execute predetermined processes such as numerical calculation and/or logic calculation by running predetermined programs or instructions, and may include a processor and a memory, wherein the processor executes a pre-stored instruction stored in the memory to execute the predetermined processes, or the predetermined processes are executed by hardware such as ASIC, FPGA, DSP, or a combination thereof. Computer devices include, but are not limited to, servers, personal computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones, and the like.

The computer equipment comprises user equipment and network equipment. Wherein the user equipment includes but is not limited to computers, smart phones, PDAs, etc.; the network device includes, but is not limited to, a single network server, a server group consisting of a plurality of network servers, or a Cloud Computing (Cloud Computing) based Cloud consisting of a large number of computers or network servers, wherein Cloud Computing is one of distributed Computing, a super virtual computer consisting of a collection of loosely coupled computers. Wherein the computer device can be operated alone to implement the invention, or can be accessed to a network and implement the invention through interoperation with other computer devices in the network. The network in which the computer device is located includes, but is not limited to, the internet, a wide area network, a metropolitan area network, a local area network, a VPN network, and the like.

It should be noted that the user devices, network devices, networks, etc. are merely examples, and other existing or future computer devices or networks may be suitable for the present invention, and are included within the scope of the present invention and are also included herein by reference.

The methods discussed below, some of which are illustrated by flow diagrams, may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks may be stored in a machine or computer readable medium such as a storage medium. The processor(s) may perform the necessary tasks.

Specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are merely representative and are provided for purposes of describing example embodiments of the present invention. This invention may, however, be embodied in many alternate forms and should not be construed as limited to only the embodiments set forth herein.

It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being "connected" or "coupled" to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected" or "directly coupled" to another element, there are no intervening elements present. Other words used to describe the relationship between elements (e.g., "between" versus "directly between", "adjacent" versus "directly adjacent to", etc.) should be interpreted in a similar manner.

It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element may be termed a second element, and, similarly, a second element may be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any combination of one or more of the associated listed items.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions/acts noted may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two figures shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the figures may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved.

The present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of a driving environment to which the method, apparatus and system according to embodiments of the present invention are applicable. The scenario shown is an environment 1 at an intersection, where the environment 1 has four directions, D1-D4, according to the formation of the intersection. The plurality of

vehicles

11, 12, 14 in the figure is marked 11 according to the direction in which they are facing: the head faces the direction pointed by the D1, 12: the vehicle head is facing the direction indicated by D2, and 14: the vehicle head faces to the direction pointed by the D4. Also shown is a plurality of pedestrians 15 whose effect in the inventive arrangement will be discussed later.

Before describing the present invention in connection with a specific flow of a method or a block diagram of a device, the concept of driving direction to be discussed in the context is first described. For a vehicle, such as one of the vehicles 11, the direction of travel includes continuing to travel in direction D1, turning left and traveling in direction D4, and turning right and traveling in direction D3. In this context, the direction of travel of the vehicle reported by the vehicle, or otherwise obtained by the control device/system, may be such information. I.e. to inform the vehicle in which direction the vehicle is intended to travel afterwards. When determining the release direction based on the voting method according to the traveling directions of a plurality of vehicles, the traveling directions of the vehicles may need to be considered in the applicable traffic regulations, that is, considering that the release condition required for a left turn of one vehicle 11 may not conflict with the release condition required for the vehicle 12 to continue straight (to continue traveling along D2), that is, both of the release conditions are green lights along the line of the release-requiring D1 ← → D2, the vehicle 11 requiring a left turn and the vehicle 12 requiring execution may be put together for statistics, that is, as two vehicles in the line direction of the voting release D1 ← → D2. Similar or other traffic regulation effects can be obtained based on the above, and are not described in detail.

Preferably, the vehicles of fig. 1 all employ V2X technology and their communication objects include, but are not limited to, traffic light control devices (not shown). As will be more clearly understood by those skilled in the art from reading the following, the present invention first combines V2X with control of vehicle clearance on the road, filling the technical gap in the art.

The method, apparatus and system of the present invention may be implemented using automated functions such as computing, communication, control, etc., which may be implemented by a computer or other electronic device, a non-limiting example of which is shown in fig. 2.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary computer system/server suitable for use to implement embodiments of the present invention, wherein computer system/server 2 is merely an example, and should not impose any limitations on the functionality or scope of use of embodiments of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 2, the computer system/server 2 is in the form of a general purpose computing device. The components of computer system/server 2 may include, but are not limited to: one or more processors or processing units 16, a system memory 28, and a bus 18 that couples various system components including the system memory 28 and the processing unit 16.

Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, such architectures include, but are not limited to, industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, micro-channel architecture (MAC) bus, enhanced ISA bus, video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 2 typically includes a variety of computer system readable media. Such media may be any available media that is accessible by computer system/server 2 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media.

The memory 28 may include computer system readable media in the form of volatile memory, such as Random Access Memory (RAM) 30 and/or cache memory 32. The computer system/server 12 may further include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer system storage media. By way of example only, storage system 34 may be used to read from and write to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media (not shown in FIG. 1, commonly referred to as a "hard drive"). Although not shown in FIG. 1, a magnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk (e.g., a "floppy disk") and an optical disk drive for reading from or writing to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk (e.g., a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or other optical media) may be provided. In these cases, each drive may be connected to bus 18 by one or more data media interfaces. Memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g., at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out the functions of embodiments of the invention.

A program/utility 40 having a set (at least one) of program modules 42 may be stored, for example, in memory 28, such program modules 42 including, but not limited to, an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which examples or some combination thereof may comprise an implementation of a network environment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/or methodologies of embodiments of the invention as described.

The computer system/server 12 may also communicate with one or more external devices 3 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, display 24, etc.), with one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the computer system/server 2, and/or with any devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc.) that enable the computer system/server 2 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may be through an input/output (I/O) interface 22. Also, the computer system/server 2 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network such as the Internet) via a network adapter 20. As shown, the network adapter 20 communicates with the other modules of the computer system/server 2 via the bus 18. It should be appreciated that although not shown in FIG. 2, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with the computer system/server 2, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, to name a few.

The processing unit 16 executes various functional applications and data processing by executing programs stored in the memory 28.

For example, the memory 28 stores a computer program for executing the functions and processes of the present invention, and when the processing unit 16 executes the corresponding computer program, the present invention is realized by identifying an intention of incoming call on the network side.

Depending on how many functions and how sophisticated the required functions are, the various components, elements shown in fig. 2 may be used partly or wholly to implement the methods, control devices and systems mentioned above and below, which applications may be implemented by a person skilled in the art without inventive effort.

Embodiments of the present invention are further described below in conjunction with fig. 1 and 3a-3 b.

Fig. 3a shows a schematic flow chart of a method for controlling the release of vehicles on the road according to an embodiment of the invention. Traffic lights are currently used to control the passing of vehicles on the road, so one implementation of the method is to implement the control by operating the traffic lights. Also, this method is not limited thereto, since in the foreseeable future, due to the increase of autonomous vehicles, traffic control signals, such as traffic lights, which serve mainly the human eye, will likely be replaced by other vehicles in a recognizable/readable manner, when the above-mentioned method of controlling the passing of vehicles on the road is the control of the key element in that alternative.

Without loss of generality, in the following embodiments, the present invention is described by taking the control of traffic lights, an intelligent traffic light system as an illustrative example.

The method 3 begins with step 31, in which the control device for traffic light control determines the driving direction of a plurality of vehicles. These directions of travel are preferably reported by the respective vehicle on its own via a wireless link to the control device. Of course, if the conditions permit, it is also conceivable that the control device recognizes the expected traveling direction of each vehicle by image recognition or the like, for example, the traveling direction of the vehicle is roughly estimated by recognizing that the lane in which the vehicle is located is a left-turn lane, a left-turn or straight lane, a straight lane or a right-turn lane, but it is conceivable that such top-down judgment and estimation by the control device will not be sufficiently accurate in many cases.

The

vehicles

11, 12, and 14 adopt, for example, a V2X scheme to report their driving directions, and any suitable communication mode, such as currently general wireless communication, may be used, and only a vehicle-mounted wireless communication module is used to implement the reporting. In addition, the above-mentioned wireless signal receiving and transmitting of the vehicle, that is, the wireless signal mentioned later, may also be implemented by mobile phones of vehicle personnel, and it is considered that these mobile phones have ready-made communication modules, which may be beneficial to saving hardware cost, but the vehicle personnel may not carry the mobile phones, and the postures and positions of the mobile phones may affect the accuracy of the reported driving directions, and if manual intervention is required to help the mobile phones to provide accurate driving directions, the operation and psychological burden of the personnel are seriously increased. In this respect, it is also advantageous for the vehicle-mounted module associated with the autopilot system to report the direction of travel. In one example, the vehicles reporting the driving direction mainly include vehicles located in a waiting area of a traffic light because the vehicles are vehicles actually needing the traffic light to be dispatched, but not those vehicles which have already traveled the intersection or are far away from the intersection. Without loss of generality, at the intersection shown in fig. 1, we assume that all vehicles wait in the waiting area before the traffic light gives the next instruction.

Fig. 1 does not show a control device that receives a report signal of a vehicle traveling direction and executes subsequent steps. Alternatively, the device may be integrated on traffic lights at an intersection.

In one example, for convenience of description, it is assumed that the traveling direction of the

vehicles

11, 12, 14 is the direction in which the current nose is pointed, i.e., all of the vehicles shown in the figure are required to travel straight in their current direction.

In step 33, the traffic rules are assumed to be: since the straight traveling of the vehicle 11 and the vehicle 12 does not conflict with each other, the statistics are performed as one party of the voting. Their straight-ahead travel conflicts with the straight-ahead travel requirements of the vehicle 14 and therefore acts as an opponent to the vote.

Thus, it is not difficult to think that in step 33, a 16 to 3 voting result will be obtained, i.e., 8 vehicles 11 traveling along D1 vote to ask for clearance D1 ← → D2 along the line, and 3 vehicles 14 traveling along D4 ask for clearance D3 ← → D4.

The result of the vote is that D1 ← → D2 passes along line, and the vehicle 14 will need to continue waiting and proceed to step 35 for execution.

Considering that autonomous vehicles generally require explicit instructions and that traffic signals preferably have a certain predictability, a duration of this pass is also determined in step 33.

In one example, the passage time along line D1 ← → D2 is determined as follows:

first, the time required for each vehicle to start from the waiting area to travel through the intersection is predetermined based on learning or empirical data, which requires consideration of the distance of the vehicle from the intersection, and the like.

Then, according to the current number (i.e. 18) of vehicles in the passing direction (D1 ← → D2) that report the traveling direction based on V2X, the time required for the number to fall to a certain proportion, such as but not limited to 1/4, and a calculation method such as rounding can be applied to ensure that an integer result is obtained, such as 18/4=4.5 in this example, which can be rounded to 6.

Knowing the time required for each vehicle to pass and the number of remaining vehicles on the target, the duration of the green light can be obtained, i.e., how long it takes to pass the vehicle along line D1 ← → D2 for the remaining 6 vehicles, and this time is taken as the duration of this pass.

As can be seen from the above example, the method preferably determines the direction of travel of the vehicle that is the most as the clear direction.

In one example, steps 31-35 may be repeated after the end of the above-described clearance time. Alternatively, after the end of the play in the current direction, the process switches directly to the other direction of play, i.e., D4 ← → D3 along the line in fig. 1. D4 ← → D3 passing along the line can continue for a predetermined time, or for a predetermined proportion, for example 1/4, of the vehicle in that direction.

Fig. 3b shows a flow chart of a method of controlling the passage of a vehicle on a road according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. The method 3' has, however, a step 37 more than the method 3 in fig. 3a, in which the control device informs the vehicles of the determined direction of release and the duration of the release via a communication connection between the control device and the vehicles established by the V2X technology. Thus, the

vehicles

11, 12, and 14 can perform the automatic driving operation in accordance with the notified direction of release. For example, the vehicle 14 will continue to wait and the vehicles 11, 12 will proceed straight ahead.

Of course, the above scheme can be compatible with the situation of manual driving.

The pedestrian 15, after applying the inventive idea, can intervene in the above described ticketed traffic light control of the vehicle in the following way. In one example, pedestrians may be provided with buttons on the traffic light system that are currently found in many countries, and when a pedestrian presses a button in one direction, the system will prioritize the pedestrian for clearance, and the direction of the vehicle in conflict with it will illuminate a red light. For this reason, in the present invention, if the vehicle 14 is released and then the pedestrian 15 presses the button, requesting to pass the road in the direction D2, since it is not appropriate to let the vehicle 14 and the pedestrian 15 pass simultaneously in the traffic regulation, the red light may be temporarily lighted along the line D4 ← → D3, so that the pedestrian 15 passes. In the pause process of the line passing through D4 ← → D3, the line passing through D1 ← → D2 is not required, so that the adverse effect of the frequent signal conversion on the safe passing of the vehicle is avoided. Of course, if the intervention of a pedestrian leads to an unplanned change in the signal of the traffic light, this change can be further communicated in advance to the vehicle by the control device of the traffic light via V2X, in particular a vehicle which is travelling quickly in the direction of the upcoming stop.

Fig. 4a shows a functional block diagram of a control device for controlling vehicle clearance on a road according to an embodiment of the present invention. Preferably, the control device 43 will be configured to support V2X technology to facilitate communication with vehicles that are also configured to support V2X technology based on the present invention. Traffic lights are currently used to control the passing of vehicles on the road, so one way of implementing the control device 43 is to operate the traffic lights 41 to implement the control. Also, the application is not limited thereto, since in the foreseeable future, due to the increase of autonomous vehicles, traffic control signals, such as traffic lights, which serve mainly the human eye, will likely be replaced by other vehicles in a recognizable/readable manner, when the above-mentioned method of controlling the passing of vehicles on the road is the control of the key element in that alternative.

Without loss of generality, in the following embodiments, the present invention is described by taking the control of the traffic lights 41, an intelligent traffic light system, as an illustrative example.

The first unit 431 of the control device 43 for the control of the traffic light 41 determines the direction of travel of a plurality of vehicles. These directions of travel are preferably reported by the respective vehicle on its own via a wireless link to the control device. Of course, if the conditions permit, it is also conceivable that the control device 43 recognizes the expected traveling direction of each vehicle by image recognition or the like, for example, by recognizing that the lane in which the vehicle is located is a left-turn lane, a left-turn or straight lane, a straight lane or a right-turn lane, to roughly estimate the traveling direction of the vehicle, but it is conceivable that such top-down judgment and estimation by the control device will not be sufficiently accurate in many cases.

Reporting of the driving direction of the

vehicles

11, 12, 14 in fig. 1 can be performed by any suitable communication means, such as currently general wireless communication, and only by using a vehicle-mounted wireless communication module, wherein it is preferably considered to implement V2X-based communication, and in addition, the above-mentioned receiving and sending of wireless signals of the vehicles, namely, the following-mentioned wireless signals, can also be implemented by mobile phones of vehicle personnel, which may be beneficial to saving hardware cost in consideration of the existing communication modules of the mobile phones, but the vehicle personnel may not carry the mobile phones, and the postures and positions of the mobile phones may influence the accuracy of the reported driving direction, and if manual intervention is required to help the mobile phones to provide accurate driving direction, the operation and psychological burden of the personnel are seriously increased. In this respect, it is also advantageous for the vehicle-mounted module associated with the autopilot system to report the direction of travel on the basis of V2X technology. In one example, the vehicles reporting the direction of travel include primarily those located in the waiting area for traffic lights, since these are vehicles that actually need to be dispatched by the traffic lights, rather than those that have already traveled the intersection or are a significant distance away from the intersection. Without loss of generality, at the intersection shown in fig. 1, we assume that all vehicles wait in the waiting area before the traffic light gives the next instruction. Accordingly, the first unit 431 may use V2X-based to enable the reception of this signal of the driving direction.

vehicles

11, 12, 14 is the direction in which the current nose points, i.e., all of the vehicles shown in the figure are required to travel straight in their current direction.

The operation of determining the direction of release based on the voting method performed by the second unit 433 is premised on such traffic regulations: since the straight traveling of the vehicle 11 and the vehicle 12 does not conflict with each other, the statistics are performed as one party of the voting. Their straight-ahead travel conflicts with the straight-ahead travel request of the vehicle 14, and therefore act as opponents to the vote.

It is then not difficult to think that the second unit 433 will result in a vote of 16 to 3, i.e. 8 vehicles 11 travelling along D1 vote to ask for clearance D1 ← → D2 along the line, 3 vehicles 14 travelling along D4 ask for clearance D3 ← → D4.

The result of the vote above is that D1 ← → D2 passes along the line, and the vehicle 14 will need to continue waiting.

Considering that autonomous driving of the vehicle generally requires explicit instructions and that the traffic signal preferably has a certain predictability, the second unit 433 also determines the duration of a pass.

first, the time required for each vehicle to start from the waiting area to drive through the intersection is determined in advance based on learning or empirical data, which requires consideration of the distance of the vehicle from the intersection, and the like.

Then, based on the current number of vehicles (i.e. 18) reporting the direction of travel in the let-go direction (D1 ← → D2), the time required for the number to fall to a certain ratio, such as, but not limited to, 1/4, and rounding or the like can be applied to ensure that an integer result is obtained, such as 18/4=4.5, which can be rounded to 6 in this example.

As can be seen from the above example, the method preferably determines the direction of travel of the vehicle that is the most in the method as the clear direction.

In one example, the first unit 431, the second unit 433, and the third unit 435 may repeatedly perform the above operations after the above-mentioned release time is over. Alternatively, after the end of the play in the current direction, the process switches directly to the other direction of play, i.e., D4 ← → D3 along the line in fig. 1. D4 ← → D3 passing along the line can continue for a predetermined time, or for a predetermined proportion, for example 1/4, of the vehicle in that direction.

Fig. 4b shows a functional block diagram of a control device for controlling the passage of vehicles on a road according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Wherein the control device 43' has one fourth unit 437 more than the control device 43 in fig. 4a, wherein the fourth unit 437 informs the plurality of vehicles of the determined direction of release and the programmed time of release, and preferably performs the above-mentioned informing on the basis of V2X. Thus, the

vehicles

The pedestrian 15, after applying the inventive idea, can intervene in the above described ticketed traffic light control of the vehicle in the following way. In one example, pedestrians may be provided with buttons on the traffic light system that are currently found in many countries, and when a pedestrian presses a button in one direction, the system will prioritize the pedestrian for clearance, and the direction of the vehicle in conflict with it will illuminate a red light. For this reason, in the present invention, if the vehicle 14 is released and then the pedestrian 15 presses the button, requesting to pass the road in the direction D2, since it is not appropriate to let the vehicle 14 and the pedestrian 15 pass simultaneously in the traffic regulation, the red light may be temporarily lighted along the line D4 ← → D3, so that the pedestrian 15 passes. In the pause process of the line passing through D4 ← → D3, the line passing through D1 ← → D2 is not required, so that the adverse effect of the frequent signal conversion on the safe passing of the vehicle is avoided. Of course, if the intervention of a pedestrian leads to an unplanned change in the signal of the traffic light, this change can be further communicated in advance to the vehicle by the control device of the traffic light via V2X, in particular a vehicle that is travelling quickly in the direction of the upcoming stop, for example via the fourth unit 437.

The computer device mentioned in the disclosure of the present invention refers to an intelligent electronic device that can execute predetermined processing procedures such as numerical calculation and/or logic calculation by running a predetermined program or instruction, and may include a processor and a memory, where the processor executes a persistent instruction prestored in the memory to execute the predetermined processing procedures, or the processor executes the predetermined processing procedures by hardware such as ASIC, FPGA, DSP, or a combination of the two. Computer devices include, but are not limited to, servers, personal computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones, and the like. Servers include, but are not limited to, a single server, a cloud of multiple servers or a large number of computers or servers based on cloud computing, where cloud computing is one type of distributed computing, a super virtual computer consisting of a collection of loosely coupled computers. Automotive electronics are electronics used on or associated with automobiles.

It is noted that at least a portion of the present invention may be implemented in software and/or a combination of software and hardware, for example, the various means of the invention may be embodied in an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or any other similar hardware device. In one embodiment, the software program of the present invention may be executed by a processor to implement the steps or functions described above. As such, the software programs (including associated data structures) of the present invention can be stored in a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated data signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer readable signal medium may also be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, smalltalk, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the C language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the case of a remote computer, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet service provider).

Further, some of the steps or functions of the present invention may be implemented in hardware, for example, as circuitry that cooperates with the processor to perform various steps or functions.

It will be evident to those skilled in the art that the invention is not limited to the details of the foregoing illustrative embodiments, and that the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof. The present embodiments are therefore to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the invention being indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description, and all changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein. Any reference sign in a claim should not be construed as limiting the claim concerned. Furthermore, it is obvious that the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps, and the singular does not exclude the plural. A plurality of units or means recited in the system claims may also be implemented by one unit or means in software or hardware. The terms first, second, etc. are used to denote names, but not to denote any particular order.

Claims

1. A control method implemented by a control device for releasing a vehicle on a road, comprising:

a. receiving driving directions sent by a plurality of vehicles waiting in a waiting area of a traffic light based on information exchange V2X technology between the vehicles and the outside; the plurality of vehicles are vehicles scheduled by traffic lights;

b. determining a release direction and a release duration based on a voting method according to the driving directions of the plurality of vehicles; the driving directions of the vehicles are reported by the vehicles;

c. releasing the duration in the determined release direction;

the determining the duration of the release comprises:

the method comprises the steps that the time required by each vehicle from starting of a waiting area to passing through an intersection is determined in advance based on the distance between each vehicle and the intersection, the number of target reduced vehicles when the current number is reduced to meet a preset condition is calculated according to the current number of vehicles reporting the running direction in the releasing direction, and the releasing duration time is determined according to the time required by each vehicle from starting of the waiting area to passing through the intersection and the number of the target reduced vehicles;

the method further comprises the following steps:

receiving a walking direction input by a pedestrian, and if the walking direction conflicts with the release direction, controlling a traffic signal lamp in the release direction to be in a red light state so as to enable the pedestrian to pass; wherein, traffic signal lamp in the non-passing direction keeps red light state in the passing process of the pedestrian.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the voting method determining a direction of clearance comprises:

and determining the driving direction of the vehicle with the most number as the releasing direction.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said calculating a target reduced number of vehicles when said current number is reduced to meet a predetermined condition, determining a duration of clearance based on a time required for each vehicle to start from a waiting area to drive through an intersection and said target reduced number of vehicles comprises:

and when the current number is reduced to about 1/4 of the original number, the number of the reduced vehicles is used as a target to reduce the number of the vehicles, the target reduced vehicle number passing time is determined according to the time required by each vehicle to drive from the waiting area to the intersection and the target reduced vehicle number, and the time is determined as the passing duration.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

notifying the plurality of vehicles of the determined direction of release and programmed time of release.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

when the duration of the release expires, the other driving direction is released until a predetermined condition is met.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined condition comprises one of:

-the other driving direction has been released for a predetermined time;

7. A control device for releasing an on-road vehicle, comprising:

the first unit is configured to receive driving directions sent by a plurality of vehicles waiting in a waiting area of a traffic light based on a vehicle-to-outside information exchange V2X technology; the plurality of vehicles are vehicles scheduled by traffic lights;

a second unit configured to determine a release direction and a release duration based on a voting method according to the traveling directions of the plurality of vehicles; the running directions of the vehicles are reported to the control device by the vehicles;

a third unit configured to release the duration in the determined release direction;

the second unit is also configured to determine in advance the time required for each vehicle to start from the waiting area to pass through the intersection based on the distance of each vehicle from the intersection, calculate the number of target reduced vehicles when the current number is reduced to meet a predetermined condition according to the current number of vehicles reporting the traveling direction in the releasing direction, and determine the releasing duration according to the time required for each vehicle to start from the waiting area to pass through the intersection and the number of target reduced vehicles;

the device is also used for receiving the walking direction input by the pedestrian, and if the walking direction conflicts with the release direction, the traffic signal lamp in the release direction is controlled to be in a red light state so as to enable the pedestrian to pass; and the traffic signal lamp in the non-release direction keeps a red light state in the passing process of the pedestrians.

8. The control device according to claim 7, wherein the second unit is configured to determine a traveling direction in which a vehicle is the largest as the release direction.

9. The control device according to claim 7, wherein the second unit is further configured to reduce the number of vehicles reduced as a target when the current number is reduced to about 1/4 of the original number, determine the target reduced number-of-vehicles passage time based on a time required for each vehicle to start from a waiting area to pass through an intersection and the target reduced number of vehicles, and determine the time as the duration of the passage.

10. The control device according to claim 7, further comprising:

a fourth unit configured to notify the plurality of vehicles of the determined direction of release and a program time of release.

11. The control device of claim 7, wherein the third unit is further configured to: when the duration of the release has expired, the other driving direction is released until a predetermined condition is met.

12. The control device of claim 11, wherein the predetermined condition comprises one of:

-the further direction of travel has been released for a predetermined time;

13. An intelligent traffic light system comprising:

a traffic light;

the control device of any one of claims 7 to 12 operatively connected to the traffic light.

14. A computer device, the computer device comprising:

-one or more processors;

a memory for storing one or more programs,

-when the one or more programs are executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method of any of claims 1-6.

15. A computer readable storage medium storing computer code which, when executed, performs the method of any of claims 1 to 6.