CN114228736A

CN114228736A - Method for operating a vehicle and vehicle

Info

Publication number: CN114228736A
Application number: CN202210027484.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 巩志民; 翟一德; 贺钊; 郑能涛
Original assignee: Daimler AG
Current assignee: Mercedes Benz Group AG
Priority date: 2022-01-11
Filing date: 2022-01-11
Publication date: 2022-03-25
Also published as: DE102022004735A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for operating a vehicle, wherein the method comprises at least: an information obtaining step in which the vehicle obtains information that can indicate whether an obstruction to opening of a door of the vehicle outside a current parking position would make it impossible for an occupant to get off the vehicle normally from the door; and if the information obtained by the vehicle in the information obtaining step indicates that the opening of the vehicle door of the vehicle is obstructed by the outside world so that the passenger can not get off the vehicle normally from the vehicle door, executing a warning program by the vehicle, wherein the warning program at least comprises warning measures for warning the driver of unnecessary flameout. The invention also relates to a corresponding vehicle. The invention has the positive effects that: the driver can be warned of the risk of unnecessary flameout through warning measures; by avoiding unnecessary flameout, fuel consumption can be saved and time waste can be avoided.

Description

Method for operating a vehicle and vehicle

Technical Field

The invention relates to a method for operating a vehicle and to a vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to the correlation control of the blocked opening of the doors of a vehicle and the stopping of the vehicle.

Background

In the automotive field, there has been a continuous effort to improve user convenience. Especially in the luxury car field, the success or failure is decided in more detail.

The following problems currently exist in the prior art: if an obstacle exists beside the door after the vehicle is parked, the obstacle may prevent the occupant from opening the door, and if the driver of the vehicle is not aware of the situation and is directly turned off and the driver and the occupant are ready to get off after the vehicle is turned off, the driver may be unable to open the door. This can have serious consequences if the vehicle occupant is an important person, such as a boss or a customer. In addition, the driver needs to restart the vehicle and then drive the vehicle to another place for the passengers to get off. This is both fuel-consuming and laborious.

Disclosure of Invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for operating a vehicle, which makes it possible to alert the driver to the risk of an unnecessary shutdown in order to avoid an unnecessary shutdown.

According to a first aspect of the invention, a method for operating a vehicle is provided, wherein the method comprises at least:

an information obtaining step in which the vehicle obtains information that can indicate whether an obstruction to opening of a door of the vehicle outside a current parking position would make it impossible for an occupant to get off the vehicle normally from the door;

and if the information obtained by the vehicle in the information obtaining step indicates that the opening of the vehicle door of the vehicle is obstructed by the outside world so that the passenger can not get off the vehicle normally from the vehicle door, executing a warning program by the vehicle, wherein the warning program at least comprises warning measures for warning the driver of unnecessary flameout.

The "door" is not necessarily all doors of the vehicle, but may be a specific door of the vehicle, for example, a door that is opened when the occupant who is predicted in the prediction step in the following gets off the vehicle. An "occupant" is understood to mean an occupant, i.e. both the driver and the passenger. "unnecessary extinction" is understood in particular to mean an extinction in the event that the occupant cannot normally exit the vehicle from the respective vehicle door. "warning measures" are to be understood as meaning all measures which make the driver aware of the risk of an undesired flame-out.

According to an optional embodiment of the invention, the alert measure comprises at least one of:

a first measure in which the vehicle is still not turned off in a case where the vehicle detects a normal turn-off operation;

a second measure in which the vehicle emits a visual, audible and/or tactile warning signal to the driver relating to the extinction.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, in the first measure, the vehicle is turned off only if the vehicle detects a specific key-off operation that is different from a normal key-off operation.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, in the information obtaining step, the vehicle further obtains additional information indicative of whether the occupant can get out of the vehicle door in the event of the obstruction, and the warning signal issued in the second measure includes information that the occupant can get out of the vehicle door if the obtained additional information indicates that the occupant can get out of the vehicle door in the event of the obstruction.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the method comprises a step of anticipating a door that the occupant will open when getting off, in particular depending on the position of the occupant inside the vehicle; only the door that is open when the occupant predicted in the predicting step gets off the vehicle is considered in the method.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, in the predetermining step, the position of the occupant in the vehicle is obtained by means of a force sensor on the seat and/or the backrest and/or a camera and/or a safety belt in the vehicle.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the method comprises a sensing step in which an obstacle obstructing the opening of the door in the current parking position is sensed.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the method comprises a calculation step in which the maximum openable angle of the vehicle door without collision with the obstacle is calculated.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the method comprises a limiting step in which the vehicle limits the opening angle of the door to the angle at which it can be opened maximally without colliding with the obstacle.

According to an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the method includes an information generating step of comparing the maximum openable angle of the door without colliding with the obstacle with a door opening angle required for an occupant to get off normally, and generating the information in the information obtaining step from the result of the comparison.

According to an alternative embodiment of the present invention, in the information generating step, the maximum openable angle of the door without colliding with the obstacle is also compared with a door opening angle required for the occupant to push down the vehicle, and the additional information in the information obtaining step is generated from the result of the comparison.

According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, the method comprises an angle determination step in which the door opening angle required for the occupant to get off normally and/or the door opening angle required for the occupant to get on down is determined based on the physical parameters of the occupant and the getting-off habit.

According to an optional embodiment of the invention, if the information obtained by the vehicle in the information obtaining step indicates that the occupant can normally get off the vehicle from the door, the vehicle is caused to perform a normal key-off procedure in which the vehicle is turned off in a case where the vehicle detects a normal key-off operation.

According to a second aspect of the invention, a vehicle is provided, wherein the vehicle, in particular a controller of the vehicle, is configured to be adapted to perform the aforementioned method.

The invention has the positive effects that: the driver can be warned of the risk of unnecessary flameout through warning measures, so that the embarrassing situation that the passenger cannot get off after flameout can be avoided; by avoiding unnecessary flameout, fuel consumption can be saved and time waste can be avoided.

Drawings

The principles, features and advantages of the present invention may be better understood by describing the invention in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The drawings comprise:

fig. 1 shows an example of a vehicle in a schematic representation.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic top view of a vehicle and possible obstacles next to it.

Fig. 3 shows an example of the method of the invention in a schematic diagram.

Detailed Description

In order to make the technical problems, technical solutions and advantageous effects of the present invention more apparent, the present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and exemplary embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and do not limit the scope of the invention.

Fig. 1 shows an example of a vehicle in a schematic representation. The vehicle is seen here as a four-door sedan, but the invention is not limited thereto and may be applied to any type of vehicle, such as commercial vehicles, SUVs, etc., which may have any number of doors.

After the vehicle shown in fig. 1 is parked, if an obstacle exists beside the door, the obstacle may prevent an occupant in the vehicle, such as a driver or a passenger, from opening the door. There may be obstacles next to one door or several doors.

Fig. 2 shows an example of the vehicle of fig. 1 and an obstacle that obstructs the opening of the doors of the vehicle in a top view. In the middle is the vehicle of fig. 1, which is now in a parked state. As shown in fig. 2, the obstacle on its left is for example another vehicle stopping there first, and the obstacle on its right is for example a very high road curb, but also a pillar, a wall, a tree, etc. are conceivable. The left vehicle may result in the driver and the passenger seated behind the driver of the vehicle of fig. 1 not being able to open the respective doors to disembark, while the right obstacle may result in the passenger and the passenger seated behind the passenger seat not being able to open the respective doors to disembark. If the driver of the vehicle is directly turned off without knowing the situation of the vehicle failing to get off and the driver and the passengers are ready to get off after the vehicle is turned off, an embarrassing situation that the driver cannot open the door to get off occurs. This can have serious consequences if the vehicle occupant is an important person, such as a boss or a customer. In addition, the driver needs to restart the vehicle and then drive the vehicle to another place for the passengers to get off. This is both fuel-consuming and laborious.

In order to avoid such an undesired shutdown of the vehicle, a method for operating the vehicle is proposed (see fig. 3), wherein the method at least comprises:

an information obtaining step S7 in which the vehicle obtains information that can indicate whether an obstruction to opening of a door of the vehicle outside a current parking position would make it impossible for an occupant to get off the vehicle normally from the door;

if the information obtained by the vehicle in the information obtaining step S7 indicates that the external obstruction of the opening of the vehicle door would prevent the occupant from normally getting out of the vehicle door, the vehicle is caused to execute a warning process S9, in which at least a warning measure for warning the driver of an unnecessary misfire is included in the warning process S9.

The method is carried out, in particular automatically, after a vehicle has stopped, for example when the vehicle detects that P gear is engaged. The above method is equivalent in particular to the function of preventing unwanted flameout of the vehicle. The vehicle may also have a key dedicated to switching the function on or off, by means of which it can be determined whether the function is to be automatically executed, for which reference is likewise made to the "engine start stop" key.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the alert measure comprises at least one of:

The key-off operation particularly refers to a key-off operation performed by the driver. The normal key-off operation means, for example, pressing a key-off button for 1 to 2 seconds. The warning signal is any signal which can enable a driver to directly know whether the risk of flameout exists or not. "directly" means in particular that no driver's thinking transition process is required. The warning signal is, for example, a signal indicating to the driver not to stall or a signal asking the driver to confirm whether or not to stall in the current obstacle situation.

In addition to the warning measure, the vehicle can display the full body and the corresponding obstacle that prevents the opening of the door to the driver on a central control screen, or only a part of the door that is open with the obstacle, and can also display the angle at which the door can be opened maximally without collision by means of a numerical value or graphic representation. This makes it possible for the driver and the passenger to know more clearly the obstruction of the opening of the door by the obstacle.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, in the first measure, the vehicle turns off only if the vehicle detects a specific key-off operation different from a normal key-off operation. The following possibilities can thereby be provided: if the driver or passenger determines that the vehicle can be jostled and is willing to jostle the vehicle, the driver can stall the vehicle by the specific stall operation. The specific key-off operation is, for example, a long press of the key-off button, which in particular must be longer than a normal key-off operation, for example, longer than 3 seconds, or at least two consecutive presses of the key-off button. However, it is also conceivable to additionally provide a special button for a specific extinguishing operation, etc. In particular in the form of a voice or image, tells the driver how a particular flameout operation should be carried out.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, in the information obtaining step S7, the vehicle further obtains additional information that can indicate whether the occupant can get out of the vehicle door in the event of the obstruction, and if the obtained additional information indicates that the occupant can get out of the vehicle door in the event of the obstruction, the warning signal issued in the second measure includes information that the occupant can get out of the vehicle door. This can provide the driver or passenger with more accurate information about whether the vehicle can be pushed down.

In order to simplify the method, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method comprises a prejudging step S1 in which a door that the occupant will open when getting off is prejudged S1, the prejudging being made in particular according to the position of the occupant inside the vehicle; only the door that the occupant predicted in the prediction step S1 will open when getting off the vehicle is considered in the method. The prejudging step S1 is performed before, particularly first before, the information obtaining step S7. The following prejudice rules are used here, for example: depending on the position of the occupant in the vehicle, the door closest to the occupant is determined to be the door that the occupant will open when getting off, or only the right rear door is determined to be the door that the occupant will open for the rear occupant. Here, the "occupants" relevant to the prognosis are not necessarily all occupants, but may be only the passengers of the occupants, so that the method may also involve only the passengers and the doors relevant to the passengers, or only the driver. However, it is also conceivable that the method does not comprise the predetermination step S1, but is always applied to all doors on which persons get on and off.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, in the prejudging step S1, the position of the occupant in the vehicle is obtained by a force sensor on the seat and/or the backrest and/or a snap state of a camera and/or a safety belt in the vehicle. The seat with the non-zero detection result of the force sensor, the seat with a person shot by the camera and the seat on the safety belt buckle represent the position of the passenger in the vehicle. The force sensor on the seat is, for example, a gravity sensor inherently provided in the vehicle.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method includes sensing step S2, and in the sensing step S2, an obstacle obstructing the opening of the door at the current parking position is sensed. For this purpose, the vehicle has, for example, a corresponding sensing device, which is, for example, a sensor or a camera. The sensing range of the sensing device includes at least an area swept by the vehicle door from being closed to reaching a predetermined opening degree. The sensing objects of the sensing device comprise at least stationary objects in the sensing range. The contour, height and distance relative to the door of the vehicle can be detected. The sensing step S2 is especially performed after the prejudging step S1.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method includes a calculating step S3 of calculating a maximum openable angle of the door without collision with the obstacle in the calculating step S3. The calculating step S3 is especially performed after the sensing step S2.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method includes a limiting step S4, in which the vehicle limits the opening angle of the door to the maximum openable angle without colliding with the obstacle at the limiting step S4. It is also conceivable that the limitation is not absolute, but is related to a force threshold value below which the door can only be opened to the maximum openable angle, but which can also be opened further if the occupant pushes the door with a force exceeding the force threshold value. Thereby avoiding the inability to push the door open in the event of an accident. The force threshold is in particular significantly greater than the force required for normal pushing of the door, but less than the maximum force that can be applied by a normal person.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method includes an information generating step S6, in the information generating step S6, the maximum openable angle of the door without collision with the obstacle is compared with a door opening angle required for an occupant to get off normally, and the information in step S7 is obtained from the comparison result generation information. The information generating step S6 is especially performed after the calculating step S3.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, in the information generating step S6, the maximum openable angle of the door without colliding with the obstacle is also compared with a door opening angle required for the occupant to push down the vehicle, and the additional information in the information obtaining step is generated from the comparison result.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method includes an angle determining step S5, in which an opening angle of a door required for an occupant to get off normally and/or an opening angle of a door required for an occupant to get on down is determined based on physical parameters of the occupant and a getting-off habit in the angle determining step S5. The door opening angle required for the passenger to get off normally and/or the door opening angle required for the passenger to get off squashed are thus individualized. The door opening angle at which the occupant normally gets off the vehicle is obtained by, for example, learning the habit of the occupant to open the door through big data, and, for example, one-half of the door opening angle is determined as the door opening angle at which the occupant can get off the vehicle. Further, the door opening angle required for the occupant to get off the vehicle may be determined based on physical parameters of the occupant, such as stature and weight. The weight of the occupant can be obtained by a gravity sensor on the vehicle seat. The size of the passenger can be obtained by the camera of the vehicle. However, the door opening angle required for the occupant to get off the vehicle normally and/or the door opening angle required for the occupant to get off the vehicle by squeezing may be specified in advance. The door opening angle is determined experimentally in a factory before the vehicle leaves a factory, for example, and stored in the vehicle. In the experiment, for example, the size parameter of the passenger is assumed with a certain margin, for example, the passenger is 120 kg of fat, and then the corresponding door opening angle is determined based on the assumed weight parameter.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, if the vehicle information obtained in the information obtaining step S7 indicates that the occupant can normally get off the vehicle from the door, the vehicle is caused to perform a normal stall procedure S8 in which the vehicle stalls in a case where the vehicle detects a normal stall operation S8.

The method described herein is performed, for example, by a controller of a vehicle.

It is noted that the various steps recited herein may be performed by the vehicle alone, by the vehicle in combination with or by an external device, such as sensing obstacle information by the external device and then transmitting it to the vehicle, and the vehicle transmitting corresponding data or information to the external device, such as a cloud processor, which then transmits the results back to the vehicle, and so forth. Furthermore, those skilled in the art will also recognize that the order of execution of the various steps may differ from that of FIG. 3 with many different possibilities without obvious conflict.

Although specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein in detail, they have been presented for purposes of illustration only and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention. Various substitutions, alterations, and modifications may be devised without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for operating a vehicle, wherein the method comprises at least:

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the alert measure comprises at least one of:

3. The method of claim 2, wherein,

in the first measure, the vehicle is turned off only if the vehicle detects a specific key-off operation different from a normal key-off operation;

in the information obtaining step, the vehicle further obtains additional information that can indicate whether the occupant can get out of the door in the case of the obstruction, and if the obtained additional information indicates that the occupant can get out of the door in the case of the obstruction, the warning signal issued in the second measure includes information that the occupant can get out of the door.

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method comprises:

a pre-determination step of determining a door that will be opened by a passenger when the passenger gets off the vehicle, the pre-determination being performed based on a position of the passenger in the vehicle;

only the door that is open when the occupant predicted in the predicting step gets off the vehicle is considered in the method.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein,

in the anticipation step, the position of the occupant in the vehicle is obtained through a buckling state of a force sensor on the seat and/or the backrest and/or a camera and/or a safety belt in the vehicle.

6. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method comprises:

a sensing step of sensing an obstacle that obstructs opening of the door at a current parking position;

a calculation step of calculating a maximum openable angle of the vehicle door without colliding with the obstacle;

a restricting step in which the vehicle restricts an opening angle of the door to the angle that can be opened at maximum without colliding with the obstacle;

an information generating step of comparing the maximum openable angle of the door without colliding with the obstacle with a door opening angle required for an occupant to get off normally, and generating the information in the information obtaining step from a result of the comparison.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein,

in the information generating step, the maximum openable angle of the door without colliding with the obstacle is also compared with a door opening angle required for the occupant to push down the vehicle, and the additional information in the information obtaining step is generated from the comparison result.

8. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method comprises:

an angle determining step of determining a door opening angle required for the passenger to get off normally and/or a door opening angle required for the passenger to get on off in a crowded manner based on the physical parameters of the passenger and the getting-off door opening habit.

9. The method of any one of the preceding claims,

causing the vehicle to perform a normal key-off procedure in which the vehicle is turned off in a case where the vehicle detects a normal key-off operation, if the information obtained by the vehicle in the information obtaining step indicates that the occupant can normally get off the vehicle from the door.

10. A vehicle, wherein the vehicle, in particular a controller of the vehicle, is adapted to perform the method of any of the preceding claims.