SE2051033A1

SE2051033A1 - Method, control arrangement and system for illumination

Info

Publication number: SE2051033A1
Application number: SE2051033A
Authority: SE
Inventors: Björn Johansson; Sanjana Arunesh; Simon André; Chen Tito Lu Tang
Original assignee: Scania Cv Ab
Priority date: 2020-09-01
Filing date: 2020-09-01
Publication date: 2021-05-05

Abstract

Method (400) and control arrangement (120) for informing a traffic participant (130) of a planned driving path (150) of a vehicle (100). The method (400) comprises obtaining (401) information concerning the planned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100); and conveying (402) a command to a visualisation device (140), to illuminate the planned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100).

Description

METHOD, CONTROL ARRANGEMENT AND SYSTEM FOR ILLUMINATION TECHNICAL FIELD This document relates to a method, a control arrangement and a system. I\/|ore particularly,a method, a control arrangement and a system are described, for warning a traffic participantof a planned driving path of a vehicle, by illumination of the planned driving path.

BACKGROUND Autonomous vehicles may drive and operate for example in an environment where humantraffic participants are present, such as pedestrians, cyclists and/ or drivers of non-autono- mous vehicles. ln a traffic situation wherein two human traffic participants are meeting each other, the usersnormally take eye contact with each other and may signal intentions to the other human.However, it is difficult or even impossible for humans to predict movement intentions of the autonomous vehicle.

Blinkers may be used by the autonomous vehicle to some extent for communication of in-tended lateral vehicle movements, for example when changing driving lanes on a road, butin an open space working environment, blinker indications may be misinterpreted by otherroad users.

Some examples of areas where humans are working together with autonomous vehiclesmay be airports, mines, construction sites, deforestation sites, agricultural environments etc.,where autonomous vehicles are used for transporting goods while human operators mayperform other tasks. l\/lisunderstanding of the driving intention of an autonomous vehicle may result in an accident;alternatively in case the autonomous vehicle detects the human in the driving path, the au-tonomous vehicle may make an emergency stop, which reduces the transportation capacityand causes delay of the own transport and possibly also block the traffic flow of other vehi-cles, at least temporarily.

Document JP2017193928 shows a method that promotes work safety when a constructionwork is performed. A forbidden zone around the vehicle is clearly indicated by projection oflight by a light emitting device on the vehicle, such as for example a laser. The prohibitedarea is a rectangular area and is divided by colour coding suited to a level of danger.

The solution is based on reliable light projection by the light emitting device on the vehicle.ln a working environment as herein discussed such as a mine etc., the light emitting devicemay easily be depositioned or tilted, leading to that an erroneous zone is up-lit. As no driveris present in the autonomous vehicle, no one will detect the deposition of the light emittingdevice, which may result in misinterpretation of autonomous vehicle intention by a human,causing an accident. ln case the light emitting device is hit by an impact with a rock or similar,or in case the projected light is blocked by a rock, the human is not able to understand theintentions. A more robust and trustworthy solution is desired.

Document US20160090038 shows a danger zone warning system wherein a danger zoneof a heavy vehicle wherein the driver has no overview is illuminated when a human trafficparticipant moves into the zone. The human traffic participant thereby becomes aware ofthat the driver cannot see him/ her.

The disclosed solution does not concern an autonomous vehicle and it does not show theintended driving path of the vehicle. This solution is also dependent on light projection of alight emitting device on the vehicle and thus suffer from the same disadvantages as enumer-ated above.

As these described dangerous scenarios, and similar variants of them, may lead to severeaccidents, it would be desired to find a solution for avoiding accidents between autonomousvehicles and human traffic participants.

SUMMARY lt is therefore an object of this invention to solve at least some of the above problems andimprove the traffic safety.

According to a first aspect of the invention, this objective is achieved by control arrangementfor informing a traffic participant of a planned driving path of a vehicle. The control arrange-ment is configured to obtain information concerning the planned driving path of the vehicle.The control arrangement is also configured to convey an instruction to at least one visuali-sation device, to illuminate at least a section of the planned driving path of the vehicle,thereby informing the traffic participant concerning the planned driving path of the vehicle.

According to a second aspect of the invention, this objective is achieved by a method of acontrol arrangement, for informing a traffic participant of a planned driving path of a vehicle.

The method comprises the steps of obtaining information concerning the planned drivingpath of the vehicle. Further the method also comprises the step of conveying a command toa visualisation device, to illuminate the planned driving path of the vehicle.

Thanks to the described aspects, by illuminating the planned path of the vehicle, a close-bytraffic participant is enabled to interpret the movements of the vehicle and understand theintended driving direction of the vehicle. The safety is drastically increased, and the risk ofaccidents is reduced. Also, a way of providing interaction between autonomous machinesand humans is provided. Information concerning the planned path of the vehicle is extractedfrom the vehicle and visualised via a dedicated infrastructure.

Not only are potential risks reduced, but performance of the autonomous vehicles is im-proved. This is achieved through having less or no moving objects coming into the path,allowing the autonomous vehicle to reduce the number of "unsure" situations in which the vehicle must make a safe-stop instead of continuing operation.

Other advantages and additional novel features will become apparent from the subsequentdetailed description.

FIGURES Embodiments of the invention will now be described in further detail with reference to theaccompanying figures, in which: Figure 1A illustrates an example of a vehicle and a traffic scenario according to an em-bodiment of the invention.

Figure 1B illustrates an example of a vehicle and a traffic scenario according to an em-bodiment of the invention as regarded from an above perspective.

Figure 1C illustrates an example of a vehicle and a traffic scenario according to an em-bodiment of the invention as regarded from an above perspective.

Figure 2 illustrates an example of a vehicle and a traffic scenario according to an em-bodiment of the invention.

Figure 3 illustrates an example of a vehicle and a traffic scenario according to an em-bodiment of the invention, as regarded from inside the vehicle.

Figure 4 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of the method.

Figure 5 is an illustration depicting a system according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Embodiments of the invention described herein are defined as a method, a control arrange-ment and a system, which may be put into practice in the embodiments described below.These embodiments may, however, be exemplified and realised in many different forms andare not to be limited to the examples set forth herein; rather, these illustrative examples ofembodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete.

Still other objects and features may become apparent from the following detailed description,considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. lt is to be understood, however,that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition ofthe limits of the herein disclosed embodiments, for which reference is to be made to theappended claims. Further, the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale and, unless oth-en/vise indicated, they are merely intended to conceptually illustrate the structures and pro-cedures described herein.

Figure 1A illustrates a scenario with a vehicle 100 driving in a driving direction 105 on a road110. The vehicle 100 comprises or is connected to a control arrangement 120, configuredfor informing a traffic participant 130 of a planned driving path of the vehicle 100.

The vehicle 100 may typically be an autonomous vehicle, such as e.g. a truck, a bus or a car, or any similar vehicle or other means of conveyance.

The traffic participant 130 may be human, such as a pedestrian, bicyclist, vehicle driver, etc. ln order to be able to increase the safety around the vehicle 100, the status, the intentionand/ or the driving plan of the vehicle 100 is output to the traffic participant 130. The trafficparticipant 130 thereby understands how the vehicle 100 will move and can adapt to theseplans, i.e. keep out of the planned driving path of the vehicle 100. The output driving plan ofthe vehicle 100 is comparable to the idea of automated robots used in production sites, where"danger zones" are marked and are not allowed to be stepped into during operation.

For example, visualisation devices such as light emitting devices, e.g. LEDs may be installedin the road surface/ underneath 110 and pre-defined paths of the vehicle 100 can be lightedup or turned off by an off-board command central, or by V2X from the vehicle 100 itself,whenever the autonomous vehicle 100 approaches or leaves the area, respectively. Thiswould allow other traffic participants 130 in the vicinity to avoid entering these temporarily marked zones, which would result in reducing or even completely avoiding accidents. Fur-thermore, by taking this into consideration while designing the autonomous vehicle 100, theperception and decision making could be "simplified".

Figure 1B illustrates the scenario of Figure 1A as regarded from an above perspective ac-cording to an embodiment. The road/ underneath 110 comprises a number of visualisationdevices 140, i.e. 800. The illustrated number of visualisation devices 140 (i.e. 800) is merelyan arbitrary example, other illustration/ examples may comprise any other number of visual-isation devices 140.

When the vehicle 100 is planning a planned driving path 150, visualisation devices 140 alongat least a section of the planned driving path 150 may be turned on, thereby illustrating theplanned driving path 150. As the vehicle 100 proceed fon/vard along the planned driving path150, visualisation devices 140 passed by the vehicle 100 may be turned off.

A possibility in some embodiments may be to divide the complete area of operation 110 indifferent grids. The grid where the autonomous vehicle 100 is currently operating could belighted as "red" and the one in which it would move to directly aften/vards as "yellow". Fur-thermore, the last grid where it operated and has already left, could be lighted as "green".This way, the other traffic participants 130 may know to completely avoid the red zone, startclearing the yellow zone, and know that work can be restarted in the green zone.

The discussed colours are merely some arbitrary examples, other colours and/ or anothernumber of colours, may be utilised in other embodiments.

Not only the safety is increased drastically, and the risk of accidents reduced, but a way tointeract between the machines 100 and humans 130 is provided. Since the path 150 of thevehicle 100 is already planned for the conduction of the vehicle 100, it is a matter of trans-mitting this information to the environmental infrastructure and visualising it in a manner com-prehensible for other road users. This not only gives the advantage of reducing the potentialrisks, but also improves the performance of the autonomous vehicles 100. This is achievedthrough having less or no moving objects coming into the path 150, allowing the autonomousvehicle 100 to reduce the "unsure" situations where it would make a safe-stop instead of continuing.

The communication between a navigator/ route planner of the vehicle 100, the control ar-rangement 120 and/ or the visualisation devices 140 may be made via a wired or wireless communication interface, such as e.g. Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication, or Vehicle-to-lnfrastructure (V2|) communication. The common term Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) is sometimes used. ln some embodiments, the communication may be performed via V2V communication, e.g.based on Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSFIC) devices. DSFIC works in 5.9GHz band with bandwidth of 75 MHz and approximate range of 1000 m in some embodi- mentS.

The wireless communication may be made according to any IEEE standard for wireless ve-hicular communication like e.g. a special mode of operation of IEEE 802.11 for vehicularnetworks called Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE). IEEE 802.11p is anextension to 802.11 Wireless LAN medium access layer (MAC) and physical layer (PHY)specification.

Such wireless communication interface may comprise, or at least be inspired by wirelesscommunication technology such as Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN),Bluetooth (BT), to name but a few possible examples of wireless communications in some embodiments.

The communication may alternatively be made over a wireless interface comprising, or atleast being inspired by radio access technologies such as e.g. 3GPP LTE, LTE-Advanced,etc.

Figure 1C illustrates the scenario of Figure 1A as regarded from an above perspective in an embodiment.

The road/ underneath 110 comprises a number of visualisation devices 140, such as forexample LED lights or other light emitting devices. ln this illustrated embodiment, 44 visual-isation devices 140 are placed along predetermined driving paths 150, 155 in a road surface110, of which one of the predetermined driving paths 150, 155 is the planned driving path150 of the vehicle 100. The illustrated number of visualisation devices 140 (i.e. 44) is merelyan arbitrary example, other illustration/ examples may comprise any other number of visual-isation devices 140. The vehicle 100 is allowed to select one of the predetermined drivingpaths 150, 155 to follow, thereby becoming the planned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100.

When the vehicle 100 has selected the planned driving path 150, visualisation devices 140along at least a section of the planned driving path 150 may be turned on, thereby illustratingthe planned driving path 150. As the vehicle 100 proceed fon/vard along the planned drivingpath 150, visualisation devices 140 passed by the vehicle 100 may be turned off for passedsections 160 of the driving path 150. ln some embodiments, different colours may be used for different purposes, for communica-tion with the other traffic participant 130. For example, the section of the planned driving path150 wherein the autonomous vehicle 100 is currently operating may be lighted as "red" andthe one in which it would move to directly afterwards as "yellow". The visuaiisation devices140 on the passed sections 160 of the driving path 150 may be output as "green" in someembodiments, or alternatively be turned off.

This way, the other traffic participant 130 may know to completely avoid the red zone, startclearing the yellow zone, and know that work can be restarted in the green zone. ln other alternatives, the closest sections of the vehicle 100 may be set to red flashes whilea more forward section of the driving path 150 are illuminated in a permanent red light. Sec-tions close to the planned driving path 150 may be illuminated in yellow, thereby alerting thetraffic participant 130 of for example extruding parts of the vehicle 100, or cargo.

The discussed colours are merely some examples, other colours/ number of colours may beutilised in other embodiments.

An advantage of this embodiment in comparison with the grid embodiment illustrated in Fig-ure 1B is that less visuaiisation devices 140 are required to be placed in the road surface110. ln some embodiments, the grid of Figure 1B and the predetermined driving paths 150, 155of Figure 1C may be combined, for example applying the grid of Figure 1 B at a working area/loading dock or other hotspot, and applying the predetermined driving paths 150, 155 inareas where the vehicle 100 is merely passing for transportation.

Figure 2 illustrates another embodiment of the provided solution of the vehicle 100. How-ever, in this embodiment, the visuaiisation device 140 may comprise a pair of intelligent glasses of a human traffic participant 130, i.e. an optical head-mounted display, that is de-signed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses; or a set of portable head-up displays; or a headup display of a vehicle having a driver.

The planned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100 where the vehicle 100 is currently operatingcould be illuminated as "red", and sections of the planned driving path 150 wherein the vehi-cle 100 will drive aften/vards may be illuminated as "yellow". Furthermore, sections where thevehicle 100 has operated and has already left, could be lighted as "green". This way, theother traffic participants 130 may know to completely avoid the red zone, start clearing theyellow zone, and know that work can be restarted in the green zone. Other colours/ numberof colours may apply in other embodiments.

The visualisation device 140 of the traffic participant 130 may obtain information of theplanned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100 via a wireless communication from the controlarrangement 120. The planned driving path 150 may then be output in the visualisation de-vice 140, for example based on Augmented Reality (AR).

Augmented reality is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whoseelements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such assound, video, graphics or GPS data. lt is related to a more general concept called mediatedreality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than aug-mented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one's currentperception of the reality.

With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recogni-tion) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes visible and pos-sibly interactive. Information about the environment and its objects is overlaid on the realworld. This information can be virtual or real, e.g. seeing other real sensed and/ or measuredinformation such as electromagnetic radio waves overlaid in exact alignment with where they actually are in space.

Thus, the traffic participant 130 is informed about the planned route 150 of the vehicle 100.

The embodiments illustrated in Figures 1A/ 1B/ 1C and in Figure 2 may advantageously becombined in some embodiments, providing additional advantages and redundancy.

Figure 3 illustrates an embodiment of the vehicle 100 and the scenario of Figure 1A/ 1C, asit may be perceived by a hypothetical driver in the autonomous vehicle 100. ln the illustration embodiment, 20 pieces of visualisation devices 140 in form of LEDs insertedinto the road surface 110 are configured to flash along at least a section of the planneddriving path 150 of the vehicle 100. ln other illustrations/ embodiments, another number of visualisation devices 140 may be applied.

The traffic participant 130 is thereby informed about the planned driving path 150 of thevehicle 100 in a clear way, also when the traffic participant 130 is colour blind and/ or visuallyimpaired, for example.

Figure 4 illustrates an example of a method 400 according to an embodiment. The flow chartin Figure 4 shows the method 400 of a control arrangement 120 for informing a human trafficparticipant 130 of a planned driving path 150 of a vehicle 100 when driving on a road surface110. The expression "road surface" is to be interpreted in broad sense and may comprise anopen area where there is no particular driving lane, a construction site or other working area,an airport, a loading dock, a mine, a deforestation site, an agricultural environment, etc.

The control arrangement 120 may be part of the road infrastructure in some embodiments.ln other embodiments, the control arrangement 120 may be comprised in the vehicle 100. lnyet some embodiments, the control arrangement 120 may be comprised partly in the vehicle100 and partly in the road infrastructure. ln order to be able to inform the traffic participant 130 about the planned driving path 150,the method 400 may comprise a number of steps 401-404. However, some of these steps401-404 may be performed solely in some alternative embodiments, like e.g. steps 403 and/or step 404. Further, the described steps 401-404 may be performed in a somewhat differentchronological order than the numbering suggests. The method 400 may comprise the sub- sequent steps: Step 401 comprises obtaining information concerning the planned driving path 150 of thevehicle 100. The control arrangement 120 may obtain this information of the planned drivingpath 150 from a navigator or route planner of the vehicle 100 via a wired or wireless com- munication interface.

Alternatively, in some embodiments, the information concerning the planned driving path 150of the vehicle 100 may be obtained from a control tower or other centralised traffic orches- tration unit.

Step 402 comprises conveying a command to a visualisation device 140, to illuminate theplanned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100.

The visualisation device 140 may comprise a grid of individual light emitting devices situatedin a road surface 110 in some embodiments. The visualisation device 140 may also or alter-natively comprise individual light emitting devices situated along predetermined driving paths150, 155 in a road surface 110.

Also, or alternatively in some embodiments, the visualisation device 140 may be comprisedin a display device of the traffic participant 130, such as a set of close-eyes displays (i.e.intelligent glasses) of the vehicle driver/ owner 130, a portable device of the vehicle driver/owner 130, a display integrated in the dashboard of the other traffic participant 130, a headup display, etc.

Thus, a possible accident may be avoided. Smooth traffic planning is also enabled, as emer-gency stops of the vehicle 100 could be eliminated. Another advantage may have to do withthe mind of other road users, i.e. they may feel safer as they could interpret and understandhow the autonomous vehicle 100 is going to move in the close future, which may lead to improvements of the work environment and less stress.

Step 403, which may be performed only in some alternative embodiments, may comprisedetermining current position of the vehicle 100.

The position of the vehicle 100 may be determined by a positioning device of the vehicle100, which may be based on a satellite navigation system such as the Navigation SignalTiming and Ranging (Navstar) Global Positioning System (GPS), Differential GPS (DGPS),Galileo, GLONASS, or the like.

The geographical position of the positioning device, (and thereby also of the vehicle 100), aswell as time, vehicle speed, heading, etc., may be determined continuously, or at a certain predetermined or configurable time interval according to various embodiments.

The geographical position of the vehicle 100 may alternatively be determined, e.g. by having 11 transponders positioned at known positions around the route 150, 155 and a dedicated sen-sor in the vehicle 100, for recognising the transponders and thereby determining the position;by detecting and recognising WiFi networks (WiFi networks along the route may be mappedwith certain respective geographical positions in a database); by receiving a Bluetooth bea-coning signal, associated with a geographical position, or other signal signatures of wirelesssignals such as e.g. by triangulation of signals emitted by a plurality of fixed base stationswith known geographical positions.

Step 404, which may be performed only in some alternative embodiments wherein step 403has been performed, may comprise conveying a second instruction to the visualisation de-vice 140, to inhibit the illumination of the section of the planned driving path 150 when thevehicle 100 is determined 403 to have passed the section of the driving path 150. ln analternative embodiment, the illumination of the passed driving path 150 may be made inanother colour such as e.g. green.

By monitoring the current position of the vehicle 100 and iterating the method steps, turningon of the planned driving path 150 could be continuously updated as the vehicle 100 is mov-ing along the driving path 150. The communicated information of the planned driving path150 is thereby updated and becomes more reliable.

Figure 5 illustrates an embodiment of a system 500 for informing a traffic participant 130 ofa planned driving path 150 of a vehicle 100. The system 500 comprises a control arrange-ment 120 configured to perform at least some of the previously described steps 401-404according to the method 400 described above and illustrated in Figure 4.

The control arrangement 120 may form part of the infrastructure, configured to communicatewith both the visualisation device 140 and the vehicle 100, wired or wirelessly. ln other em-bodiments, the control arrangement 120 may be comprised in the vehicle 100.

The control arrangement 120 is configured to obtain information concerning the planneddriving path 150 of the vehicle 100. The information about the planned driving path 150 maybe obtained from a navigator or route planner of the vehicle 100 via a wired or wirelesscommunication interface. Further, the control arrangement 120 is configured to convey aninstruction to at least one visualisation device 140, to illuminate at least a section of theplanned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100, thereby informing the traffic participant 130about the planned driving path 150. 12 ln some embodiments, the control arrangement 120 may be configured to determine positionof the vehicle 100. Also, the control arrangement 120 may be configured to convey a secondinstruction to the visualisation device 140, to inhibit the illumination of the section of theplanned driving path 150 when the vehicle 100 is determined to have passed the section ofthe planned driving path 150. Alternatively, the passed section 160 may be illuminated inanother colour such as e.g. green.

The system 500 also comprises at least one visualisation device 140, configured to illuminateat least a section of the planned driving path 150 of the vehicle 100.

The visualisation device 140 may be configured to output light in at least two distinct coloursin some embodiments; or at least three distinct colours in different embodiments.

The visualisation device 140 may comprise a grid of individual light emitting devices situatedin a road surface 110, in some embodiments. ln some embodiments, the visualisation device 140 may be comprised in a display device of the traffic participant 130.

The visualisation device 140 may be configured to flash for illustrating the planned drivingpath 150 of the vehicle 100 in some embodiments.

The control arrangement 120 comprises a receiving circuit 510 configured for receiving asignal from a positioning device of the passing vehicle 100 and/ or a sensor detection of thevehicle 100.

Further, the control arrangement 120 comprises a processor 520 configured for informing atraffic participant 130 of a planned driving path 150 of a vehicle 100, thereby alerting thetraffic participant 130 and enabling him/ her to plan a passage without interfering with thevehicle 100, when the vehicle 100 approaches the planned driving path 150.

The processor 520 may comprise one or more instances of a processing circuit, i.e. a CentralProcessing Unit (CPU), a processing unit, a processing circuit, an Application Specific lnte-grated Circuit (ASIC), a microprocessor, or other processing logic that may interpret andexecute instructions. The herein utilised expression "processor" may thus represent a pro-cessing circuitry comprising a plurality of processing circuits, such as, e.g., any, some or allof the ones enumerated above. 13 Furthermore, the control arrangement 120 may also comprise a memory 525 in some em-bodiments. The optional memory 525 may comprise a physical device utilised to store dataor programs, i.e., sequences of instructions, on a temporary or permanent basis. Accordingto some embodiments, the memory 525 may comprise integrated circuits comprising silicon-based transistors. The memory 525 may comprise e.g. a memory card, a flash memory, aUSB memory, a hard disc, or another similar volatile or non-volatile storage unit for storingdata such as e.g. ROIVI (Read-Only |\/|emory), PROIVI (Programmable Read-Only Memory),EPROIVI (Erasable PROIVI), EEPROIVI (Electrically Erasable PROIVI), etc. in different embod- iments.

Further, the control arrangement 120 may comprise a signal transmitter 530. The signaltransmitter 530 may be configured for transmitting a control signal to be received by thevisualisation device 140, comprising instructions to illuminate the planned driving path 150of the vehicle 100.

The wireless signal may be e.g. a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) signal used for communicationin some embodiments, or any of the other types of wireless signals earlier described.

Furthermore, in some optional embodiments, the system 500 may comprise a visualisationdevice 140, configured for emitting an illumination of the planned driving path 150 of thevehicle 100.

However, in some alternative embodiments, the system 500 may comprise additional unitsfor performing the method 400 according to steps 401-404.

The above described steps 401 -404 to be performed in the system 500 may be implementedthrough the one or more processors 520 within the control arrangement 120, together withcomputer program product for performing at least some of the functions of the steps 401-404. Thus, a computer program product, comprising instructions for performing the steps401-404 in the control arrangement 120 may perform the method 400 comprising at leastsome of the steps 401-404 for informing the traffic participant 130 of the planned driving path150 of the vehicle 100, thereby alerting the traffic participant 130, when the computer pro-gram is loaded into the one or more processors 520 of the control arrangement 120.

Further, some embodiments may comprise a vehicle 100, comprising the control arrange-ment 120, configured to perform at least some of the method steps 401-404. 14 The computer program product mentioned above may be provided for instance in the formof a data carrier carrying computer program code for performing at least some of the steps401-404 according to some embodiments when being loaded into the one or more proces-sors 520 of the control arrangement 120. The data carrier may be, e.g., a hard disk, a CDROIVI disc, a memory stick, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device or any otherappropriate medium such as a disk or tape that may hold machine readable data in a non-transitory manner. The computer program product may furthermore be provided as computerprogram code on a server and downloaded to the control arrangement 120 remotely, e.g., over an Internet or an intranet connection.

The terminology used in the description of the embodiments as illustrated in the accompa-nying drawings is not intended to be limiting of the described method 400; the control ar-rangement 120; the computer program; the system 500 and/ or the vehicle 100. Variouschanges, substitutions and/ or alterations may be made, without departing from inventionembodiments as defined by the appended claims.

As used herein, the term "and/ or" comprises any and all combinations of one or more of theassociated listed items. The term "or" as used herein, is to be interpreted as a mathematicalOR, i.e., as an inclusive disjunction; not as a mathematical exclusive OR (XOR), unless ex-pressly stated othen/vise. ln addition, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are to be inter-preted as "at least one", thus also possibly comprising a plurality of entities of the same kind,unless expressly stated othen/vise. lt will be further understood that the terms "includes","comprises", "including" and/ or "comprising", specifies the presence of stated features, ac-tions, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/ or components, but do not preclude thepresence or addition of one or more other features, actions, integers, steps, operations, ele-ments, components, and/ or groups thereof. A single unit such as e.g. a processor may fulfilthe functions of several items recited in the claims. The mere fact that certain measures arerecited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of thesemeasures cannot be used to advantage. A computer program may be stored/ distributed ona suitable medium, such as an optical storage medium or a solid-state medium suppliedtogether with or as part of other hardware, but may also be distributed in other forms such as via Internet or other wired or wireless communication system.

Claims

1. A control arrangement (120) for informing a traffic participant (130) of a planneddriving path (150) of a vehicle (100), which control arrangement (120) is configured to obtain information concerning the planned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100);and convey an instruction to at least one visualisation device (140), to illuminate at leasta section of the planned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100), thereby informing the trafficparticipant (130).

2. The control arrangement (120) according to claim 1, wherein the visualisation de-vice (140) is configured to output light in at least tvvo distinct colours; and wherein the con-veyed instruction comprises an instruction to illuminate the section of the planned drivingpath (150) in a first colour.

3. The control arrangement (120) according to claim 2, wherein the visualisation de-vice (140) is configured to output light in at least three distinct colours; and wherein the con-veyed instruction comprises an instruction to illuminate a section situated close to theplanned driving path (150) in a second colour and/ or a passed section (160) of the drivingpath (150) in a third colour.

4. The control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the vis-ualisation device (140) comprises a grid of individual light emitting devices situated in a roadsurface (110).

5. The control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the vis-ualisation device (140) comprises individual light emitting devices situated along predeter-mined driving paths (150, 155) in a road surface (110).

6. The control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the vis-ualisation device (140) is comprised in a display device of the traffic participant (130).

7. The control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-6, wherein the in-struction conveyed to the visualisation device (140) comprises a flashing interval.

8. The control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-7, further config-ured to 16 determine position of the vehicle (100); and convey a second instruction to the visualisation device (140), to inhibit the illumina-tion of a passed section (160) of the driving path (150) when the vehicle (100) is determinedto have passed the section (160).

9. A method (400) for informing a traffic participant (130) of a planned driving path(150) of a vehicle (100), wherein the method (400) comprises obtaining (401) information concerning the planned driving path (150) of the vehicle(100); and conveying (402) a command to a visualisation device (140), to illuminate theplanned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100).

10. The method (400) according to claim 9, further comprisingdetermining (403) position of the vehicle (100); andconveying (404) a second instruction to the visualisation device (140), to inhibit theillumination of a passed section (160) of the driving path (150) when the vehicle (100) isdetermined (403) to have passed the section (160).

11.by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method (400) according to any one of A computer program comprising instructions which, when the program is executed claims 9-10.

12.computer, cause the computer to carry out the method (400) according to any one of claims9-10. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a

13.(150) of a vehicle (100), wherein the system (500) comprises A system (500) for informing a traffic participant (130) of a planned driving path a control arrangement (120) according to any one of claims 1-8; andat least one visualisation device (140), configured to illuminate at least a section ofthe planned driving path (150) of the vehicle (100).