CN113532447A - On-board device, system and method for vehicle positioning - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides an on-board device, a system and a method for vehicle positioning. The vehicle-mounted equipment communication interface receives road side equipment information from road side equipment, wherein the road side equipment information at least comprises road side equipment position information; and a processor configured to determine a vehicle location based on the roadside device location information and one or both of: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

Description

On-board device, system and method for vehicle positioning

Technical Field

The invention relates to an on-board unit for vehicle localization and a system comprising the on-board unit, to a method for vehicle localization and to a corresponding roadside facility.

Background

For vehicles running on roads, it is important to locate the vehicles to provide accurate position information for the vehicles, which can prevent accidents caused by collision of the vehicles with pedestrians, other vehicles, obstacles, and the like.

In existing vehicle positioning solutions, vehicle positioning based on navigation satellite data (GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo) is usually achieved by means of space navigation satellites, ground satellite stations and satellite signal receivers arranged on the vehicle ends. According to this existing solution, an additional satellite earth station is used to apply the differential technique, so that the accuracy of the vehicle positioning can be improved. However, the construction of an additional satellite ground station requires a huge cost, and the use of the satellite ground station requires a huge use cost, which also puts a high demand on the computing capability of the vehicle-mounted terminal. Therefore, it is desired to reduce the construction cost and the use cost while improving the vehicle positioning accuracy.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide an improved technical scheme for positioning a vehicle, which can improve the positioning accuracy of the vehicle at lower cost.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an in-vehicle apparatus for vehicle positioning, including: a communication interface that receives roadside device information from a roadside device, the roadside device information including at least roadside device location information; and a processor configured to determine a vehicle location based on the roadside device location information and one or both of: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

According to a possible embodiment, the processor is configured to determine the vehicle position based on the roadside device position information, optionally from an ETC-roadside device, and to correct the determined vehicle position based on the environmental information and/or position information of the vehicle navigation system.

According to one possible embodiment, the processor is configured to perform a first calculation in which the vehicle position is calculated based on roadside device position information and environmental information representing the environment around the vehicle; performing a second calculation in which the vehicle position is obtained based on the position information from the vehicle navigation system; and performing integrated processing on the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation to determine the vehicle position.

According to one possible embodiment, the processor is configured to perform a first calculation in which the vehicle position is derived based on roadside device position information; performing a second calculation in which a vehicle position is obtained based on environmental information representing an environment around the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system; and performing integrated processing on the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation to determine the vehicle position.

According to one possible embodiment, the first calculated vehicle position used in the integration process includes: a vehicle position calculated in the newly performed first calculation; or the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed last and the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed one or more times before.

According to one possible embodiment, the environmental information comprises image information including environmental objects around the vehicle and/or relative position information between the vehicle and the environmental objects; and the processor identifies the associated roadside device from the image information based on a predetermined identifier representative of the associated roadside device; and determines a relative position between the vehicle and the associated roadside apparatus from the relative position information,

according to one possible embodiment, the environmental information is derived from environmental sensors in the vehicle and/or from environmental sensors external to the vehicle and in communication connection with the vehicle.

According to a possible embodiment, the roadside device information further includes verification information; the processor is further configured to detect validity of the received roadside position information based on the verification information, and determine the vehicle position using the roadside device position information detected as valid.

According to one possible embodiment, the processor is further configured to perform a third calculation in which a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation is calculated.

According to a possible embodiment, the position difference comprises: (1) a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the newly performed first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the corresponding second calculation; or (2) a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed most recently and the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed one or more times before and the vehicle position calculated in the corresponding second calculation, respectively.

According to a possible embodiment, the processor is further configured to determine a calibration parameter based on the position difference calculated in the third calculation to calibrate the vehicle navigation system; and determining the vehicle position based on the position information from the calibrated vehicle navigation system in a second calculation.

According to a possible embodiment, the processor is further configured to evaluate the reliability of the vehicle navigation system based on the position difference calculated in the third calculation.

According to one possible embodiment, the processor is configured to: evaluating the reliability of the vehicle navigation system as low upon occurrence of a position difference greater than a first threshold, optionally providing an alert in the vehicle if the reliability is evaluated as low; evaluating the trustworthiness of the vehicle navigation system as medium when the position difference is less than the first threshold and greater than a second threshold, the second threshold being less than the first threshold and may be zero; and evaluating the trustworthiness of the vehicle navigation system as high when the position difference is less than the second threshold.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a roadside facility comprising one or more roadside apparatuses, each configured to: the method comprises the steps of containing roadside device information, wherein the roadside device information at least contains roadside device position information representing the position of the roadside device information; and transmitting the roadside device information to a vehicle so that the vehicle determines a vehicle position based on the roadside device position information.

According to a possible embodiment, the roadside arrangement comprises a plurality of roadside devices, and some or all of the plurality of roadside devices are communicatively connected.

According to one possible embodiment, each of the plurality of roadside devices is integrated with a locator for determining its own position; or a part of the plurality of roadside apparatuses has a locator, and the position of the roadside apparatus not having the locator is determined based on the position of the roadside apparatus having the locator and the relative position therebetween.

According to a possible embodiment, the one or more roadside devices are ETC-roadside devices.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for vehicle localization, comprising: the roadside facility as described above, comprising one or more roadside devices, each roadside device being configured to transmit roadside device location information representing its location; an environmental sensor disposed in and/or external to the vehicle and communicatively coupled to the vehicle for sensing environmental information indicative of an environmental condition surrounding the vehicle; and the vehicle-mounted device as described above, determining the vehicle position based on the roadside device position information from the one or more roadside devices, and one or both of the following information: environmental information from the environmental sensor and location information from a vehicle navigation system.

According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for vehicle localization, optionally performed by an on-board device as described above and/or a system as described above, the method comprising: receiving roadside device information from a roadside device while a vehicle is in a communication range of an associated roadside device traveling through a road, the roadside device information including at least roadside device location information; and determining a position of the vehicle based on the roadside apparatus position information and one or both of: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

According to yet another aspect of the invention, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, storing a computer program which, when executed by at least one processor, implements a method as described above.

Therefore, according to the technical scheme of the invention, the position of the vehicle is assisted to be determined by means of the position information of the road side equipment from the road end, so that the positioning accuracy of the vehicle is improved in a convenient and economic manner.

Moreover, according to the technical scheme of the invention, whether the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system has deviation or not can be judged by simple operation, and the vehicle navigation system can be further calibrated, so that the positioning accuracy and reliability are improved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system for vehicle localization according to one possible embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic block diagram of an onboard device for vehicle localization according to one possible embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary operating environment in which some implementations of the invention may be implemented.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of a method for vehicle localization according to a possible embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

The invention relates to a technical scheme for positioning a vehicle. The "vehicle" in the present invention refers to a vehicle with a wireless communication function, for example, the vehicle in the present invention can exchange information with the outside by means of V2X communication technology.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 schematically shows a system 100 for vehicle localization according to one possible embodiment of the invention, which mainly comprises an on-board unit 10, a roadside facility comprising one or more roadside units 20-22 and an environmental sensor 30. The system 100 can be understood as a typical example of a collaborative ecosystem where intelligent vehicles work in conjunction with intelligent roads (intelligent vehicle-ends and intelligent road-ends).

It will be understood that "roadside apparatuses" are associated roadside apparatuses, i.e., located at different locations on the road over which the vehicle is traveling, such that the vehicle will pass each of the roadside apparatuses 20-22 one by one during travel over the road. While a vehicle travels on a road, the vehicle passes through various road side devices, and the "road side device" in the present invention includes only the road side device that has a short communication distance and transmits road side device information to a vehicle end, as described below.

It will be appreciated that roadside equipment may be located near a road, to the side of a distance from a road, above a road, or below a road (e.g., buried in a road). Can be set up in a holding pole, a stand-alone station and the like. The invention is not limited to the specific position and arrangement mode of the road side equipment.

The roadside devices 20-22 may interact information (e.g., instructions and/or data) with the vehicle in a wireless communication. Roadside device position information indicating a position (e.g., an absolute position) of each roadside device is stored in each of the roadside devices, and is transmitted to the vehicle in the process of wireless communication with the vehicle. For example, the roadside apparatus 20 stores therein roadside apparatus position information indicating a position of the roadside apparatus 20, and the roadside position information may be received from the roadside apparatus 20 during wireless communication of the vehicle with the roadside apparatus 20. Similar information interaction can also be realized during the wireless communication process of the vehicle with the roadside device 21 or 22.

It will be appreciated that the location information in the roadside devices 20-22 may represent the location of the roadside devices in a variety of ways, for example, the location may be in a local coordinate system using local locations, in a global coordinate system using global locations, in a Cartesian coordinate system using x, y and z location points, in a polar coordinate system, in a spherical coordinate system, etc.

Roadside devices 20-22 have a communication range. In the present invention, the communication range may be limited relatively small by setting a wireless communication method and/or adjusting set parameters of wireless communication, so that the vehicle can establish wireless communication connection and exchange information with the roadside device only when the vehicle is in close proximity (e.g., within 10 meters) to the roadside device. The communication ranges of the respective roadside apparatuses may be all the same or partially the same or different from each other, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

According to the present invention, the vehicle can receive the roadside apparatus information transmitted by the roadside apparatus while being in the proximity area to the roadside apparatus defined by the communication range described above.

In one embodiment, the communication range of the roadside devices 20-22 may be adjustable. For example, the roadside devices 20-22 have radio frequency functionality, such as being equipped with near field inductive antennas, which may assist in adjusting the communication range of the roadside devices. The roadside apparatus may have its communication range controlled within a small area, for example, within a range of 5m around the roadside apparatus, by a microwave antenna or a high-frequency antenna. That is, the vehicle may be able to exchange information with the roadside device while within the communication range of the roadside device, and once the vehicle leaves the communication range of the roadside device, communication with the roadside device may not be possible.

The environmental sensor 30 is used to sense environmental information representing environmental conditions around the vehicle. The environmental sensor 30 may be arranged in the vehicle or on one or more sides of the vehicle, i.e. implemented as an on-board sensor, e.g. the environmental sensor may be an on-board camera (single or multiple target), a lidar, an ultrasonic radar (e.g. millimeter wave radar), an on-board receiver, etc. The vehicle-mounted camera can obtain information of the roadside equipment through image or video analysis, for example, the relative distance between a vehicle and the roadside equipment can be obtained; the radar device can obtain the relative distance between the vehicle and the roadside equipment through the analysis of the point cloud; the vehicle-mounted receiver can judge the information of the road-side equipment, such as the relative position from the vehicle, through the time delay of the received signal or according to the time stamp information in the signal.

The environmental sensor 30 may also be implemented as a sensor outside the vehicle and may transmit the sensed environmental information to the vehicle end through wireless communication, for example, the camera, the radar, and the wireless transceiver may be disposed at the roadside, and through analysis of the collected information, the roadside intelligent device may transmit the analysis result to the vehicle end, so that the vehicle end may perform further operation. In other words, in the present invention, the environmental information may be from an in-vehicle environmental sensor, may be from an environmental sensor outside the vehicle, or may be from both of them and the environmental information from both of them may be subjected to fusion processing.

The environment sensor 30 transmits the sensed environmental information to the in-vehicle apparatus 10 so that the in-vehicle apparatus 10 can be used for analysis and calculation.

The vehicle-mounted device 10 may determine the vehicle position based on the roadside device position information from one or more of the roadside devices 20-22 because the vehicle is in close proximity to the roadside device when the roadside device position is obtained. The vehicle-mounted device 10 may also determine the vehicle position in combination with at least one of the following information on the basis of the roadside device position information: environmental information from environmental sensors 30 and location information from a vehicle navigation system. The vehicular apparatus 10 may also correct the determined vehicle position using environmental information from the environmental sensor 30 and/or position information from the vehicle navigation system after determining the vehicle position based on the roadside apparatus position information.

It is understood that the vehicle-mounted device 10 may perform comprehensive processing to determine the vehicle position by using different combinations of the position information of the roadside device, the environmental information, and the position information of the vehicle navigation information according to different strategies.

The vehicle navigation system may be implemented as a satellite signal-based navigation system or as a satellite signal-based and digital map-based navigation system.

The in-vehicle apparatus 10 may be implemented in hardware or software or a combination of software and hardware. For a hardware implementation, the portions may be implemented in one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Data Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro-controllers, microprocessors, electronic units designed to perform their functions, or a combination thereof. For the part implemented in software, it may be implemented by means of microcode, program code or code segments, which may also be stored in a machine-readable storage medium such as a storage component.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary operating environment in which some implementations of the invention may be implemented. The operating environment may be a representative example of system 100 and the present invention is not limited to this particular framework.

In the illustrated implementation of FIG. 3, roadside devices 20-22 are implemented as devices bound (integrated) with ETC (electronic Toll Collection) devices of ETC Toll booths on roads, and thus, in this implementation, roadside devices 20-22 are implemented as ETC-roadside devices 20-22. In this implementation, roadside device information is transmitted by means of short-range wireless communication of the ETC device. It is understood that the location information may be sent to the vehicle end along with the billing information. For example, the same piece of information includes location information and charging information, and the information is sent after relevant processing (such as encoding, modulation, and the like), or may be sent to the vehicle end separately (for example, at a predetermined frequency), for example, the location information is sent according to a pre-configured or dynamically/semi-statically configured period, resource, and the like. The beam used for transmitting the location information may be the same as the beam used for transmitting the charging information, e.g., subjected to the same beamforming process.

In this implementation, the vehicle first drives to a first ETC toll station, establishes a wireless communication connection with the first ETC-roadside device 20 upon entering the communication range of the first ETC-roadside device 20, and interacts with the first ETC-roadside device 20 during being within the communication range of the first ETC-roadside device 20, e.g., receives roadside device information from the first ETC-roadside device 20. The vehicle then leaves the communication range of the first ETC roadside device 20 and may travel a trip in which it does not communicate with any roadside device because it is not within the communication range of any roadside device. The vehicle then enters the communication range of the second ETC-roadside device 21, establishes a wireless communication connection therewith, and interacts with the second ETC-roadside device 21 during being within the communication range of the second ETC-roadside device 21, e.g., receives roadside device information from the second ETC-roadside device 21. And so on.

It is understood that the roadside apparatus may be disposed at a position having a certain height with respect to the road surface (e.g., on an ETC gantry as shown in fig. 3). In this case, a data value representing the height (altitude) in the roadside apparatus position information stored in the roadside apparatus may be set in advance to a value that coincides with the height (altitude) of the road surface.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, in a case where the roadside facility includes a plurality of roadside apparatuses, for example, in a case where the plurality of roadside apparatuses are arranged at different positions on a section of road, the plurality of roadside apparatuses may be arranged successively at intervals of a route from each other, and a locator, for example, a GPS locator, may be installed for each of the roadside apparatuses so as to obtain a position (absolute position) of the roadside apparatus; locators may also be installed for one or several of the plurality of roadside apparatuses (i.e., not for all of the roadside apparatuses). For roadside devices that do not have locators installed, their positions may be determined from the positions of and relative positions between roadside devices that have locators installed, e.g., position information of other roadside devices is calculated from relative position information between the roadside devices. Relative position information between the roadside devices may be transmitted between the roadside device interfaces. The relative position information between the roadside apparatuses may be expressed in terms of relative distance, for example, 50m apart, and may also be expressed in terms of relative azimuth and relative distance, for example, 50m apart by 2 ° in the northeast direction. The specific representation of the relative position information is not limited in the present invention

For example, in the roadside apparatuses 20 to 22, the roadside apparatuses 20 and 22 are mounted with locators, and the roadside apparatus 21 is not mounted with locators, the position of the roadside apparatus 21 may be determined according to (1) its relative position to the roadside apparatus 20 and the position of the roadside apparatus 20; or (2) its relative position to the roadside apparatus 22 and the position of the roadside apparatus 22; or (3) a combination of the above (1) and (2) is calculated, and the calculated position is stored in the roadside apparatus 21.

It is understood that the roadside device, when transmitting the roadside device information, determines whether the transmission partner is a legitimate object by an authentication means such as authorization information. That is, the roadside device transmits the roadside device information only to the vehicle for which it is a legitimate vehicle. For example, a legitimate vehicle may be understood as a vehicle in the white list of roadside devices. Thus, the roadside apparatus can transmit the position information only to the predetermined target vehicle that should be transmitted, without transmitting the information thereof to an arbitrary vehicle.

It will be appreciated that verification of whether the roadside device is a legitimate device relative to the vehicle may also be performed at the vehicle end, for example, whether the roadside device is on the vehicle communication whitelist. In this way, the vehicle can receive only information from a legitimate transmission subject (e.g., a roadside device that is legitimate with respect to the vehicle). Therefore, the electronic system in the vehicle can be prevented from being damaged by malicious information from hacker equipment, and the communication safety is improved.

Of course, the above verification strategy may be executed on both sides of the road end and the vehicle end, and the order and manner of the execution process are not limited in the present invention.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, the roadside apparatuses 20 to 22 have a predetermined identification so that the in-vehicle apparatus 10 can determine information related to the roadside apparatuses from the environmental information based on the predetermined identification. That is, the environment sensor 30 collects information of various environmental objects around the vehicle, and the on-board device 10 can identify the roadside device from these environmental objects in the case where the roadside device has a predetermined identification, thereby determining information related to the roadside device. For example, in the embodiment illustrated in fig. 3, the predetermined flag may be implemented as an "ETC" flag.

It will be appreciated that different equipment may be used for different road segments (regions) in accordance with the invention, and correspondingly, different predetermined identifiers may be used for each type of roadside equipment.

It is to be understood that although three roadside apparatuses are shown in the drawings, the number of roadside apparatuses may be only one, and may be other numbers than one.

Fig. 2 shows an onboard device 10 according to one possible embodiment of the invention, which mainly comprises a communication interface 11 and a processor 12. The vehicle-mounted device 10 may be configured to be provided in an ECU, i.e. by means of which the positioning strategy according to the invention is implemented. The in-vehicle apparatus 10 may also be configured to be provided in a controller that is separate from and communicatively connected to the ECU.

Hereinafter, the operation of the in-vehicle apparatus 10 will be described by way of example.

The communication interface 11 interacts with the roadside apparatus in a wireless communication manner during the period that the vehicle is in the communication range of the roadside apparatus, for example, receives roadside apparatus information from the roadside apparatus. The roadside device information includes roadside device position information and verification information. The roadside device position information contains information representing the position of the roadside device. The verification information contains information for verifying the validity of the roadside apparatus position information. The roadside device information may be processed according to a certain communication standard (e.g., 3GPP or ETSI standard), and transmitted by the roadside device according to a certain communication mode, such as an internet of vehicles communication interface.

It will be appreciated that the communication interface 11 may not always be able to receive roadside device information because the vehicle may be outside the communication range of the roadside device from which the communication interface 11 receives the roadside device information only during the time that the vehicle is within the communication range of the roadside device.

It will be appreciated that the communication range of the roadside devices may be smaller according to the present invention, so the vehicle will not be within the communication range of two or more roadside devices at the same time, i.e., the communication interface 11 will only receive roadside device information from one associated roadside device referred to in the present invention at a time. For example, the roadside device uses a microwave short-distance radio frequency circuit, the effective communication range of the antenna is short, and when the vehicle is covered by the roadside device, the vehicle can receive the information sent by the roadside device. Of course, the vehicle may receive other information from the outside through the V2X communication, but the other information is not used for the vehicle position calculation according to the invention. Alternatively, the vehicle may receive information sent by more than one rsu, and the vehicle may distinguish the information sources according to rsu identification information carried in the information or header information of a packet.

The processor 12 analyzes and processes the received roadside device information. The operations performed by the processor 12 are described below.

The processor 12 acquires environmental information from the environmental sensor 30, which includes information representing environmental conditions around the vehicle. For example, the environmental information includes image information (picture or video) including an environmental object around the vehicle; and relative position information including a relative position between the vehicle and the environmental object. The relative position information can be obtained according to image information, and can also be obtained according to point cloud information, depth information and other information. The processor 12 may determine the relative position between the vehicle and the roadside device from the environmental information.

In one embodiment, processor 12 analyzes the image information, e.g., performs image recognition, and identifies roadside devices from the environmental object based on predetermined identifications representative of the roadside devices. That is, the image information collected by the environment sensor 30 may include various environmental objects around the vehicle, and the processor 12 identifies the roadside device from these environmental objects according to a predetermined identification representing the roadside device. It will be appreciated that multiple roadside devices may have the same predetermined identification, e.g., all "ETC" identifications, or different predetermined identifications, in which case processor 12 may identify the roadside device based on a predetermined identification known in advance.

The processor 12 determines the relative position between the vehicle and the roadside apparatus from the relative position information. That is, the environment sensor 30 collects relative position information between the vehicle and various surrounding environmental objects, and "selects" the relative position between the vehicle and the identified roadside apparatus from the relative position information, on the basis that the roadside apparatus has been identified by the processor 12.

For another example, the processor 12 may determine the relative distance of the vehicle from the roadside apparatus based on the time delay information of the signal received from the roadside apparatus.

It is understood that relative positions include relative distances as well as relative directions. The relative position and the relative direction may be expressed in various forms, for example, in the form of longitude, latitude, altitude, or in the form of lateral distance, longitudinal distance, angle, etc., which are not limited by the present invention.

Some embodiments of the processor 12 for determining the vehicle position are described below by way of example. It should be understood that the vehicle positioning scheme according to the present invention is not limited to the following specific calculation example.

The processor 12 performs a first calculation. In the first calculation, the processor 12 calculates the vehicle position based on the roadside apparatus position information and the environmental information.

In the case where the vehicle is within the communication range of the roadside apparatus, although the vehicle may already be in a position very close to the roadside apparatus, there is still a relative position therebetween, that is, the positions of the vehicle and the roadside apparatus are not completely coincident, and the vehicle position can be further known from the first calculation because a small relative position therebetween is also taken into account.

In the case where the vehicle is outside the communication range of the roadside device, although the vehicle has been unable to obtain the roadside device position information of the roadside device, the roadside device position information may be stored on the vehicle side, and the processor 12 may still calculate the vehicle position from the roadside device position information and the environmental information.

The processor 12 may perform one or more calculations in the first calculation, each calculation resulting in a vehicle position. For the roadside apparatus position information from each roadside apparatus, the processor 12 calculates the vehicle position from the roadside apparatus position information in the first calculation.

In addition, the processor 12 may calculate the vehicle position at a predetermined frequency in the first calculation when the roadside apparatus position information from the roadside apparatus is continuously received at the vehicle end while the vehicle is in the communication range of the roadside apparatus.

Thus, the vehicle position calculated by the processor 12 in the first calculation includes the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed last; and newly calculating the vehicle position calculated in the previous calculation or calculations. The calculation one or more times before the latest calculation refers to a calculation whose calculation time is earlier than the calculation time of the latest calculation.

It is understood that there may be a case where the "first calculation executed last" is not successfully executed, for example, because the latest roadside device position information is not received by the vehicle and/or the environmental information is not captured due to an abnormal factor, in which case the latest first calculation that can be successfully executed is regarded as the "first calculation executed last" described above.

It is to be understood that the other "latest" in the present invention should also be understood in the manner of "latest" in the above-described "latest executed first calculation", for example, the "latest second calculation" should also be understood as such.

The roadside position information received by the communication interface 11 may be invalid due to communication interference or the like, and if the first calculation is performed using the invalid roadside device position information, the calculated vehicle position is also inaccurate. For this reason, the processor 12 may verify the validity of the roadside device location information before performing the first calculation using the roadside device location information. Thus, the processor 12 may perform the first calculation using only the roadside device position information verified as valid, while the roadside device position information verified as invalid is not used for the calculation. Invalid roadside device location information may be deleted or ignored. The verification method may be a public key calculation method, a certificate verification method, etc., and the present invention is not limited to the verification method.

The processor 12 may use the verification information to verify the validity of the roadside device location information. The processor 12 may employ a variety of authentication approaches, some of which are described below by way of example only.

In one embodiment, the processor 12 may verify whether the transmitted roadside device location information is valid by detecting whether check data for checking correctness of the transmission data in the check information passes a check of a predetermined rule. For example, the check information includes a check code, and the processor 12 verifies the validity of the transmitted roadside device location information by means of the check code and predetermined check logic (e.g., and logic, exclusive or logic, parity logic, etc.).

The processor 12 performs the second calculation. In the second calculation, the processor 12 calculates the vehicle position based on the position information from the vehicle navigation system. The vehicle navigation system may provide position information based on the navigation satellite signals and/or the digital map from which the processor 12 calculates the vehicle position. The vehicle position calculated in the second calculation may be regarded as vehicle positioning by the vehicle navigation system.

In another embodiment, the first calculation may be implemented to obtain vehicle position information based on roadside device position information. The second calculation may be implemented to derive the vehicle position from environmental information representing the vehicle surroundings and based on position information from a vehicle navigation system.

The processor 12 performs the third calculation. In the third calculation, the processor 12 calculates a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation. The position difference may include a latest position difference and a historical position difference.

The latest position difference refers to a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation performed last and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation performed last, and for example, the time stamp of the first calculation and the time stamp of the second calculation are the same or differ by less than a predetermined threshold. The historical positional difference refers to a positional difference: the newly executed first calculation is a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed one or more times before and the vehicle position calculated in the corresponding second calculation, respectively. That is, the historical positional differences may include one or more positional differences, and the historical positional differences may be some or all of the positional differences other than the most recent positional difference. For example, if the first calculated time stamp is not the latest time, the first calculated vehicle position is the historical vehicle position obtained by the first calculation at the historical time stamp, and the second calculated vehicle position corresponding to the historical time stamp is the second calculated historical vehicle position. The difference between the first calculated historical vehicle position and the second calculated historical vehicle position for the same timestamp or a similar timestamp is a historical position difference.

The processor 12 determines a calibration parameter from the position difference calculated in the third calculation to calibrate the vehicle navigation system. In the case where the vehicle navigation system is calibrated, the processor 12 may calculate the vehicle position in the second calculation based on the position information from the calibrated vehicle navigation system.

According to different calibration strategies, the processor 12 may (1) employ the latest position difference; or (2) adopting the latest position difference and the historical position difference; or (3) using the latest position difference and the part in the historical position difference; or (4) use some or all of the historical positional differences to determine the calibration parameters.

It can be understood that, in the case where the vehicle navigation system provides the position information according to the navigation satellite signal, the navigation satellite signal is very susceptible to factors such as weather and using environment, which causes an error in the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system. In the case where the vehicle navigation system provides position information using measurement data of the inertial navigation sensor, the inertial measurement unit may cause an error in the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system due to being biased, a scale error, noise, and the like.

According to the calibration scheme provided by the invention, the vehicle navigation system can be calibrated once or more times according to accurate position information (because the position of the road side equipment is fixed, the position information obtained according to the position of the road side equipment is considered to be accurate and reliable), so that the accuracy and reliability of vehicle positioning are improved under the condition of only depending on the vehicle navigation system to obtain the position of the vehicle.

In addition, the position difference can indirectly reflect that problems possibly occur in the vehicle navigation system and relevant parts thereof, so that the function of reminding the relevant parts of inspection or maintenance is achieved.

The processor 12 performs integrated processing of the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation to determine the vehicle position. Some examples of determining the position of the vehicle by integrated processing are given below.

In one embodiment, the processor 12 may employ the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation as the determined vehicle position during a time when the vehicle is in a communication range of a certain roadside device. During the period when the vehicle is not in the communication range of any roadside apparatus, the processor 12 may determine the vehicle position using the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation performed last and the distance and direction from which the vehicle has traveled in conjunction with the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation.

In another embodiment, the processor 12 may determine the vehicle position using the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation performed most recently and the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation performed one or more times before, in combination with the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation.

In yet another embodiment, the processor 12 may determine the vehicle position using the vehicle position calculated in the most recently performed first calculation and the vehicle position calculated based on the position information of the calibrated vehicle navigation system in the second calculation.

It is understood that in the integrated process, various processing strategies may be adopted according to different algorithms, without being limited thereto.

The processor 12 evaluates the reliability of the vehicle navigation system based on the position difference calculated in the third calculation. Confidence levels may be classified into several categories, such as low, medium, and high, and may also be numerically expressed, such as 20%, 60%, and 90% confidence levels. The determination of the confidence level may be determined from a comparison of the position difference and a threshold value. The present invention is not limited to the specific manner of representing the reliability and the manner of determining the reliability.

In one embodiment, the processor 12 evaluates the trustworthiness of the vehicle navigation system as low upon the occurrence of a position difference greater than a first threshold in the calculated position differences (i.e., the latest position difference and the historical position difference). The first threshold value can be understood as a larger value. That is, when the calculated position difference is larger than the large first threshold, it indicates that a large deviation occurs in the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system. In the case of a low confidence level, a prompt can be given in the vehicle in order to check and calibrate the vehicle navigation system in a timely manner.

When the calculated position difference is less than the first threshold value and greater than the second threshold value, the reliability of the vehicle navigation system is evaluated as medium. The second threshold is less than the first threshold, and the second threshold may be zero. The position difference is between the first threshold and the second threshold, and it can be understood that although there is a deviation in the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system, the deviation is not so serious, for example, it may be caused by some unstable factors and can be corrected by the calibration scheme of the present invention.

When the calculated position difference is smaller than a second threshold value, the reliability of the vehicle navigation system is evaluated as high. This situation may be understood as the vehicle positions obtained by the two calculations (i.e., the first calculation and the second calculation) are consistent or substantially consistent, and the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system is accurate.

The threshold (e.g., the first threshold and the second threshold) for determining the reliability of the vehicle navigation system may be a pre-configured value, or may be dynamically or semi-statically configured.

The present invention also provides a method 400 for vehicle localization. The method 400 may be performed by the system 100 or the vehicle-mounted device 10, and thus the related description is also applicable thereto.

Referring to fig. 4, in step S410, the communication interface 11 receives roadside device information including at least roadside device position information from the roadside devices while the vehicle is in a communication range of the associated roadside devices traveling through the road.

In step S420, the processor 12 determines the vehicle position based on the roadside apparatus position information and one or both of the following information: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

The present invention also provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor to perform the method 400 as described above.

It should be appreciated that examples of computer-readable storage media may include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Storage media may include, but are not limited to: random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM), Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, Compact Discs (CD), Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium capable of being used to store information.

In some embodiments, a computer-readable storage medium may store executable computer program instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the processors to perform the method 400 described above. The executable computer program instructions may include any suitable type of code, for example, source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, and the like. The executable computer program instructions may be implemented using any suitable high-level, low-level, object-oriented, visual, compiled and/or interpreted programming language.

Therefore, according to the technical scheme of the invention, the position of the vehicle is assisted to be determined by means of the position information of the road side equipment from the road end, so that the positioning accuracy of the vehicle is improved in a convenient and economic manner.

Furthermore, according to the technical solution of the present invention, with the help of information from outside the vehicle (roadside position information and environmental information), the requirements for vehicle-mounted equipment are reduced, and for example, an accurate vehicle position can be determined without configuring a sensor with strong sensing ability and a controller with strong calculation ability for the vehicle.

Moreover, according to the technical scheme of the invention, whether the position information provided by the vehicle navigation system has serious deviation or only has small deviation can be judged by simple operation, and the vehicle navigation system can be further calibrated, so that the positioning accuracy and reliability of the vehicle navigation system are improved.

Furthermore, according to the technical solution of the present invention, in the elements for implementing the present invention, the hardware part concerned can be implemented by means of a control unit in the vehicle (or by means of a sensing unit in the vehicle), and the positioning strategy part concerned can be implemented by means of software update or redesign or functional fusion. Therefore, the system according to the invention has the advantages of fast development speed and low cost.

It will be understood that, in the present invention, the terms "having," "including," "comprising," and the like are open-ended terms that specify the presence of stated elements or features, but do not exclude additional elements or features. The articles "a," "an," and "the" are intended to include the plural as well as the singular, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Features of the various embodiments described in this disclosure may be combined with each other, unless specifically noted otherwise.

While the foregoing describes certain embodiments, these embodiments are presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. The appended claims and their equivalents are intended to cover all such modifications, substitutions and changes as may be made within the scope and spirit of the present invention.

Claims (18)

1. An in-vehicle apparatus for vehicle positioning, comprising:

a communication interface that receives roadside device information from a roadside device, the roadside device information including at least roadside device location information; and

a processor configured to determine a vehicle location based on the roadside device location information and one or both of: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

2. The vehicle-mounted device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine the vehicle location based on the roadside device location information, optionally the roadside device location information is from an ETC-roadside device, and

modifying the determined vehicle position based on the environmental information and/or position information of the vehicle navigation system.

3. The vehicle-mounted device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the processor is configured to perform a first calculation in which a vehicle position is calculated based on roadside device position information and environmental information representing an environment around the vehicle;

performing a second calculation in which the vehicle position is obtained based on the position information from the vehicle navigation system; and

the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation are subjected to integrated processing to determine the vehicle position.

4. The vehicle-mounted device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the processor is configured to perform a first calculation in which a vehicle position is obtained based on roadside device position information;

performing a second calculation in which a vehicle position is obtained based on environmental information representing an environment around the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system; and

the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation are subjected to integrated processing to determine the vehicle position.

5. The vehicle-mounted device according to claim 3 or 4, wherein the first calculating the calculated vehicle position used in the integration process includes:

a vehicle position calculated in the newly performed first calculation; or

The vehicle position calculated in the newly performed first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the previously performed first calculation one or more times.

6. The vehicle-mounted device of any one of claims 1-5, wherein the environmental information includes image information including environmental objects around the vehicle and/or relative position information between the vehicle and the environmental objects; and is

The processor identifying the relevant roadside device from the image information based on a predetermined identifier representing the relevant roadside device; and determines a relative position between the vehicle and the associated roadside apparatus from the relative position information,

optionally, the environmental information is from environmental sensors in the vehicle and/or from environmental sensors external to the vehicle and in communication connection with the vehicle.

7. The vehicle-mounted device of any one of claims 1-6, wherein the roadside device information further includes verification information;

the processor is further configured to detect validity of the received roadside position information based on the verification information, and determine the vehicle position using the roadside device position information detected as valid.

8. The vehicle-mounted device according to any one of claims 3-7, wherein the processor is further configured to perform a third calculation in which a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the second calculation is calculated,

optionally, the position difference comprises: (1) a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the newly performed first calculation and the vehicle position calculated in the corresponding second calculation; or (2) a position difference between the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed most recently and the vehicle position calculated in the first calculation executed one or more times before and the vehicle position calculated in the corresponding second calculation, respectively.

9. The in-vehicle apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to determine a calibration parameter from the position difference calculated in the third calculation to calibrate the vehicle navigation system; and is

The vehicle position is determined in a second calculation based on position information from the calibrated vehicle navigation system.

10. The in-vehicle apparatus according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the processor is further configured to evaluate a degree of reliability of the vehicle navigation system based on the position difference calculated in the third calculation.

11. The in-vehicle device of claim 10, wherein the processor is configured to:

evaluating the reliability of the vehicle navigation system as low upon occurrence of a position difference greater than a first threshold, optionally providing an alert in the vehicle if the reliability is evaluated as low;

evaluating the trustworthiness of the vehicle navigation system as medium when the position difference is less than the first threshold and greater than a second threshold, the second threshold being less than the first threshold and may be zero; and is

Evaluating the trustworthiness of the vehicle navigation system as high when the position difference is less than the second threshold.

12. A roadside facility comprising one or more roadside apparatuses, each configured to:

the method comprises the steps of containing roadside device information, wherein the roadside device information at least contains roadside device position information representing the position of the roadside device information; and

transmitting the roadside device information to a vehicle for the vehicle to determine a vehicle position based on the roadside device position information.

13. The road side facility of claim 12, wherein the road side arrangement comprises a plurality of road side devices, and some or all of the plurality of road side devices are communicatively connected.

14. The roadside facility of claim 13, wherein each of the plurality of roadside devices is integrated with a locator for determining its own position; or

Some of the plurality of roadside apparatuses have locators, and the positions of the roadside apparatuses without locators are determined based on the positions of the roadside apparatuses with locators and relative positions therebetween.

15. The roadside facility of any of claims 12-14, wherein the one or more roadside devices are ETC-roadside devices.

16. A system for vehicle localization, comprising:

the road side facility of any of claims 12-15, comprising one or more road side devices, each road side device configured to transmit road side device location information indicative of its location;

an environmental sensor disposed in and/or external to the vehicle and communicatively coupled to the vehicle for sensing environmental information indicative of an environmental condition surrounding the vehicle; and

the vehicle-mounted device of any one of claims 1-11, determining a vehicle location based on roadside device location information from the one or more roadside devices, and one or both of: environmental information from the environmental sensor and location information from a vehicle navigation system.

17. A method for vehicle localization, optionally performed by the in-vehicle device of any of claims 1-11 and/or the system of claim 16, the method comprising:

receiving roadside device information from a roadside device while a vehicle is in a communication range of an associated roadside device traveling through a road, the roadside device information including at least roadside device location information; and

determining a location of a vehicle based on the roadside device location information and one or both of: environmental information indicating the surroundings of the vehicle and position information from a vehicle navigation system.

18. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program which, when executed by at least one processor, implements the method of claim 17.

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