Context-Aware Autonomous Intersection Control
Official patent title
Method and system for controlling autonomous vehicles
Arabic title: طريقة ونظام للتحكم في المركبات ذاتية القيادة
Invention
Invention
Problem
Autonomous vehicles can struggle at flashing traffic lights and congested intersections where pedestrians, nearby vehicles, signs, signal timing, and lane blockage must be assessed together.
Why it matters
Incorrect perception or control at an intersection can cause collisions or traffic obstruction, making safety validation, dependable fallback behavior, and accountable data handling essential.
Approach
The system analyzes surrounding video to detect pedestrians, vehicles, traffic signs, and flashing or regular traffic-light states. It estimates congestion, distances, nearby-vehicle speed, and remaining green time, then issues stop, slow, proceed, or sign-responsive vehicle-control instructions.
Who may benefit
Potential beneficiaries include autonomous-vehicle developers, advanced driver-assistance suppliers, traffic-safety researchers, vehicle-control integrators, smart-mobility laboratories, and intersection-management programs.
Potential value
The architecture combines flashing-signal recognition, multi-object perception, congestion assessment, green-time reasoning, and vehicle-control responses in one intersection-focused pipeline.
Background
Background
Autonomous vehicles can operate more predictably in structured conditions, but irregular signals and crowded intersections require context-sensitive decisions. Conventional traffic-light detection often focuses on regular red, yellow, and green cycles or visibility changes without integrating pedestrians, vehicle density, nearby speed, signs, and lane blockage. The publication proposes a coordinated perception and control architecture for flashing signals and congestion. The supplied record does not report detection accuracy, false-negative rates, latency, weather robustness, adversarial resistance, closed-course results, public-road testing, or a validated safety case.
Technology overview
Technology overview
Sensors capture surrounding video for a trained object-detection model. Separate circuitry recognizes flashing versus regular light states, scans for pedestrians, vehicles, and signs, and monitors intersection congestion. The controller calculates distances, nearby-vehicle speeds, vehicle density, and whether sufficient green time remains. It stops for detected pedestrians or mandatory stop signs, reduces speed for relevant signs or hazards, and avoids entering when crossing would block traffic. The patent provides system, method, and computer-readable-medium implementations.
Potential applications
Potential applications
- Autonomous-vehicle navigation at congested intersections.
- Recognition and handling of flashing traffic signals.
- Pedestrian-aware and sign-aware vehicle control research.
- Advanced driver-assistance decision-support prototypes.
Evidence-supported advantages
Evidence-supported advantages
- The architecture distinguishes flashing from regular cyclic signals.
- Pedestrians, vehicles, and traffic signs are processed in a shared workflow.
- Congestion, vehicle distance, speed, and remaining green time inform control.
- Stop, slow, proceed, and sign-responsive actions are specified.
- System, method, and software-medium forms are described.
Development stage
Development stage
A control architecture, trained-model workflow, and decision logic are described; closed-course testing, public-road validation, a safety case, and commercialization were not established.
Commercial opportunity
Commercial opportunity
The architecture may interest autonomous-driving and ADAS suppliers, but deployment requires independent accuracy, latency, fail-safe, sensor-fusion, weather, occlusion, spoofing, cybersecurity, simulation, closed-course, and public-road validation; a formal safety case; human fallback; regulatory review; and privacy controls for captured video. Safety performance is not independently established.
Patent classifications
Patent classifications
WIPO IPC
- B60W60/00Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W30/14Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
CPC
- B60W30/143Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W30/18154Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W60/0015Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2420/403Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2520/10Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2552/53Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2554/4029Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2554/80Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
- B60W2555/60Conjoint control of vehicle sub-units of different types or functions; control systems for hybrid vehicles; road-vehicle drive control systems not related to a particular sub-unit
Inventors
Inventors
- First inventorShehzad Ali
- InventorMd Tanvir Islam
- InventorIk Hyun Lee
- InventorAbdul Khader Jilani Saudagar
- InventorKhan Muhammad
Keywords
Keywords
- autonomous vehicle
- flashing traffic light
- intersection congestion
- pedestrian detection
- object detection
- traffic signs
- vehicle control
- green light timing
Patent document and drawings
Patent document and drawings
The patent publication is mapped to this record. Patent drawings remain within that publication; no separately cleared public media package has been supplied.