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US 12,560,698 B2Granted
RF navigation for motor vehicles
AssigneeTechNickel, Inc.
InventorJanice H. Nickel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus includes a pavement marker configured to be mounted to a road at a lane line of a lane at known orientation with respect to the lane line; and an RF device carried by the raised pavement marker. The RF device is configured to transmit a directional RF navigation signal and it is positioned relative to the known orientation to transmit the signal across the lane in a direction that is substantially normal to the lane line.
Claims24
An apparatus comprising:
- a pavement marker configured to be mounted to a road at a lane line of a lane at known orientation with respect to the lane line;
- and
- an RF device carried by the pavement marker, the device configured to transmit a directional RF navigation signal and positioned relative to the known orientation to transmit the signal across the lane in a direction that is substantially normal to the lane line.
A system for lateral lane positioning of vehicles on a road, the system comprising:
- pavement marking means mounted to the road at lane lines;
- and
- a plurality of RF devices carried by the pavement marking means, the RF devices spaced apart at a regular interval, each of the RF devices configured to transmit a directional RF navigation signal across the road at a fixed transmission angle of about zero degrees with respect to a normal to its associated lane line.
A motor vehicle comprising:
- a body;
- an RF antenna mounted to the body at a location for receiving RF navigation signals during movement of the vehicle;
- an RF module, mounted on the body, the module configured to broadcast interrogator signals in timed radio pulses as a function of distance between pavement markers and speed of the vehicle, and receive RF navigation signals in response to the interrogator signals, the module further configured to process the received RF navigation signals to determine a sequence of lateral lane distances;
- and
- means, responsive to changes in the sequence of lateral lane distances, for automatically taking a corrective action if the changes indicate drift of the vehicle.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.