Safe Vehicle
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to protect passengers in a vehicle, and particularly, to a vehicle with a pod separable from a chassis therein.
Brief Description of the Invention
Autonomous vehicles or electric vehicles or the likes with their individual chassis separable from a pod are proposed by different automobile manufacturers in the recent years, for the former vehicles simply require no steering wheels, and therefore no need for any mechanical connection to be established between the pod and the chassis for connecting a steering wheel in the pod with the wheels of the chassis, and for the latter the steering mechanism can be simply an electrical connection between the steering wheel and the driving motors, and such an electrical connection is easy to be established.
Note the pod is at an upper position and the chassis is at a lower position, in general. Refer to Fig.1 .
Conventionally, passengers in vehicle is protected by airbags in a collision, however, serious injuries is still unavoidable.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a better protection to passengers, by protecting a pod separated from a chassis in a vehicle.
Brief Description of the Drawing
FIG.1 is a symbolic diagram of a vehicles with a pod separable from a chassis therein.
FIG. 2 is a symbolic diagram of a vehicles with a pod separated from a chassis therein, and airbags disposed surrounding and beneath the pod are inflated.
FIG. 3 is a symbolic diagram of a vehicles with a pod separated from a chassis therein, and airbags disposed surrounding and beneath the pod are inflated, and chains are used for connecting the pod with the chassis loosely together.
Detailed description of the preferred embodiments
To enhance the safety of a vehicle, according to the present invention, a gyroscope system is disposed in a separable pod of the vehicle, preferably at its bottom, and the pod is detachably secured to the chassis by an attachment
device which may be a multi-point electro-mechanical locking system, such that when a collision occurs and is detected or, a collision is anticipated by a collision detection system, the pod will be automatically detached from the chassis, by the device in response to a collision detection signal from the collision detection system, and the gyroscope system will similarly be powered on by the signal to stabilize the pod, and to counter any shocking effects caused by the collision impact and maintain the pod in a upright position.
Alternatively, the gyroscope system may be powered on whenever the vehicle is used in travelling.
The collision detection system can use any of a variety of technologies including but not limited to a shock/impact sensor, camera, a LiDAR system, infra-red system, radar system (including noise radar, micro-power impulse radar, and ultra wideband radar), acoustical system or a combination of these, and may include an cash anticipatory unit such as the one as disclosed in US patent 8,041 ,483, for anticipating the severity of a crash going to occur, and the collision detection system will issue a collision detection signal if a collision or imminent collision is detected, with information indicating the collision or imminent collision detected is above a threshold severity or not.
Note that the gyroscope system may be powered by a battery in the chassis through a lengthy cord, when the pod is secured to the chassis, and will continue to be powered through the cord until the pod is moved by the impact force too far away from the chassis and breaks the cord.
Note that the collision detection system may be installed in the chassis or the pod itself.
The gyroscope system may be any conventional gyroscope system well- known to those in the art, including the control moment gyroscope systems as disclosed in US patent 8,919,788.
In a second embodiment, to enhance the safety of the vehicle, airbags are disposed on the chassis, so that when a collision occurs and the pod is separated from the chassis in the above-mentioned manner, the airbags will be caused to inflate by a inflating device in response to the collision detection signal and the airbags will act as cushions between the chassis and the pod, see Fig.2, the pod is lifted up by the airbags below it.
In the above embodiments, the pod is preferably but not necessary be made of light weight material such as carbon fiber or aluminum. And, any impact force which may most likely be come from another vehicle, in a collision will push the pod to move away, while at the same time be suffered
by the chassis and be absorbed by the same,
In the third embodiment, the airbags may be alternatively disposed on the pod, rather the chassis, such that when they are inflated their position will still be the same as their counter-parts in the second embodiment as shown in Fig.2.
However, this will have an advantage that the airbags will move with the pod and continue to protect the pod, in a collision.
Note that the airbags in this invention may borrow the technologies used in conventional airbags used in vehicles for reducing impact in accidents. Note also that although not shown in Fig. 2 and 3, the pod has side doors at its two sides as in a conventional vehicle, and there are also airbags attached to the side doors. And, in this way, airbags are disposed surrounding and beneath the pod.
The present invention may be used in a vehicle with more than two wheels.
In the fourth embodiment which is an improvement of the second and third embodiments, the improvement resides on adding chains between the pod and chassis, and the strains are loosen, by a device in response to the collision detection signal, to allow some degree of freedom to the pod to move
with respect to the chassis, for e.g., the pod may be moved upward by the airbags below it, and after being moved upward, the pod may still have some degree of freedom to be moved forward, backward, or side way, by an impact in a collision, either by virtue of the excessive length of the chains themselves, or the elasticity of the airbags, or both, to reduce the impact the pod will suffer if a rear impact, frontal impact, or rear impact occurs respectively. Referring to Fig.3, in which only 2 symbolic chains are shown, preferably there should be at least four chains each attached to a corner of the base of the pod which is substantially in a rectangular shape, and each also attached to a
corresponding point in the chassis, and the four corresponding points also form a rectangle.
Alternatively, the chains may be loosen regardless if there is a collision, because the pod is attached to the chassis when there is no collision, and therefore the pod is still unable to move with respect to the chassis.
Further, the fourth embodiment may include three disaster detecting units using skills well known to those with ordinary skill in the art.
The first disaster detecting unit includes, for e.g., an Infrared (IR) sensor, to detect if the chassis is on fire.
The second disaster detecting unit determines if the autonomous driving
function is still performing normally, or at least performing up to a certain safety level, and if not, the second disaster detecting unit determines if the chassis itself is in a safe situation without the autonomous driving function.
And by way of example, the autonomous driving function may perform a self-test and make the above determinations itself periodically and inform the second disaster detecting unit of the result.
The second disaster detecting unit preferably should be operating independently of the autonomous driving function, so that even if the autonomous driving function fails completely, the second disaster detecting unit can still send out a disaster signal when it cannot receive the results periodically.
The third disaster detecting unit includes, for e.g., a pendulum-type tilt sensor to determine if the chassis can maintain a substantially upright position, or not turned upside down.
If any of the units detect a disaster, it will send a disaster signal to a releasing device which will in response thereto, cut off all the chains or release all the chains completely so as to let the pod free to move away from the chassis.
Finally, a manual button may be provided inside the pod for receiving
user commands and to send corresponding user command signals to the releasing device to cut off or release all or part of the chains, in case of a collision.
Note that in the above-mentioned usages of the releasing device, the releasing device has first to be activated by a collision detection signal, otherwise it will ignore the disaster signals as well as the user command signals.
As an alternative, warning signals may be generated, basing on the collision detection signal and/or the disaster signals and be presented to the passengers of the pod, and let them to decide whether and when to press the manual button, and the manual button will be activated by the warning signals, or the collision detection signal, or the disaster signals directly or indirectly instead, to respond to the user commands.
In a fifth embodiment, which is an improvement of the fourth embodiment, if the releasing device receives a collision detection signal, as mentioned above, indicating the severity of the collision is above a threshold, the releasing device will itself in response thereto, and in the absence of any disaster signals and user command signals, cut off all the chains or release all the chains completely or, cut off or release the chains attached to the parts of
the chassis which will suffer most in the collision, while the chains attached to the farther part will be unaffected.
Note that the gyroscope system as disclosed in the second to fifth embodiments, may be considered as redundant and be excluded from the embodiments, as they have airbags to protect passengers, to save cost.
It should be noted that the above embodiments are given by way of examples only, and it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.