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IBM's Patent-Pending Traffic Lights Stop Car Engines

Posted by Soulskill on from the even-red-lights-are-going-green dept.

theodp writes "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let your engine idle. The USPTO has just published IBM's patent application for a 'System and Method for Controlling Vehicle Engine Running State at Busy Intersections for Increased Fuel Consumption Efficiency.' Here's how Big Blue explains the invention: 'The present disclosure is directed to a method for managing engines in response to a traffic signal. The method may comprise establishing communications with participating vehicles; responding to a stop status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: receiving a position data from each participating vehicles; determining a queue of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal; determining a remaining duration of the stop status; sending a stop-engine notification to the list of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal when the remaining duration is greater than a threshold of time; responding to a proceed status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: sending a start-engine notification to a first vehicle in the queue; calculating an optimal time for an engine of a second vehicle in the queue to start; and sending the start-engine notification to the second vehicle at the optimal time.' IBM notes that 'traffic signals may include, but are not limited to, traffic lights at intersections, railway crossing signals, or other devices for indicating correct moments to stop and to proceed.'"

11 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, novel, non-obvious and useful... by russotto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...if you don't ignore the fact that this is a blatant case of "patenting the goal". The patent is "here's a bunch of ideas that might work to control fuel consumption at signals, we claim them all."

    1. Re:Yes, novel, non-obvious and useful... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I see nothing wrong with his claim. I never toyed with that particular idea, but I toyed with similar ideas. How about if the traffic light sent a radio signal to automatically make your car stop, to prevent you running a red light? That was my idea in 5th grade. And, it's been more than 40 years ago that I was in elementary school!

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  2. Sounds good. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    VW (and other car manufacturers probably) already have cars that shut off at stop lights. The "3L" car they made (78.4 MPG, no batteries required) shuts down at stop lights. All this is doing is making it 'intelligent'.

    1. Re:Sounds good. by the_humeister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The break even point is much less than 3 minutes. It's actually around 7-10 seconds. And it's a fairly noticeable improvement in MPG, depending on your city driving miles. I've gotten upwards of 4-5+ MPG per tank with turning the engine off vs. idling at the stop lights.

    2. Re:Sounds good. by TerranFury · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You mean by narrowing down their choices to really only what you want?

      The idea behind correlated equilibrium is that you don't reduce the set of choices that players can make at all. All you do is also give them an instruction about which of those choices they should make, that they are free to ignore.

      For instance, consider two cars stopped at an intersection, and suppose that each has two possible actions: GO and WAIT. If both cars WAIT, nobody goes anywhere and each gets a payoff of 0. If both cars GO, they collide and get a payoff of -10; this is something they each want to avoid. If one car GOes and the other WAITs, then the GOer gets a payoff of +2 and the WAITer gets a payoff of +1. Question: What happens?

      Rather than answering this here, I'll just say,

      1 - Adding a stoplight that tells players whether to GO or WAIT (which they are free to ignore) actually improves the situation dramatically for both players. The reason is that both players know that the other is receiving instructions, and they know the (probabilistic) rule by which the instructions are given out.

      2 - Wikipedia, as usual, has a pretty good explanation; rather than calling the actions GO and WAIT they call them DARE and CHICKEN (and use slightly different numbers), but the game is essentially the same.

      But maybe you understood this and were making a more profound point, that by being the third, "correlating" party, you can control what the others do, because it is in their interest to listen to you?

  3. Great Idea, But... by iYk6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a great idea. But it's being done the wrong way. Rather than sending signals to start and stop cars, the traffic lights should just send signals saying how long the red light is going to be, and while they're at it, specify how long the green lights will be too. Then the smart cars should interpret that how they will, by stopping, starting, or showing a light to the driver. This method will upgrade smoother and be more resistant to jokers with toys at the intersections.

  4. Re:Railway crossing? by jaymz666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    combine this with onstar remote stops and do car jackers need any more tools?

  5. Networking? Bad idea... by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What this patent fails to account for is that starting up the car results in increased fuel consumption for the short period while the engine attains running speed. Short period, though, but multiply it by the number of signals in an average city, and it might just come out that this actually increases sum consumption.

    Also, I'd like to draw your attention to a post detailing just what can happen if we introduce networking into cars. And this is even made easier by the forced standards needed for this project to work...

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
  6. Re:Roundabouts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How about if you replaced the stoplights with roundabouts?

  7. Re:but what if by MalHavoc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am surprised that you've never heard of this. When I took Young Drivers of Canada when I was 16, we had it drilled into our heads to leave one car length between our car and the car in front of us and monitor our rear view mirror in case we saw a vehicle approaching us from behind that was going too fast to stop in time. The idea is to be able to accelerate forward, either into the space you've left in front of you, or use that space to get out of the way, either into the lane next to the car in front, or up onto the sidewalk, if it came to that. Getting rear ended at traffic lights is one of the most common accidents of all time. How can you not have heard of this?

  8. Re:Railway crossing? by Metabolife · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Meh, I'm still waiting for the traffic light that controls all the cars by using an LED and manages the cars to all go near full speed through the intersection without collision