Importance

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Abstract

This invention provides automatic longitudinal control of vehicles on highways, including speed control and protection against collision. The invention also provides for lane changing, following highway directional changes, route control, and transitions between the operator-controlled and the automatically controlled states. The invention is ideally configured to be employed jointly and cooperatively with previously developed means of automatic lateral control. Groups of permanent magnets are embedded in the highway surface at regular intervals. Permanent magnet sensors are installed in vehicles so that proximity and polarity indications of embedded magnets are obtained as a vehicle proceeds along the highway. Each group of magnets encodes a pseudo-random number that is sensed by the vehicle equipment and transmitted, via a radio link, to wayside computing equipment which determines vehicle longitudinal position and vehicle separation distances that are used as the basis of safety commands which are transmitted to the vehicles from the wayside. The system is configured to provide the highest possible reliability and fail-safe operation through employment of triply redundant communication and computation elements.

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First Claim