Patent ID: 7769544
Filing Date: 2010-08-03
Classification: B61L,G08G

Abstract:
1. An autonomous vehicle railroad crossing warning system comprising: a plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to at least one railroad crossing, at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing being associated with a stationary warning device located at the at least one railroad crossing; a train controller associated with a train traveling along a rail line through the at least one railroad crossing, and a vehicle controller associated with a vehicle located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing; wherein each train controller, vehicle controller, and crossing controller includes a radio transceiver configured to utilize a single frequency time domain multiplexed (TDM) radio communication protocol, that is a connectionless user datagram protocol (UDP); wherein at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the railroad crossing includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver configured to provide the radio transmitter with GPS clock synchronization to broadcast messages to at least one of: the train controllers, vehicle controllers, and the plurality of crossing controllers, within range of the radio transmitter in the warning system; and wherein at least one of the plurality of crossing controllers located in proximity to the at least one railroad crossing is configured to receive and process data from broadcast messages from a multiplicity of the train controllers and the vehicle controllers in a vicinity of the at least one railroad crossing and is configured to screen out at least one of the train controllers and the vehicle controllers on a course that will not intersect the at least one railroad crossing.