Patent ID: 8306683

Claim:
A passive, guide-by-wire, vehicle steering control system implemented in adapted vehicles having signal-controllable steering systems, and in a roadway having a vehicle lane comprising: an elongate, passive, electrically- conductive and electromagnetically-responsive wire infrastructure embedded in a roadway substantially following the course of the vehicle lane in the roadway; and for each vehicle adapted for use in said system having a signal-controllable steering mechanism, and with respect to each vehicle's steering mechanism, (a) vehicle-installed, on-board, steering-control, lateral, electromagnetically-responsive triangulation structure configured to generate an electromagnetic field signal downwardly toward said wire infrastructure embedded in a road wherein the vehicle is driven, wherein said elongate, passive, electrically-conductive and electromagnetically-responsive wire infrastructure is configured to receive said electromagnetic field signal and re-radiate said received electromagnetic field signal, and said vehicle-installed, on-board, steering-control, lateral, electromagnetically-responsive triangulation structure is configured to track the lateral location of the vehicle in a vehicle travel lane by triangulating said re-radiated electromagnetic field signal, and to produce, based upon such tracking, a vehicle- lane-associated, vehicle-steering-management control signal which indicates the lateral, vehicle-lane position of the associated vehicle relative to the triangulation-tracked wire infrastructure associated with that lane, and (b) interconnect structure operatively interconnecting the system-adapted vehicle's signal-controllable steering mechanism and that vehicle's associated and installed lateral triangulation structure, whereby travel of the vehicle along the vehicle lane is accompanied by appropriate automatic steering of the vehicle under the control of the vehicle-lane-associated steering-management control signal.