Intelligent Stand-alone Systems for Vehicle Safety
In-vehicle systems help drivers to avoid or mitigate an accident through sensing the nature
and significance of the danger, while taking the driver’s state into account. Depending on
the significance and timing of the threat, these on-board eSafety systems will:
- Inform the driver as early as possible
- Warn him or her if there is no driver reaction to the information, and
- Actively assist or ultimately intervene in order to avert the accident or mitigate its consequences.
Preventive safety applications also help drivers to:
- Maintain a safe speed
- Keep a safe distance
- Drive within the lane
- void overtaking in critical situations
- Safely pass intersections
- Avoid crashes with vulnerable road users
- And at a last resort, reduce the severity of an accident if it still occurs.
The following are examples of autonomous on-board systems arising from recent European research. Several of the current subprojects of the PReVENT project (see box opposite) are concerned with in-vehicle systems. Further examples of co-operative systems, based on vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication.
Waking Up to Sleepy Drivers
Over recent years, a major focus of traffic research has been driver fatigue as one of the most important causes of road accidents. Between 10-20% of all accidents are related to so-called ‘hypo-vigilant’ driver states. Furthermore, accidents related to driver hypo-vigilance are more serious than other types of accidents, since sleepy drivers often do not take evasive action prior to a collision.The introduction of various advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in the coming years could exacerbate this situation, as drivers become tired or stressed by prolonged periods of monotonous driving conditions.
The AWAKE system aims to detect drowsiness and warn the driver in time.
Among other functions, the system monitors the driver’s eye-blinking rate, the force on the steering wheel and the vehicle’s position in relation to the road lane and the surrounding vehicles. A variety of sensors (radar, cameras) inside and outside the vehicle detect the driver’s possible drowsiness.The driver is then alerted through a series of acoustic and visual warnings.
If widely deployed AWAKE is expected to significantly reduce traffic accidents caused by drowsy drivers.Three prototypes have been developed within the project, one for city-cars (Fiat Stilo), one for luxury-cars (Mercedes S-Class) and one for heavy vehicles (Mercedes Actros).These are currently being tested to assess the full impact of the system on driver behaviour.
Watching Over Pedestrians
Every year, approximately 150,000 pedestrians are injured and 6,000 killed EU-wide in traffic accidents. Passive safety features at the vehicle front can provide only limited benefit in case of a crash. Hence, driver assistance systems to detect pedestrians and other vulnerable road users are a focus for significant research effort.
One such system combines 24GHz radar sensors for detection with a video-based approach for recognition. It has learned what pedestrians look like from a database of tens of thousands of images, using machine-learning techniques based on shape and texture features. An assessment module determines the risk of the traffic situation, based on relative position and velocity of the pedestrian with respect to the vehicle.The driver is alerted through an acoustic alarm, possibly followed by automatic vehicle braking.
Cars equipped with this system are being tested by Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler, and are able to detect pedestrians at a range of 5-25m, up to 4m lateral to the vehicle. Research activities are supported by the EU projects PROTECTOR
(2000-2002), SAVE-U (2002-2005) and WATCH-OVER (2006-2008).
Hands-Free Motoring around Town
The development and adoption of small electric, fully automated vehicles was addressed in the IST-project CyberCars. They are able to run autonomously without a driver on city streets at low speed (up to 30 km/h at the moment), while avoiding fixed and mobile obstacles. Dual mode versions of these vehicles are foreseen for private use, which also
allow for manual driving in normal traffic. For a fee, users would have access rights, and the clean fuel vehicles would be parked automatically and their speed controlled, improving the mobility and quality of life in urban areas.
For such systems to address high demands, more cooperation between vehicles is needed. This is the focus of a follow-on
project CyberCars2, based on vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications and vehicle
coordination. It will address in particular the cooperation between vehicles running at close range (platooning) and at
intersections (merging, crossing).
A Safer User Interface for Road Transport
With increasingly sophisticated in-vehicle communication systems it could be easy to become overloaded with
information when driving. Managing the driver’s information needs,COMUNICAR designed, developed and tested an
in-vehicle,multimedia Human Machine Interface (HMI) that holds the potential to improve both safety and driving comfort.
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