SAA, 1st version - Net!Works

Annex BeMobility – Strategic Applications AgendaAuthor: TRL LtdPublication date: 30/04/2001Summary of resultsThis project effectively trialed the main Road Traffic Advisor (RTA) project, which proved to be over ambitiousand ultimately resulted in exhaustion of resources. The net result was that the evaluation was severely curtailed,resulting in the following:Only initial evaluation of driver safety was carried out using a limited number of subjects, ten drivers, toestablish that RTA systems could be successfully used by naïve volunteer drivers to complete a range ofrepresentative tasks without causing undue concerns for HMI safety; * the evaluation was performedunder a constrained environment as drivers were accompanied by the administrator;the trial was carried out only during daytime, off-peak traffic conditions; andthe tasks were defined by experimental plan.Although the conduct of this project could not be faulted, the objectives were not all fulfilled as longitudinalevaluation of driver information for sustained periods under normal driving conditions was not carried out.Departmental Assessment Status: Project completed prior to the implementation of the Departmental publicationsscheme.65. Project: SHOrt Range SENsors for automotiveapplications (SHORSEN)ObjectivesAssess the ability of radar, infra-red and computer vision systems to detect vulnerable road users;Investigate potential techniques for determining the size of pedestrians in order to optimise protectionstrategies; andInstall hardware developed on a demonstrator vehicle in order to evaluate sensor performance insimulated scenarios.Some of this work is complementary to the investigations under the APVRU project and data exchange betweenprogrammes is continuing.DescriptionThis project is to investigate the application of short-range sensors to reduce the effects of an impendingaccident. The system can be used to control the ‗firing‘ of airbags and seat belt pre-tensioners.Long-range forward facing sensors have been developed to be used in conjunction with Adaptive Cruise Controlsystems. However these are not suitable for detecting imminent pre-crash conditions. An array of forward andsideways short-range sensors is required. The project looks to identify potentially suitable radar, infra-red andcomputer vision devices and develop their attributes for this short-range application. The necessary algorithmswill be developed to identify the type of crash that is imminent and take avoiding or mitigating actions.The detection of human targets by radar is possible and has been demonstrated over many applications such asautomatic opening of supermarket doors and vehicle/building security detectors. In such applications a falsedetection does not however represent a major concern. In a vehicular pedestrian protection system it may lead tothe deployment of an external explosive airbag or some other pedestrian friendly structure, which maysubsequently obscure the driver‘s view, thus creating a dangerous situation from a safe scenario. Similarly, amissed detection by a door opener may be annoying but rarely life threatening. Equally the non-detection of apedestrian is potentially life threatening.180