TRACKSS approach to improving road safety through sensors collaboration on vehicle and in infrastructure

There are various technologies that can be used to improve road safety, but they tend to be self-contained and do not interact much with other technologies. This might provide sufficient service as such, but we believe better systems can be developed if we allow these technologies to collaborate and share information with each other. This paper outlines the work we have carried out within the EU-funded TRACKSS project in order to allow two sensing technologies (near-infrared camera and smart dust) to work together, especially in developing more robust V2V and I2V safety applications

Deploying Wireless Sensor Devices in Intelligent Transportation System Applications

As future intelligent infrastructure will bring together and connect individuals, vehicles and infrastructure through wireless communications, it is critical that robust communication technologies are developed. Mobile wireless sensor networks are self-organising mobile networks where nodes exchange data without the need for an underlying infrastructure. In the road transport domain, schemes which are fully infrastructure-less and those which use a combination of fixed (infrastructure) devices and mobile devices fitted to vehicles and other moving objects are of significant interest to the ITS community as they have the potential to deliver a ‘connected environment’ where individuals, vehicles and infrastructure can co-exist and cooperate, thus delivering more knowledge about the transport environment, the state of the network and who indeed is travelling or wishes to travel. This may offer benefits in terms of real-time management, optimisation of transportation systems, intelligent design and the use of such systems for innovative road charging and possibly carbon trading schemes as well as through the CVHS (Cooperative Vehicle and Highway Systems) for safety and control applications. As the wireless sensor networks technology is still relatively new and very little is known about its real application in the transport domain. Our involvement in the transport-related projects provides us with an opportunity to carry out research and development of wireless sensor network applications in transport systems. This chapter outlines our experience in the ASTRA (ASTRA, 2005), TRACKSS (TRACKSS, 2007) and EMMA (EMMA, 2007) projects and provides an illustration of the important role that the wireless sensor technology can play in future ITS. This chapter also presents encouraging results obtained from the experiments in investigating the feasibility of utilising wireless sensor networks in vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communication in real ITS applications

Integrating Smartdust into Intelligent Transportation System

The last few years have seen the emergence of many new technologies that can potentially have major impacts on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). One of these technologies is a micro-electromechanical device called smartdust. A smartdust device (or a mote) is typically composed of a processing unit, some memory, and a radio chip, which allows it to communicate wirelessly with other motes within range. These motes can also be augmented with additional sensors – such as those for detecting light, temperature and acceleration – hence enhancing their features and making their application areas virtually limitless. As the smartdust concept is still relatively new, and very little is known about its application in transport domain, conducting research in this area may prove to be very valuable. It is generally perceived that smartdust will become the low-cost, ubiquitous sensor of the future, especially once its size shrinks dramatically to merit its name. Our involvement in several transport-related EU and UK funded projects (ASTRA, 2005; ASK-IT, 2007; EMMA, 2007; Foot-LITE, 2007; MESSAGE, 2007; TRACKSS, 2007) provides us with an opportunity to carry out experiments and to develop demonstrations of smartdust applications in transport systems. We also have a chance to investigate how smartdust can be used in collaboration with other (more traditional) transport sensors for developing better Co-operative Transport Systems (CTS). This paper outlines our experience in these projects and provides an illustration on the important role that the smartdust technology can play in future ITS. We also present encouraging results obtained from our experiments in investigating the feasibility of utilising smartdust in real ITS applications

Cooperative Road Sign and Traffic Light Using Near Infrared Identification and Zigbee Smartdust Technologies

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I as well as I2V)applications are developing very fast. They rely on telecommunication and localizationtechnologies to detect, identify and geo-localize the sources of information (such as vehicles,roadside objects, or pedestrians). This paper presents an original approach on how twodifferent technologies (a near infrared identification sensor and a Zigbee smartdust sensor)can work together in order to create an improved system. After an introduction of these twosensors, two concrete applications will be presented: a road sign detection application and acooperative traffic light application. These applications show how the coupling of the twosensors enables robust detection and how they complement each other to add dynamicinformation to road-side objects

Managed information gathering and fusion for transient transport problems

This paper deals with vehicular traffic management by communication technologies from Traffic Control Center point of view in road networks. The global goal is to manage the urban traffic by road traffic operations, controlling and interventional possibilities in order to minimize the traffic delays and stops and to improve traffic safety on the roads. This paper focuses on transient transport, when the controlling management is crucial. The aim was to detect the beginning time of the transient traffic on the roads, to gather the most appropriate data and to get reliable information for interventional suggestions. More reliable information can be created by information fusion, several fusion techniques are expounded in this paper. A half-automatic solution with Decision Support System has been developed to help with engineers in suggestions of interventions based on real time traffic data. The information fusion has benefits for Decision Support System: the complementary sensors may fill the gaps of one another, the system is able to detect the changing of the percentage of different vehicle types in traffic. An example of detection and interventional suggestion about transient traffic on transport networks of a little town is presented at the end of the paper. The novelty of this paper is the gathering of information - triggered by the state changing from stationer to transient - from ad hoc channels and combining them with information from developed regular channels. --information gathering,information fusion,Kalman filter,transient traffic,Decision Support System

INTELLIGENTE TRANSPORT SYSTEMEN ITS EN VERKEERSVEILIGHEID

This report discusses Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This generic term is used for a broad range of information-, control- and electronic technology that can be integrated in the road infrastructure and the vehicles themselves, saving lives, time and money bymonitoring and managing traffic flows, reducing conges-tion, avoiding accidents, etc. Because this report was written in the scope of the Policy Research Centre Mobility & Public Works, track Traffic Safety, it focuses on ITS systems from the traffic safety point of view. Within the whole range of ITS systems, two categories can be distinguished: autonomous and cooperative systems. Autonomous systems are all forms of ITS which operate by itself, and do not depend on the cooperation with other vehicles or supporting infrastructure. Example applications are blind spot detection using radar, electronic stability control, dynamic traffic management using variable road signs, emergency call, etc. Cooperative systems are ITS systems based on communication and cooperation, both between vehicles as between vehicles and infrastructure. Example applications are alerting vehicles approaching a traffic jam, exchanging data regarding hazardous road conditions, extended electronic brake light, etc. In some cases, autonomous systems can evolve to autonomous cooperative systems. ISA (Intelligent Speed Adaptation) is an example of this: the dynamic aspect as well as communication with infrastructure (eg Traffic lights, Variable Message Sign (VMS)...) can provide additional road safety. This is the clear link between the two parts of this report. The many ITS applications are an indicator of the high expectations from the government, the academic world and the industry regarding the possibilities made possible by both categories of ITS systems. Therefore, the comprehensive discussion of both of them is the core of this report. The first part of the report covering the autonomous systems treats two aspects: 1. Overview of European projects related to mobility and in particular to road safety 2. Overview for guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects. Out of the wide range of diverse (autonomous) ITS applications a selection is made; this selection is focused on E Safety Forum and PreVENT. Especially the PreVent research project is interesting because ITS-applications have led to a number of concrete demonstration vehicles that showed - in protected and unprotected surroundings- that these ITS-applications are already technically useful or could be developed into useful products. The component “guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects” outlines that the government has to have specific evaluation tools if the government has the ambition of using ITS-applications for road safety. Two projects -guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects- are examined; a third evaluation method is only mentioned because this description shows that a specific targeting of the government can be desirable : 1. TRACE describes the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects which are useful for the evaluation of specific ITS-applications. 2. FITS contains Finnish guidelines for the evaluation of ITS project; FIS is an adaptation of methods used for evaluation of transport projects. 3. The third evaluation method for the evaluation of ITS projects is developed in an ongoing European research project, eImpact. eImpact is important because, a specific consultation of stake holders shows that the social importance of some techniques is underestimated. These preliminary results show that an appropriate guiding role for the government could be important. In the second part of this document the cooperative systems are discussed in depth. These systems enable a large number of applications with an important social relevance, both on the level of the environment, mobility and traffic safety. Cooperative systems make it possible to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions (e.g. when approaching the tail of a traffic jam, or when a ghost driver is detected). Hazardous road conditions can be automatically communicated to other drivers (e.g. after the detection of black ice or an oil trail by the ESP). Navigation systems can receive detailed real-time up-dates about the current traffic situation and can take this into account when calculating their routes. When a traffic distortion occurs, traffic centers can immediately take action and can actively influence the way that the traffic will be diverted. Drivers can be notified well in advance about approaching emergency vehicles, and can be directed to yield way in a uniform manner. This is just a small selection from the large number of applications that are made possible because of cooperative ITS systems, but it is very obvious that these systems can make a significant positive contribution to traffic safety. In literature it is estimated that the decrease of accidents with injuries of fatalities will be between 20% and 50% . It is not suprising that ITS systems receive a lot of attention for the moment. On an international level, a number of standards are being established regarding this topic. The International Telecommunications Uniont (ITU), Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Association of Radio Industries and Business (ARIB) and European committee for standardization (CEN) are currently defining standards that describe different aspects of ITS systems. One of the names that is mostly mentioned in literature is the ISO TC204/WG16 Communications Architecture for Land Mobile environment (CALM) standard. It describes a framework that enables transparent (both for the application and the user) continuous communication through different communication media. Besides the innumerable standardization activities, there is a great number of active research projects. On European level, the most important are the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative, the eSafety Forum, and the COMeSafety, the CVIS, the SAFESPOT, the COOPERS and the SEVECOM project. The i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative is an European initiative with the goal to halve the number of traffic casualties by 2010. The eSafety Forum is an initiative of the European Commission, industry and other stakeholders and targets the acceleration of development and deployment of safety-related ITS systems. The COMeSafety project supports the eSafety Forum on the field of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In the CVIS project, attention is given to both technical and non-technical issues, with the main goal to develop the first free and open reference implementation of the CALM architecture. The SAFEST project investigates which data is important for safety applications, and with which algorithmsthis data can be extracted from vehicles and infrastructure. The COOPERS project mainly targets communication between vehicles and dedicated roadside infrastructure. Finally, the SEVECOM project researches security and privacy issues. Besides the European projects, research is also conducted in the United States of America (CICAS and VII projects) and in Japan (AHSRA, VICS, Smartway, internetITS). Besides standardization bodies and governmental organizations, also the industry has a considerable interest in ITS systems. In the scope of their ITS activities, a number of companies are united in national and international organizations. On an international level, the best known names are the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, and Ertico. The C2C CC unites the large European car manufacturers, and focuses on the development of an open standard for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications based on the already well established IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard. Ertico is an European multi-sector, public/private partnership with the intended purpose of the development and introduction of ITS systems. On a national level, FlandersDrive and The Telematics Cluster / ITS Belgium are the best known organizations. Despite the worldwide activities regarding (cooperative) ITS systems, there still is no consensus about the wireless technology to be used in such systems. This can be put down to the fact that a large number of suitable technologies exist or are under development. Each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but no single technology is the ideal solution for every ITS application. However, the different candidates can be classified in three distinct categories. The first group contains solutions for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), such as the WAVE technology. The second group is made up of several cellular communication networks providing coverage over wide areas. Examples are GPRS (data communication using the GSM network), UMTS (faster then GPRS), WiMAX (even faster then UMTS) and MBWA (similar to WiMAX). The third group consists of digital data broadcast technologies such as RDS (via the current FM radio transmissions, slow), DAB and DMB (via current digital radio transmissions, quicker) and DVB-H (via future digital television transmissions for mobiledevices, quickest). The previous makes it clear that ITS systems are a hot topic right now, and they receive a lot of attention from the academic world, the standardization bodies and the industry. Therefore, it seems like that it is just a matter of time before ITS systems will find their way into the daily live. Due to the large number of suitable technologies for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems, it is very hard to define which role the government has to play in these developments, and which are the next steps to take. These issues were addressed in reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project. Their state of the art overview revealed that until now, no country has successfully deployed a fully operational ITS system yet. Seven EU countries are the furthest and are already in the deployment phase: Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Spain and France. These countries are trailed by eight countries which are in the promotion phase: Denmark, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium,Norway, the Czech Republic and Poland. Finally, the last ten countries find themselves in the start-up phase: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg. These European reports produced by the i2010 Intelligent Car Initiative and the CVIS project have defined a few policy recommendations which are very relevant for the Belgian and Flemish government. The most important recommendations for the Flemish government are: • Support awareness: research revealed that civilians consider ITS applications useful, but they are not really willing to pay for this technology. Therefore, it is important to convince the general public of the usefulness and the importance of ITS systems. • Fill the gaps: Belgium is situated in the promotion phase. This means that it should focus at identifying the missing stakeholders, and coordinating national and regional ITS activities. Here it is important that the research activities are coordinated in a national and international context to allow transfer of knowledge from one study to the next, as well as the results to be comparable. • Develop a vision: in the scope of ITS systems policies have to be defined regarding a large number of issues. For instance there is the question if ITS users should be educated, meaning that the use of ITS systems should be the subject of the drivers license exam. How will the regulations be for the technical inspection of vehicles equipped with ITS technology? Will ITS systems be deployed on a voluntary base, or will they e.g. be obliged in every new car? Will the services be offered by private companies, by the public authorities, or by a combination of them? Which technology will be used to implement ITS systems? These are just a few of the many questions where the government will have to develop a point of view for. • Policy coordination: ITS systems are a policy subject on an international, national and regional level. It is very important that these policy organizations can collaborate in a coordinated manner. • Iterative approach to policy development: developing policies for this complex matter is not a simple task. This asks for an iterative approach, where policy decisions are continuously refined and adjusted

MANAGING THE EFFECTS OF WIRELESS SENSORS ON VEHICLE AD HOC NETWORK (VANET) SAFETY

This paper proposes to conduct research on the vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) area of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) with a focus on investigating safety methods that will significantly reduce passenger vehicle collisions which ultimately will help to save lives and reduce property losses. Key areas of this ITS research will include highway infrastructure or wireless sensor networks (WSN) to the cloud (web service) and the cloud (web service) to highway infrastructure or wireless sensor network (WSN). In turn, the cloud (web service) will communicate with passenger vehicles as components of a highway infrastructure (WSN) to vehicle (I2V) systems and a vehicle to highway infrastructure (V2I) systems. In turn, the cloud (web service) will communicate with passenger vehicles as components of a vehicle to highway infrastructure (V2I) system and a highway infrastructure to vehicle (I2V) system. Active circuit emulation will be used as an analysis tool for this research. The cloud web service in this case, will be a database that will be connected through an IEEE802.11 broadband (Wi-Fi) gateway via a border router or a network capable application processor (NCAP) to hardware and software wireless sensor networks or a simulated wireless network. The highway infrastructure portion of this design will be the IEEE1451 standard-based wireless sensor network called wireless transducer interface modules (WTIM). These WTIMs will be responsible for disseminating information from their multitude of sensors to vehicles and/or to the cloud via NCAP routers

Information collection algorithm for vehicular ad-hoc networks (application domain: Urban Traffic Wireless Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs))

Vehicle to vehicle communication (V2VC) is one of the modern approaches for exchanging and generating traffic information with (yet to be realized) potential to improve road safety, driving comfort and traffic control. In this research, we present a novel algorithm which is based on V2V communication, uses in-vehicle sensor information and in collaboration with the other vehicles' sensor information can detect road conditions and determine the geographical area where this road condition exists – e.g. geographical area where there is traffic density, unusual traffic behaviour, a range of weather conditions (raining), etc. The algorithms' built-in automatic geographical restriction of the data collection, aggregation and dissemination mechanisms allows warning messages to be received by any car, not necessarily sharing the identified road condition, which may then be used to identify the optimum route taken by the vehicle e.g. avoid bottlenecks or dangerous areas including accidents or congestions on their current routes. This research covers the middle ground between MANET [1] and collaborative data generation based on knowledge granularity (aggregation). It investigates the possibility of designing, implementing and modelling of the functionality of an algorithm (as part of the design of an intelligent node in an Intelligent Transportation System - ITS) that ensures active participation in the formation, routing and general network support of MANETs and also helps in-car traffic information and real-time control generation and distribution. The work is natural extension of the efforts of several large EU projects like DRIVE [2], GST [3] and SAFESPOT [4]

Utilising in-vehicle information to detect traffic conditions in vehicular ad-hoc networks

In the last decade, cooperative vehicular network has been one of the most studied areas for developing the intelligent transportation systems (ITS). It is considered as an important approach to share the periodic traffic situations over vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) to improve efficiency and safety over the road. In addition to the uses of ITS, VANETs will contribute in service access, cooperative driving, entertainment and navigation for cars of the future. Vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communication are two distinct avenues that make possible efficient delivery of messages through direct wireless transmissions in traffic regions. Furthermore, promising quality of communication performance is desirable for a communication system composed mostly if roaming participants; such a system needs to be dynamic, flexible and infrastructure-less. Thus VANET architecture is a natural fit for ITS. However, there are a number of issues in exchanging traffic data over high mobility of VANET, such as broadcast storms, hidden nodes and network instability. Therefore, vehicular traffic efficiency applications have been investigated recently using VANET. This aspect of research is primarily concerned with increasing the traffic awareness over roads. In this thesis, a novel model, Efficient Traffic Conditions Detection (ETraCD) is proposed to detect the traffic conditions utilising vehicles’ characteristics and in-vehicles sensors information to evaluate traffic situations that are gathered from the nodes (vehicles) in VANET. The model revolves around the core idea to what extent we will be considering the traffic characteristics between groups of cars rather than individual cars. This does not concern the physical transmission of data but the data processing in the network. More precisely, vehicles are clustered into traffic groups based on the similarity of sensors’s data. ETraCD (a) divides the situations of vehicles into clusters, (b) designs a set of metrics to get the correlations among vehicles and (c) detects the traffic condition in certain areas. These approaches have been simulated in NS3 network simulator to investigate the performance of stability of the network, latency, and the accuracy of traffic situations detection. The proposed model applies V2V clustering paradigm for detecting traffic conditions, it has been implemented and its features investigated through simulation runs. It shows the benefit of using the vehicular sensors informations such as ABS, windscreen lights and so on based on V2V communication to provide an efficient traffic conclusion in urban environment. Experiments also show improved overall performance when compared to previous protocols

Laser Scanner Technology

Laser scanning technology plays an important role in the science and engineering arena. The aim of the scanning is usually to create a digital version of the object surface. Multiple scanning is sometimes performed via multiple cameras to obtain all slides of the scene under study. Usually, optical tests are used to elucidate the power of laser scanning technology in the modern industry and in the research laboratories. This book describes the recent contributions reported by laser scanning technology in different areas around the world. The main topics of laser scanning described in this volume include full body scanning, traffic management, 3D survey process, bridge monitoring, tracking of scanning, human sensing, three-dimensional modelling, glacier monitoring and digitizing heritage monuments