F2010D040
A Survey on Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems for Adverse Weather Conditions
According to recent studies of the European Road Safety Observatory, road traffic accidents annually claim about 43.000 lives and leave more than 1.8 million people injured, representing estimated costs of 160 billion Euros [1]. Adverse weather conditions involving diminished visibility through rain, snow, and fog, and reduced traction as a consequence of rainy, snowy, and icy surfaces have been a major cause for traffic accidents throughout the EU in recent years. In conjunction with deficient speed adjustments and improper headway control on the part of the driver, they represent one of the chief causes for traffic accidents in Europe. Likewise, extreme weather conditions are responsible for 39% of all traffic accidents in Germany [2]. While the rates for other causes of accidents, e.g. drunk-driving, slowly decrease, the tendency for traffic accidents caused by insufficient adaptation of speed or headway to adverse weather and road conditions grows continuously [1]. Amongst them, slippery road surfaces as a consequence of rain falls and insufficient headways take first place (25.5 %).
Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems (IVSS) have the potential to improve traffic safety [3]. They can either be passive (e.g. airbags, passenger belts) or active (e.g. ESP, ABS). Even though there is a lot of work being done with respect to such IVSS, especially in the focus of European research projects (e.g. Apollo [4], Prevent [5], SafeSpot, SRIS [6]), their impact on road safety in case of hazardous weather and road conditions is still limited. This observation can be explained through the high purchase costs of IVSS [3] and the fact that only very few IVSS consider the specific needs that derive from adverse weather conditions such as diminished visibility through heavy rain, snow, or fog and reduced traction as a result of rainy, snowy, or icy surfaces on road pavements. Situations like this require passive warning systems which notify the driver about potentially hazardous situations possibly complemented by active headway and speed control systems which adjust the car-to-car distance with respect to the situation.
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the state of the art of existing research for IVSS on the European level and to draw conclusions on the remaining challenges. It will furthermore describe how emerging paradigms like reliable and accurate Galileo positioning as well as Car-to-X communication may further improve the reliability and the cost effectiveness of IVSS, making them a suitable mass market product.
REFERENCES [1] European Road Safety Observatory: "Annual Statistical Report 2008 based on data from CARE/EC", 2008. [2] Federal Statistical Office of Germany: "Ursachen von Unfällen mit Personenschaden 2005-2008", from http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Verkehr/Verkehrsunfaelle/Tabellen/Content50/UrsachenPersonenschaden,templateId=renderPrint.psml, 2008. [3] Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT):" Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems Offer Considerable Potential For Improving Traffic Safety", from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/12/081209085626.htm, 2008. [4] Mäkinen, T et at.:"APOLLO Final Report including Technical Implementation Plan", Deliverable 22/23 for the European Commission, Tampere, Finland, 2005. [5] E. Adelli and A. Várhelyi: "Development of HMI Components for a Driver Assistence System for Safe Speed and Safe Distance", in Proceedings of the 13th World Congress and Exhibition on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services, 2006. [6] SRIS - Project, Slippery Road Information System, http://www.sris.nu/index_en.aspx
This abstract is supplemented by a PDF, which can be viewed here.
Session: Intelligent Vehicle Systems