Talking traffic lights, environment-aware vehicles in the UR:BAN project
The goal of the project is to develop solutions that provide context-sensitive, predictive and individual support to drivers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles in city traffic. Within this context, DLR is working on a specific aspect of car2x communications. The goal is to devise an instruction format that enables traffic lights to communicate with the cars regardless of make, type or manufacturer. For instance, future traffic lights can pass on information to the cars in the environment; the information could be generated by a ‘smart guiding pylone’ which could be placed by the police in the case of an accident or a construction site. This smart guiding pylone would connect wirelessly to the traffic light to inform them about the traffic obstruction. The traffic light in turn would send the message to the vehicles in the vicinity, alerting them about the situation and thus contributing to prevent accidents and, if applicable, recommending a deviation.
Another data type contains the remaining time of the red or green phase. Drivers can use this information, to reduce or increase their speed accordingly – in future systems, this adjustment could be done automatically.
In complex urban traffic situations, it can be particularly challenging to recognise hazards and react accordingly. For this reason, the UR:BAN project covers the aspect of ‘cognitive assistance’. In this segment, Continental and others are developing powerful driver assistance systems capable of taking control over lateral and longitudinal movements of the cars.
This sub-project contains four functions – driver assistance systems for narrow passages, for passages with contraflow, lane change assist, and situation-aware speed recommendation with haptic feedback. The contraflow traffic assistance system, for instance, determines if the lane ahead of the vehicle is wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass. If the sensors determine that the space is not sufficient it issues a warning sound at the dashboard.
"These functions support an even traffic flow which improves the fuel efficiency and reduces the environmental burden in the dense urban traffic. In addition, they are a contribution to help even unsafe road users to find their way through urban traffic safely", says Stefan Lueke, manager of the subproject.
Key for these assistance functions is the reliable identification of other active and passive traffic participants as well as of further relevant objects – which includes the rather complex environment with traffic signs, traffic lights and parking vehicles. Accordingly, these assistance systems are equipped with a rather sophisticated selection of sensors.
Four short range radar sensors at the corners of the vehicles, a forward-looking long distance radar sensor and a stereo video camera recognise the surroundings in 360. The situation-aware speed recommendation assist involves a haptic feedback to the driver through the Accelerator Force Feedback Pedal (AFFP) as well as the engine management.
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