Overview
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are in-vehicle systems for preventive safety with the intent to advise, warn and support the driver in his/her interactions with the vehicle and the surrounding traffic. They are designed to provide assistance in controlling the vehicle, to improve its behaviour in the traffic and to avoid accidents. To date the topic of developing an preventive safety system with the aim of preventing accidents among vehicles and unprotected road users has not been tackled yet. The main reason is because the applied technologies, principally developed to detect other vehicles, have limitations which exclude the possibility, or make it difficult, to detect Vulnerable Road Users (VRU: pedestrian, cyclist, motorcyclist). At the same time the use of active or passive safety systems on vehicle is not able to avoid this type of road accidents.
The PROTECTOR objectives are to develop a warning system for Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) protection.
Three main points require specific developments: the sensorial system, the warning strategies and the human machine interface able to support both the driver and the VRU. PROTECTOR has included a significant attention on how to support, validate and guide these developments, by a common definition of system requirements, by test-site operation and by using common guidelines at European level for system evaluation and validation.
Funding
Results
The PROTECTOR project has shown the technical feasibility and the benefits of VRU detection and classification, risk assessment and warning strategies, but also some existing limitations at present for such a system. The main achievements are:
- Identification of five scenarios more representative of the road accidents
- Functional specification for an integrative approach
- Development of sensorial systems (radar, laser scanner, stereovideo system) able to detect/classify VRU
- Results from the system test and user trials in test track and real environment
- Comparison between simulation and road tests data
Technical Implications
The following aspects need further investigation:
- tolerance of false-alarms on the long run;
- the distraction effect of the PROTECTOR-System;
- the “ideal acoustical warning output”: warning sound or voice, obtrusiveness of the sound (or general: individual choice of the sound);
- potentially: visual display in mirror or Head Up Display (especially for passenger cars
Policy implications
A significant outcome is that, the EU guidelines used in the design phase and in evaluation phase, have received a relevant contribution, so that to the general test methodology followed in the project can be taken as a reference for future work in this area.