Overview
A 'federative' action, conceived under the Predit 2 programme, ARCOS brought together some 60 partners in a global approach regarding the vehicle-driver-infrastructure system, in order to contribute to improved road safety.
ARCOS aimed to validate concepts and feasibility to achieve four functions:
- to regulate inter-vehicle distances,
- to prevent collisions with fixed, stopped or slow-moving obstacles,
- to prevent vehicles straying from the lane and
- to alert upstream vehicles of accidents or incidents.
Three types results were expected:
- Knowledge (particularly on the development of human-machine interfaces);
- Technologies, tools and methods (prototypes of sensors, methods of perceiving the environment, methods of treating information);
- Experimental prototypes, enriched by co-operation across multi-disciplinary fields.
This public-private collaboration effort should bring about a community of businesses and laboratories capable of collectively assuming responsibility for advancing discussions and technical challenges related to the deployment of road safety objectives. Some examples of developments are:
- Obstacle detection sensors;
- Estimation of mobile adherence;
- Lateral drifting sensors;
- Inter-vehicle communication vectors.
In addition, individual acceptance criteria, studies of responsibility-transfer, economic studies for public authorities, etc.
Functional analysis applied to the four safety functions resulted in 11 broad structuring themes:
- Perception of environment before the vehicle;
- Other measurement techniques: visibility and adherence;
- Data processing and command development;
- Transmission and communication;
- Simulation / evaluation; accidentology;
- Man-machine system;
- Individual and social acceptability;
- Other collective social and technical aspects;
- Experimental means;
- Functions management / ARCOS technical assistance;
- Development of alarms for trucks in potentially dangerous situations.
Three experimental campaigns were planned in the course of the project.