A Road Activating Sensors System for Traffic Control and Alerting

The traffic management and active safety systems are becoming more and more vital in modern societies. Modern traffic monitoring systems have a centralized approach, collecting data via cameras and visual monitoring devices, elaborating them and signaling problems through dedicated radio stations or with traffic signs.

The centralized approach permits data mining and statistics but cannot be considered a real time monitoring alert system for the driver due to the long feedback times.

The aim of this project is the realization of a monitoring and alerting system to be implemented in the common GPS devices already spread on the market.

The GPS device will transmit via a wireless protocol, the information related to the position of the car to the stateless sensors distributed along the road. The “token” transmitted by the car will be forwarded back for a determined number of “hops”, thus activating the road as a transport layer.

With this system, the video GPS devices installed in the cars will be able to visualize, with a good approximation, the positions of the other vehicles within a range long enough to permit the timely reaction of the driver in case of bad visibility (storm, fog, etc…) or accident.

Another mechanism of alert will be based on topographic and statistical analysis of the road, stored into the software, that will warn the driver of the particular dangerousness of some stretches of road.

In case of danger, the driver's attention could be caught by audio/video alarm system.

Other proactive mechanisms could be enabled, such as an alarm for the driver in case of no respect of emergency distance calculated on the basis of the distance from the nearest vehicle and the driver’s speed.

Activities to per performed

Definition of a standard open protocol for traffic data transmission. The protocol will be compatible with the standards produced by the Galileo Project
Design and development of a Road Activating Sensor able to receive/transmit data
Statistical and Topographical analysis of the road to identify particularly dangerous zones
Design and development of an integration to a GPS Software with alerting systems for the driver


The idea of the project has been already submitted and validated by National stakeholders and Local traffic authorities.

Traffic
wireless
GPS
sensors network
statistics

Statistical Analysis
Data Mining
Topographical Analysis
GPS Software
Embedded System
Wireless Networks and Sensors

PROFILE1: Statistical analysis on car accidents

PROFILE2: Topographical analysis of the road and development of algorithms to find "dangerous" zones

PROFILE3: Development of a network of wireless sensors  to capture and transmit the signal

PROFILE4: Development of add-ons for the gps software to implement signal i/o and alerting systems

Research Centers
Universities
Industrial partners
Local  authorities for traffic and mobility

No