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A new project announced in August by the UK's Department of Trade and Industry (DTi) is expected to result in significant advances being made to low-cost collision avoidance and other driver-assist programmes.
A consortium led by the Chelmsford-based e2v Technologies and including BAE Systems, LEW Techniques of Taunton, Somerset and the University of Birmingham has begun work on the development of an advanced in-vehicle sensor capable of dealing with both long and short-range applications. The Slimsens project, part of the DTi's Foresight Vehicle programme, is also attempting to integrate a millimetre-wave communications system that will provide a vehicle-to-roadside high-capacity link as well as the possibility of enabling real-time transmission of the data gathered by the sensors to other traffic in the area.
"A single sensor capable of dealing with both long and short range applications does not currently exist," said Nigel Priestley, Chief Engineer at the Chelmsford headquartered e2v Technologies. "Nor is it yet possible to take the data from in-vehicle sensors and communicate it, in real-time, to other vehicles."
The project is one of several in Europe looking at the question of sensor fusion with a view to the further development of advanced driver assistance systems. Others include APALACHI, UseRCams and SASPENCE, all of which began work in February this year under the PReVENT programme. Another project is involved in the development of self-aligning long range sensors and is led by BAE Systems.
"Apart from the question of road safety," said Priestley, "two other factors are driving this research. The first is the issue of space. Vehicle manufacturers are running out of places from which to hang items of equipment and it would clearly be of benefit if one sensor could do two jobs instead of one. The second factor is the impending EU requirement for the short range sensor to migrate from its current frequency band of 24 GHz to between 77 GHz and 81 GHzafter 2012.
A second arm of the project is the development of smart reflectors capable of being read by in-vehicle sensors and identifying the roadside property to which they are attached. While automatic obstacle recognition research is underway with the aid of CMOS technology by companies like Siemens, the science is still some way from full maturity.
"Smart reflectors are a quick and cost-efficient route to solving the problems of obstacle recognition," said Priestley.
But it is the communications aspect of the project which is potentially the most complicated to achieve. While other projects within the EU, including CarTALK and FleetNet, examine the prospect of ad hoc car-to-car communications networking techniques, Slimsens will provide a way to marry the sensor data with a car-to-roadside communications link in an echo of the now defunct RTA (Road Traffic Advisor) project.
"Car-to-car communications is still quite difficult to achieve," said Priestley. "The antennae required is too large and it will be necessary to design a smaller one. In the meantime what we are trying to do is produce a 63 GHz link from the vehicle to roadside beacons that will be attached to existing gantries and other furniture. The band width will allow for the full range of communications including, Web browsing and real-time traffic information services."
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