Research on Technology for Reducing Sudden Pedestrian or Cyclist Accidents with Vehicles

We are currently studying a new application system of RFID technology for a safety driving support system for reducing the number of sudden vehicle traffic accidents involving pedestrians or cyclists near intersections. [1], [2] We have investigated an experimental system that senses the existence and position of pedestrians and cyclists using an active tag, sends the sensed data to an on-board device of a vehicle near their position and alerts the driver. The active tag can be carried by pedestrians or installed on bicycles. When the tag enters the area of magnetic field generated by the LF-signal generator, it is excited and transmits the tag ID, together with the position data, to indicate the precise position of the object. The moving direction and speed of the pedestrian or cyclist can be calculated from the position data sensed by the RFID tag passing over appropriately separated two LF-signal generators. The occurrence risk of a sudden traffic accident can be estimated from the relation of positions and speeds between the pedestrian/cyclist and the vehicle moving near the intersection. Then it can alert the driver of a vehicle. We report the summary of our system and the collection and analysis results of the basic data based on the system which aims at the reduction of traffic accidents resulting from the sudden appearance of a pedestrian or a cyclist in a vehicle path.