Development of an intelligent traffic light for reducing traffic accidents

Increase of a traffic accident is recognized as a social problem, hence reduction of the accidents now becomes an urgent task. This paper places a special emphasis on saving pedestrians at blind intersections because the death rate of the pedestrian at the blind intersection is high. To prevent the accident, the paper proposes a notion of the intelligent traffic light. In case that a car and a human are in danger of collision at the intersection, the intelligent traffic light makes the corresponding car stop autonomously by transmitting a warning signal. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed traffic system, we substituted a mobile robot for a car. As for the intersection, we installed a radio transmitter with a car approaching sensor and a human detection sensor. As for the mobile robot, we installed a radio receiver and a car control unit. Experimental results indicated that the mobile robot stopped autonomously before the collision and pedestrians would not be injured. But the mobile robot stopped suddenly because the present system did not pay mind to the safety of drivers. This paper thus considers the deceleration curve so that cars stop smoothly. As the result of experiments, the proposed system is applicable enough to the real environment.