Using Sensor Networks for Pedestrian Detection

Pedestrian safety is a major concern in road transportation as pedestrian/vehicle accidents account for the second largest cause of traffic-related injuries and fatalities worldwide. Considerable work has examined the use of lidar, radar and computer vision for pedestrian detection but existing solutions are costly and work only if pedestrians are in the vehicle\´s line-of-sight. In this paper, we present a novel technique based on wireless sensor networks that is cheap and enables pedestrian detection beyond the driver\´s horizon. The detection system is based on the use of "cat\´s eyes" augmented with embedded processing and communication capabilities that are able to detect pedestrians and forward this information along the road. We describe how such a system was successfully built with SOL, a high-level programming language for wireless sensor networks. Initial results show that the system obtains detection rates of 100%, false positive rates of 0%, and that the precision of the estimated position of pedestrians depends on their heading and relative position to sensor nodes.