Enhancing a Driver´s Situation Awareness using a Global View Map

This paper proposes a novel method to enhance a driver´s situation awareness by dynamically providing a global view of surroundings for the driver. The surroundings of a vehicle are captured by an omni-directional vision system mounted on the top of the vehicle. The video stream from the camera is processed to detect nearby vehicles. Positions of these detected objects are overlaid on a global view of a local map (e.g., an aerial imagery or satellite imagery map). We establish the relationship between the omni-directional vision system and the global view map. The global view map dynamically provides a realistic perspective view of the driving environment. This map can be projected onto an HUD on the windshield. By looking at the display, a driver can have a global picture of the situation and potentially produce a good driving strategy. We illustrate the proposed method by dynamically mapping a video stream onto Google Earth map.