Multi-sensor information integration on DSP platform for vehicle navigation safety and driving aid

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are the mainstream of the development of next-generation technologies. The project of Human-centered technology (HT)-ITS in Taiwan has launched R&D researches in driver assistance and safety warning systems. This paper demonstrates a part result that a multi-sensors integrated system to achieve the purpose of the vehicle navigation and safety warning assistance. Multi-sensors including a global position system (GPS), a laser range finder, and an inertia measurement unit (IMU), are equipped on the vehicle to realize the manipulation of collision warning (CW), dead-reckoning (DR), and the operation of comfort-meter. The maneuver of CW is developed based on the idea that warning or potential crash information generally can be graded such that the driver need not react to a discrete on/off alarm. DR is responsible to estimate the vehicle location and trajectory when GPS floats. The purpose of the comfort-meter is to examine whether the vehicle driving does conform to the comfortable standard or not. The current states of the vehicle will also be transmitted to the far-end monitoring center, and shown in the graphical user interface through wireless transmission in order to monitor the vehicle driving status. The processing unit is realized on an embedded platform, as well as these functions are verified on real-road testing.