WATCH-OVER Project

The goal is the design and development of a cooperative system for the prevention of accidents involving vulnerable road users in urban and extra-urban areas.

The innovative concept is represented by an on board platform and by a vulnerable user module. The system is based on short range communication and vision sensors.

Technologies

The current sensor technologies cannot "see" behind obstacles and have a limited view of the lateral and of the longitudinal areas. Additionally, the complexity of the traffic scenario presents a number of cases in which vulnerable users are suddenly getting out from an area that is covered by the infrastructure or by other vehicles. Hence no sensor based system is able to perform a preventive detection in all different scenarios.

The WATCH-OVER project approach is focused on the cooperation between in-vehicle modules and devices inserted in wearable objects or integrated in motorcycles.

The candidate sensing technologies to support the detection of vulnerable users are summarised in the following categories:

• far and near infrared systems
• 2D, 3D vision sensing technology
• microwave radar
• laser radar

In the project Robert Bosch GmbH develops a second generation of automotive CMOS multi-purpose camera. The automotive CMOS cameras have anti-glare capabilities and high performance in the visual and near infrared range.

The candidate short range wireless communication technologies for the WATCH-OVER system development are :

• IEEE 802.15.4 standard works in the 868/915MHz or in the 2.4 GHz, with data rates of up to 250 kb/s
• RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a technology which unambiguously identifies an object by means of an RF wireless system