Safety systems and human-machine interfaces oriented to diverse population towards future scenarios with increasing share of highly automated vehicles.

Why safety systems for autonomous vehicles are necessary?

In 2020, someone died on European roads every 25 minutes, with a total of 18,844 people that lost their lives. It represents an unprecedented annual fall of 17% on 2019 result of lower traffic volumes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is expected that traffic accidents will soar again once the pandemic subsides. More than 46% of those killed in Europe in 2018 were Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – and it was estimated that human error was involved in about 95% of all road traffic accidents. HAVs have the potential to improve road safety by reducing crashes due to driver error and also by representing an alternative to high-risk drivers (e.g., drunk or distracted drivers).

More than 46% of those killed in Europe in 2018 were Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – and it was estimated that human error was involved in about 95% of all road traffic accidents.

Object: Safety systems and human-machine interfaces oriented to diverse population

AWARE2ALL aims to pave the way towards the deployment in traffic of highly automated vehicles (HAV) – Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) presenting SAE-L4 features – by effectively addressing the changes in road safety and in the interaction of different human road users (HRUs) caused by the emergence of HAV.

The project will develop safety systems adapted to these new scenarios in mixed traffic along with the corresponding assessment tools and methodologies. Two perspectives are considered:

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Project: Development of safety systems for HAVs in mixed traffic

The Horizon Europe (HE) project will develop safety systems adapted to these new scenarios in mixed traffic along with the corresponding assessment tools and methodologies. Two perspectives are considered:

1 —

Inside the vehicle

Oriented to occupant safety: a continuous occupant state monitoring (OMS) will assess the interior situation (e.g., activities performed by the occupants). In case of an emergency situation (e.g., sudden reach of the ODD limit due to an abrupt change of weather), the OMS will decide if it is possible to perform a transition of control to a driver or to perform a fallback manoeuvre and avoid a collision. If a collision is unavoidable, then advanced passive safety systems are adapted to the occupant status to reduce the severity of injuries. At any time, the behaviour of HAV systems needs to be adequately and timely communicated to the occupants by internal HMI (iHMI).

2 —

Outside the vehicle

Oriented to HRUs safety: a surround perception system will allow the HAV to identify the HRUs behaviour and to anticipate safety critical situations. By allowing the vehicle to effectively communicate with HRUs through external HMI (eHMI), dangerous situations could be avoided.

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News

Challenges of Driver Monitoring Systems

21 / 07 / 23

Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) are "intelligent" algorithms that monitor the state of the occupants in a vehicle, which can be used for security, comfort, and entertainment purposes. As a researcher in this topic, I find it fascinating to explore the different functionalities that are being developed among the many possibilities one can think of. The […]

Workshop: Use Cases.

5 / 07 / 23

05/07/2023

The scope of this Workshop that will take place on Wednesday 5 July 2023 @ 12.00-13.30 CET is to present the Use Cases of the demos that will be realized within the project to end user groups representatives and ask you to provide us with your valuable feedback and propose your modifications to these Use Cases. […]

Did you know ...? The EU aims to reach zero road deaths by 2050

26 / 06 / 23

Worldwide, injuries claim the lives of 4.4 million people each year. One third of these deaths are caused by road accidents [1]. In fact, road crashes are the leading cause of death for adolescents. Many of the adolescents involved in accidents were VRUs [2]. Therefore, increasing road safety and the associated reduction of fatalities due […]

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