GPS-copilot: real-time location based adaptive cruise control system involving driver health and head distraction analysis

Abstract
Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) is an electronic system that allows the vehicle to slow while approaching another vehicle and accelerate again to the preset speed when traffic is cleared. It also warns the driver and/or applies brake support if there is a high risk of a collision. The project aim is to design a GPS equipped ACC system that (apart from performing normal ACC functions) slows down the vehicle intelligently when it enters speed restricted zones such as schools and colleges. It is also capable of detecting the speed breakers ahead and controls the vehicle dynamically according to the speed limit set for that part of the road. The system also continuously monitors driver distraction and driver health condition and brings the vehicle under ACC control if the need arises. There are a variety of ways in which drivers can get distracted while driving, for example looking sideways, talking over a mobile phone etc. Driver head movement indicates if he is distracted or not. Our system is capable of sensing this. Another major issue is drivers in city buses or cars who are aged above 40 are at a higher risk of heart attack or similar heart related problems. A heart attack for a city bus driver while driving is fatal not only to him but also for the passengers. Heart rate is a vital symptom for identifying this condition. Our system senses the heart rate of the driver. In real-world scenario this system should need to perform the operation within some timing deadline and must be extremely responsive or the result is fatal. Hence the system utilizes the services of a RTOS (Real-Time Operating System). GPS aided ACC with Driver Status Monitoring can be implemented in all types of vehicles where safety will be given first priority and has the potential to become a standard part of any future vehicle.
Keywords:Autonomous vehicles, gps, acc, fuzzy logic, intersection management
I.Introduction
People died in road traffic accidents in the European Union. Some 1.9 million people were injured, some of them severely. The economic damages generated by traffic accidents were estimated at €€ 200 billion, corresponding to approximately 2% of the European Union’s Gross National Product. In order to solve this problem, European Commission has taken the challenge of reducing by one half this cipher by the year 2010, mainly applying new information and communication technologies. One of the most dangerous maneuvers is the circulation through road intersections and the various modalities of priority and directions. The research on intelligent vehicles for intersection management is actually a technological challenge, with some groups working in this area worldwide. The philosophy is the integration of vehicle-infrastructure components and functions into cooperative intersection collision avoidance systems using wireless communication technology. Some developments have been carried out as driving aids for augmenting the safety in roadway intersections. In California PATH Program some Intersection-DecisionSupport systems have been developed in order to advise the driver in one of the most critical situations: left turn across path with incoming vehicles [1], and some working scenarios to test these systems have been defined [2]. More USA research are described in [3]. In Europe, several projects of the 6th Frame Work Program (FWP) deal with these driving aids. That is the case of Inter safe Project, where an ADAS is under development to detect a potentially dangerous situation in road intersections and to warn the driver [4]. These kind of situations. In the Intelligent Control Systems Laboratory of the Griffith University, in Australia, some autonomous vehicles, Cyber cars, have the capability of performing an automatic route and dealing with basic intersection scenarios [5]. Another full autonomous vehicle driving application is that of the INRIA IMARA group in France. In this case and also using Cyber car vehicles, first steps in automatic intersection management are being carried out, allowing the cooperation of two of these cars in giving the way in intersections, using laser sensors and communications [6].A first simple case of use has been implemented. In this paper we present the approach of the AUTOPIA Program of the Industrial Automation Institute of Spain for automatic driving in roadway intersection, based on GPS and wireless communications. We deal with the two simplest cases, in intersections in which the autonomous vehicle is circulating on a non-priority lane. These two cases of use are: the situation where a car is stopped in a priority lane and the autonomous vehicle circulates through the non-priority one and the situation where both cars are circulating in collision trajectory, with the autonomous going along the non-priority lane. Depending on its speed and position and the speed and position of the vehicle circulating over the priority lane, the autonomous driving system decides whether to stop or to continue the route. Some real experiments have been executed showing the performance of the system.