Customer: EU (GROWTH programme)- University of Stuttgart

Duration: September 2001 – December 2002

Great effort is being spent in these years to develop anticollision / driver support systems to give an effective support to vehicle drivers. The main aim is to address the strong social needs of reducing the total number of accidents. The main causes of accidents can be addressed both to driver’s objective and subjective reduced driving capabilities. The first case includes difficult traffic / environmental conditions (i.e. reduced visibility at night, adverse weather conditions, dense and difficult traffic conditions).
The second case includes, as main causes of accidents, driver’s reduced level of attention due to fatigue, or to the habitude to the task, as well as driver lack of or excessive safety feeling in unknown or too well known driving environments. In the case of elderly drivers a related problem is their reduced visual acuity.
The aim of the proposed work is the development of an innovative human centred driver support system to be operable in case of:
• driver lack of obstacle perception, due to reduced visibility conditions and adverse weather conditions (the system supports the driver in a continuous mode);
• driver impaired or erroneous behaviour under different traffic scenarios (the system supports the driver when the vehicle is entering a potentially dangerous situation).

Role of TREDIT:
– Development of warning strategies
– Programming of software code for system control