A child suddenly runs out into the road from between two parked cars – information technology'southward every driver's nightmare scenario. BMW Group Research and Technology, in collaboration with leading research institutes in Deutschland, has at present developed a organisation that tin can take the estrus out of such situations thanks to so-called Car-ii-Ten Advice.

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The inquiry project AMULETT (the German acronym for "Active mobile blow abstention and mitigation of accident furnishings through cooperative data acquisition and tracking technology") involves vehicles communicating with a radio transponder carried, for example, by a pedestrian for purposes of personal prophylactic. Cooperative sensor systems between the car and the transponder mean that even hidden pedestrians can be recognised.

The Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology funded the three-year research project. Alongside BMW Forschung und Technik GmbH, the other participants are Continental Safety Applied science International GmbH, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, the Constitute for High Frequency Engineering at Munich's Technical University, and ZENTEC GmbH. On 6 May the results of AMULETT volition exist presented to the public to marker the conclusion of the project.
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AMULETT – radio engineering science for enhanced road traffic prophylactic.

In their AMULETT projection, researchers investigated the possibilities of Car-2-Ten Communication with the aim of improving pedestrian prophylactic. To this end they linked up autonomous on-lath systems for driving environs assessment with communication between the automobile and a transponder carried past a pedestrian or cyclist for their own rubber. By means of this cooperative sensor technology, the vehicle exchanges data with the "Amulett", an agile RFID-like (Radio Frequency Identification) chemical element, which could in future be integrated into a schoolbag, a mobile phone or a walking stick, for example.

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In item it works as follows: upon receiving an interrogation impulse from the vehicle, the transponder transmits an identification bulletin. This enables its position to exist fixed and, fifty-fifty more than importantly, identifies its carrier every bit a vulnerable route user. Information technology works fifty-fifty if the carrier is not within sight of the driver at the time of danger, for instance if the pedestrian is obscured past a parked motorcar or a hedge. The Amulett identifies itself through a code that is frequently inverse at random to forestall the carrier being linked to a specific transponder. "In this way we ensure that the user remains bearding – in compliance with information protection laws – without compromising the prediction of the sensor data," explains Dr Ralph Rasshofer, AMULETT Project Manager for BMW Group Research and Technology.
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The test vehicle identifies the electromagnetic waves using a multi-antenna system in a frequency band of 2.4 GHz, with the angle of arrival and identification determined by a betoken processing unit of measurement. The distance between the pedestrian and the vehicle is calculated on the basis of the bespeak'south travelling time between the interrogation from the car and the response from the transponder – essentially the aforementioned principle every bit used in echo sounding. If, on the footing of this data, the system anticipates an impending standoff, the driver is given a warning. If the driver does not respond, farther measures can be triggered in the automobile to avoid an accident or mitigate its consequences – and, in the time to come, emergency braking will be applied as a last resort. "Thanks to AMULETT we will be able to draw very precise conclusions from the sensor information in future.

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This grants us the possibility of giving road traffic safe another significant boost – because for us, every accident victim is one too many," adds Rasshofer. In the BMW Group Enquiry and Technology prototype, the driver receives feedback via the Head-up Display, similar to Nighttime Vision with pedestrian recognition already bachelor today. "Part of our development piece of work is to ensure that feedback from driver assistance and information systems is designed in such a way that the driver is on no account alarmed, that it tin be intuitively interpreted, and that is volition atomic number 82 to the advisable response," says Rasshofer. Ongoing research is thus focused on the exclusion of false alarms (e.g. from AMULETT carriers sitting inside a car) and the system's evaluation ability when dealing with many carriers – east.thousand. in city traffic.

The best accident is the one that never happens.

The BMW Group is systematically striving to develop driver help and data systems that are targeted at helping motorists to defuse hazardous situations on the road. Here special attention is also directed at the most vulnerable people concerned: pedestrians, cyclists and other non-motorised road users. It explains why BMW is the world's first car manufacturer to offer BMW Night Vision with pedestrian recognition in the new BMW 7 Serial. Subsequently all, a big proportion of fatal pedestrian accidents happen at nighttime, many of them on the open up road.
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Merely what happens if at that place is no line of sight between the sensors in the vehicle – in the case of Night Vision those in the thermal imaging camera – and the pedestrian, due east.g. in decorated daytime traffic? This is precisely what the AMULETT research endeavour is tackling. Accident statistics repeatedly and unambiguously testify that in twoscore percent of all fatal pedestrian accidents, the driver does not see the person until just before the impact. In the case of children the state of affairs is even more dramatic. According to the 2006 figures from Germany'due south Federal Statistical Role, 48 percent of blow victims between the age of half dozen and 14 ran onto the road without looking out for traffic. 25 percent of accidents involving children happened when they suddenly appeared from behind a visual barrier. "With AMULETT, the research partners have succeeded in taking a farther significant step towards raising pedestrian safe in road traffic. Thanks to the improved communications this organization provides, road users who are obscured from view can be identified early on on and accidents can be prevented," says Prof. Dr. Dr. Benedikt von Hebenstreit of the Eye of Transport and Condom at Zurich'south University of Applied Sciences.

On 6 May the AMULETT project will exist presented to industry specialists and the public during a special result including a programme of talks and a live demonstration. Further information can be institute on the homepage www.projekt-amulett.de

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Partners in the three-year enquiry project:

BMW Forschung und Technik GmbH is a 100 % subsidiary of BMW AG and is in charge of the following research topics at the BMW Group since 2003: VehicleTechnology, CleanEnergy (hydrogen engineering), EfficientDynamics (intelligent energy management/culling drivetrains), ConnectedDrive (commuter assistance /active safety systems) and ITDrive (IT-architecture and communication engineering science). Being a limited visitor, legal autonomy from the BMW Grouping allows a maximum of creativity and flexibility.
An internationally established network, with Technical Offices in the USA (Palo Alto, CA und Clemson, SC) and Nippon (Tokyo) besides as Liaison Offices in French republic (with Eurécom in Sophia Antipolis) and in Germany (with German Research Centre for Bogus Intelligence, DFKI GmbH, in Saarbrücken) ensures global access to trends and technologies.

Continental Safety Engineering International GmbH is involved in the AMULETT funded project through its Advanced System Applied science department. The focus here is on active pedestrian protection systems, an area in which Continental Safety Engineering science International GmbH develops both sensor systems for detecting potential pedestrian collision and actuator systems to mitigate leg and head impact.

The Fraunhofer Constitute for Integrated Circuits IIS carries out research and development piece of work in close collaboration with manufacture customers and in the fields of digital radio, audio and multimedia technology, digital picture palace, design automation, integrated circuits and sensor systems, wired, wireless and optical networks, localisation and navigation, high-speed cameras, ultra fine focus Ten-ray technology, paradigm processing and medical technology, as well as ICT technologies for the logistics and services sector. For the AMULETT project the Fraunhofer IIS is working on developments for radio localisation systems. I of the focuses is on the miniaturisation of radio engineering science and rapid signal processing for real-time localisation.

The Institute for High Frequency Technology at the Technical University of Munich develops and tests components, modules and systems for radar and advice applications. These applications are mainly designed for driving environment assessment systems for cars. The Institute for Loftier Frequency Engineering has for many years also been involved with cooperative sensor systems and networks. Contrary to conventional approaches, the system pattern is oriented primarily towards optimal measuring quality and merely secondarily to the requirements of the advice channel. The issue is precise and rapid distance measurements with adequate advice quality and bandwidth. Work on the AMULETT projection included basic research, inter alia, on the use of channelisation codes for distance measurement.

ZENTEC GmbH supports the associated partners in matters of project direction and project arrangement. Every bit a technology centre in the Bavarian Lower Main region with a longstanding tradition in vehicle safety, ZENTEC assists the project partners in publishing the projection results and developing them further.

[Source: BMW ]