EU project shows car safety is not just about engineering
Car safety is high on the EU agenda. Over the years, carmakers have been developing mainly engineering systems with an array of gadgets and features to make driving a safer and more enjoyable experience. Now, with € 2.6 million in EU funding, the DIPLECS project will bring together researchers from four Member States to develop a cognitive system that protects both drivers and pedestrians. Many of the new cars rolling off today's production lines are equipped with various driver-assisting automations, such as collision detection systems, anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and traction control. However, given the complexity of real driving environments and the key role that drivers play in the pre-crash phase, many experts believe that it is not enough to focus solely on engineering systems. 'We need much smarter solutions than these, future systems will capture a total overview of the road and traffic situation and analyse it,' explains Dr Michael Felsberg of Linköping University, Sweden, the DIPLECS coordinator. With this in mind, the DIPLECS partners will design an 'artificial cognitive system' (ACS) capable of learning and adapting to real life situations, the danger of which are often underestimated by drivers. The main focus of the system will be on offering assistance and advice to the driver of a car. The project will construct models based on the behaviour of a given driver and predict what the driver should do when faced with a specific driving scenario. The system will also have the capacity to extract and analyse key information from the environment, and to determine the future state of the car should it enter into a collision. The project partners will assess the architecture and its components in three different settings: offline with data recorded in a real vehicle; online in the real vehicle; and online for a model car. These different settings, say the partners, will enable them to analyse different assistance capabilities, including general, passive real-time and active real-time, in a safe environment. Ultimately, people will be able to breathe a sigh of relief thanks to DIPLECS, as the flexible cognitive system architecture is likely to offer better road safety. In addition to Linköping University, participants of the DIPLECS project are the Czech Technical University in Prague (Czech Republic); the School of Engineering in Paris (France); the Autoliv Development AB (Sweden); and the University of Surrey, UK.