Abstract
To help prevent accidents in winter, the Civil Engineering Research Institute of the Hokkaido Development Bureau has been promoting research and development on a safe-driving support system for winter roads. The focus is on millimeter wave radar as a promising technology for detecting obstacles ahead, such as stopped cars, when visibility is reduced by snowstorms. A questionnaire survey on winter roads found the safe-driving support system with millimeter wave radar to be effective for road sections in flat areas, tunnels, intersections, and expressway ramps. Therefore, verification tests were conducted on a test system. Millimeter wave radar effectively detected obstacles on roads where visibility was reduced. For enhanced detection accuracy, a combined millimeter wave radar and infrared camera was developed, and an obstacle detection test was carried out with the integrated system. Collation of data from the radar and the camera, each of which tracks the object independently, reduced the error. The effect of a warning of danger on driving behavior was tested. A reduction in the difference of driving behavior between drivers of different demographic categories was observed when information about the obstacle was provided. This indicates effectiveness in preventing accidents. Additional tests in which subjects were aided by video or computer graphic images confirmed the effectiveness of intelligent, light-emitting delineators in warning drivers.
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