Not all road users have a crumple zone. Therefore the safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs) is a particularly significant point for research into the area of automated driving and parking. Above all, children, pedestrians and cyclists must be reliably detected by travelling and/or parking driverless vehicles. Especially when parking out of a parking lot, dangerous situations could arise.
Challenge: More safety for pedestrians
Research into the issue of pedestrian safety and automated driving is undertaken from an interdisciplinary perspective to guarantee improved protection of people from driverless vehicles. In the project “Safe2P – Increase Safety for Pedestrians and Parking”, partners from different industries (ASM Assembly Systems GmbH & Co KG and Expleo) and science (Forschungsinstitut C-ISAFE of TH Ingolstadt) are collaborating on new systems. The joint research project is costing around €1.8 million and set to last three years. The accurate detection and prediction of VRUs (Vulnerable Road Users) and their location in parking areas is entirely dependent on high-precision environment detection and interpretation. This is possible with radar, LiDAR and camera sensors and intelligent analysis of their data. For more robust data, the developed algorithms are evaluated under different weather conditions.
Outcome: Improved detection and prediction of Vulnerable Road Users
The research findings and methods have been integrated and trialled in the Expleo AVP (Automated Valet Parking) demo vehicle in which various test manoeuvres have been carried out, including driverless parking in a parking space with a crossing pedestrian dummy. With their expertise and the existing test opportunities, ASM Assembly Systems GmbH & Co KG, Expleo and the Forschungsinstitut C-ISAFE want to take a step closer together towards the implementation of automated driving.
