|
WHILE
there have been active experiments with
"truck platooning" in America,
in which groups of driverless trucks have
been road tested, European transport scientists
are now thinking in terms of incremental
steps towards making this an everyday reality.
Much
of the work is being done at the Germany's
Technical University of Munich, and was
on recently on display at "UR:BAN"
conference last month at the Messe Dusseldorf
trade fair grounds.
Such
projects demonstrate that new technologies
are going to change road traffic in the
future and that vehicles will soon to be
on our roads without drivers.
Given
this, it is reassuring to know that even
the proponents of such a brave new worlds
readily admit that the process is more evolutionary
than revolutionary. "In my opinion,
it's going to be years if not decades before
automated driving will be happening on our
roads on a large scale," said one leading
scientist.
Yet
the Technical University of Munich presented
a number of items that would, if implemented,
change the face of European trucking and
in a wider sense the way the world drives.
First
comes a Heads-Up display on the windscreen
of the future. Then there are the tactical
behaviour of cyclists and phased traffic
lights for trucks to consider. These are
among the many things being studied by European
transport scientists.
More
and more people are moving into cities,
they say. At the same time, they need to
remain mobile. Now scientists are working
on ways to make urban traffic safer and
more efficient.
Today,
31 partners from industry and academia are
working on three main topics to this effect:
Cognitive Assistance, Connected Traffic
Systems and Human Factors in Traffic.
"Driver
assistance systems are there to help people
primarily without distracting them from
their main task of driving," said Klaus
Bengler, professor from the Institute of
Ergonomics and head of the Human Factors
in Traffic Project.
The
goal of his project is for drivers to remain
active participants in what is happening
on the road. If these systems detect that
a collision will soon be unavoidable and
the driver is not reacting, the machine
will intervene, for instance by activating
the emergency brake.
"One
of the biggest tasks in the research project
is to get the timing of this reaction just
right," said Prof Bengler.
Optimum
communication between man and machine is
important. "In the road traffic context,
we now have at our disposal more information
than anyone could have dreamed of,"
he said. "Different systems like route
planning and collision avoidance must be
finely attuned and must not interfere with
one another."
Part
of his integrated concept is presenting
information in ways drivers can see and
feel. To this end, scientists at the Institute
of Ergonomics are working on an information
system within the components in the Heads-Up
display, in which the accelerator and dashboard
are mutually aligned.
A
Heads-Up display is one where the information
is fed into the windscreen and appears to
hover in front of the vehicle. "Drivers
can keep their eyes on the road and still
perceive the information that's being provided,"
said Prof Bengler.
The
way the information is presented must be
clear, which is why the scientists divided
the display into three clusters. Dynamic
information such as the vehicle's current
speed is displayed on the left, everything
to do with the driver assistance system
appears in the middle, and navigation is
on the right.
Page 1 2
[Next]
|
