Pedestrians hidden from the sight of vehicles, cyclists passing in front of the car, buses suddenly approaching, managing city traffic can become a difficult task. Out of all the infrastructure, streetlights could make urban traffic safer and give automated vehicles an overview of the situation. This has been the subject of the MEC-View research project. The project required the streetlights to be equipped with video and LIDAR sensors, and then use advanced mobile technology to provide vehicles with critical information in real time, allowing them to detect obstacles – be they other cars, bicycles or pedestrians – quickly and reliable.
After more than three years of development, the project is ready to present its results. The partners of the project, which has received 5.5 million euros in funds from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) of Germany, have been Bosch, leader of the consortium, Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, Osram, TomTom, IT Designers and the universities of Duisburg-Essen and Ulm. The city of Ulm, an associate partner, has been the testing ground for streetlight sensors and connectivity technology for these three years. The knowledge gained from the project will now be used to further develop automotive technology, automated driving and mobile technology. In addition, the built infrastructure will be available for future research projects.
Bird’s eye view beats ant’s eye
Reaching up to six meters in height, the streetlights rise above the road traffic. Thus, they provide an accurate bird’s eye view of what is happening at busy intersections. This is knowledge that automated vehicles will need in the future. While a vehicle’s sensor systems (cameras, radar, and LIDAR) provide an accurate 360-degree view, the ground-level view is not always sufficient to detect a pedestrian hidden by a truck, a vehicle emerging from a hidden ford, or a bicyclist approaching from behind and changing lanes quickly.
“Because the vehicle itself cannot see around corners or through walls, we use sensors installed in street lamps to extend the field of view of the vehicle’s sensors,” says Dr. Rüdiger Walter Henn. , who leads the MEC-View project in the Bosch consortium leader. The project partners have developed the corresponding hardware and software for this purpose; the system processes the images and signals from the infrastructure sensors, combines them with high-resolution digital maps (HD maps) and transmits them wirelessly to the vehicle. This data is fused with the car’s own sensor information to create an accurate picture of the situation, including all relevant road users.
Wireless data transmission
Advanced mobile technology enables the transmission of sensor information with extremely low latency. While the MEC-View project has used LTE mobile communications technology in a configuration optimized for this purpose, in the new 5G standard real-time data transmission is a basic function. The central task of latency-optimized mobile communications is not only the near-instantaneous wireless transmission of data, but also the processing of that data as close to the source as possible. This task is performed by special computers, known as mobile edge computing servers (or MEC servers), that are directly integrated into the mobile network.
Ultimately, the data from the sensor located in the streetlights are combined with the data from the vehicle’s environmental sensors and high-precision digital maps. From there, they generate an environment model that includes all the information available on the current traffic situation, and make it wirelessly available to vehicles. In the future, facilities such as city traffic control centers could be equipped with such servers, so that they can share the data with all vehicles, regardless of manufacturer, and with other road users.
Merging seamlessly with traffic
In Ulm, the project partners have been testing, since 2018, the interaction of automated car prototypes and infrastructure sensors in real traffic conditions. An intersection in the Lehr district of Ulm is known for its lack of good all-round visibility. Now, the streetlights are equipped with sensors to help automated vehicles manage the crossing. Cars approaching the difficult intersection from a side road should merge onto the main road.
Thanks to recently developed technology, the automated car is able to recognize road users right out of the box and can adapt its driving strategy accordingly. As a result, the vehicle tackles gaps in main road traffic and merges smoothly, with no need to stop. Such development will make urban traffic not only safer, but also more fluid. The built infrastructure will remain in Ulm, where it will be available for use in further research projects.
