We at Indianweb2 have time and again carried out articles about how driverless cars are the future, but that's the thing they're still in the future. So, what about the present? Two Indian researchers, Sachin Sharma and Dharmesh Shah, from the Department of Electronics and Communication, at Gujarat Technological University, in Ahmedabad have successfully incorporated the future with the present by incorporating some of the safety features of driverless cars into present day conventional vehicles.
Writing in the International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems, the two researchers have described a real-time automatic obstacle detection and alert system for driver assistance.
During their research, the dynamic duo found out that an increased incidence of road accidents in the Indian subcontinent correlates highly with the increasing wealth and the surge in vehicle numbers that the development has resulted. However, the road infrastructure in the country isn't developing at the same pace as traffic demands especially when it comes to the roads that connects the country's villages to towns. They also found out that even on those infrastructure lacking raw roads, the Indian cow occupies a large share and represents a significant obstacles in the way of car drivers.
Though car performance and fuel economy are considered vital for marketing of a vehicle, more and more car companies have now also started dedicating more attention towards safety, security and comfort. This is because, according to the World Health Organization, road traffic collisions are the leading cause of death of people between the ages of 15 and 29 years old.
According to statistics available, even though India has the second largest road network in the world still 1 in 20,000 people die here in a road traffic accident and 12 in 70,000 are seriously injured in such accidents. Hence, car companies in the country need to place high focus on technology to reduce this incidence while designing their vehicles.
The obstacle detection and alert system conceived by Sharma and Shah makes use of a dashboard camera and an algorithm that can help the system determine whether an object near the vehicle is an on-road cattle and whether its movements represents a danger to the vehicle. If it is of any potential risk, the system even comes with an audio and visual indicator that gets triggered and forces the driver to apply the brakes whether or not they have seen the animal. According to the duo, the algorithm requires some optimisation and they still have to work out some kinks related to the issue of night-time driving.
So, while driverless cars are our future, but by the time they become a mass reality, the mankind needs to embrace the same safety measures in our present day vehicles as well.
[Top Image: ibtimes]
Writing in the International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems, the two researchers have described a real-time automatic obstacle detection and alert system for driver assistance.
During their research, the dynamic duo found out that an increased incidence of road accidents in the Indian subcontinent correlates highly with the increasing wealth and the surge in vehicle numbers that the development has resulted. However, the road infrastructure in the country isn't developing at the same pace as traffic demands especially when it comes to the roads that connects the country's villages to towns. They also found out that even on those infrastructure lacking raw roads, the Indian cow occupies a large share and represents a significant obstacles in the way of car drivers.
Though car performance and fuel economy are considered vital for marketing of a vehicle, more and more car companies have now also started dedicating more attention towards safety, security and comfort. This is because, according to the World Health Organization, road traffic collisions are the leading cause of death of people between the ages of 15 and 29 years old.
According to statistics available, even though India has the second largest road network in the world still 1 in 20,000 people die here in a road traffic accident and 12 in 70,000 are seriously injured in such accidents. Hence, car companies in the country need to place high focus on technology to reduce this incidence while designing their vehicles.
The obstacle detection and alert system conceived by Sharma and Shah makes use of a dashboard camera and an algorithm that can help the system determine whether an object near the vehicle is an on-road cattle and whether its movements represents a danger to the vehicle. If it is of any potential risk, the system even comes with an audio and visual indicator that gets triggered and forces the driver to apply the brakes whether or not they have seen the animal. According to the duo, the algorithm requires some optimisation and they still have to work out some kinks related to the issue of night-time driving.
So, while driverless cars are our future, but by the time they become a mass reality, the mankind needs to embrace the same safety measures in our present day vehicles as well.
[Top Image: ibtimes]
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