Given the complexity of mobility in large cities and the search for better traffic management, autonomous driving is one of the future key elements in improving traffic. To provide an optimal solution to the current situation, and to improve the safety of urban traffic, some manufacturers such as Bosch have focused on an element that, a priori, may not be as important as others: street lamps.
What is MEC-View?
The German manufacturer’s project is called MEC-View and its operating architecture is based on street lamps equipped with video and lidar sensors, which is a type of radar, and which, combined with today’s advanced mobile technology, allows us to offer relevant information to vehicles in real-time, such as detecting any type of obstacles in an agile and efficient way.
The partners that have worked on this project, which has been in progress for more than 3 years, have been Bosch, the consortium leader, Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, Osram, TomTom, IT Designers, and the universities of Duisburg-Essen and Ulm. The latter city, Ulm, has been the testing ground for this technology, the experience of which will allow us to continue with the improvement and development of automated driving and mobile technology.
Through cameras installed on streetlights, up to 6 meters high, a 360-degree view is obtained, allowing all the information collected to be transferred to the automated vehicles that circulate through the streets and highways of this city. This type of camera is required at high altitudes to be able to achieve a complete view that, at ground level, may not collect all the incidents or situations generated, such as a vehicle leaving a ford. The purpose of these cameras is to expand the range of vision that a vehicle’s sensors cannot reach.
From the information generated by the sensors themselves and that obtained by the sensors installed in the streetlights, a complete view of the real-time situation of the road is obtained. All of this will help to achieve excellence in autonomous driving and consequently improve driving for all drivers.
More ongoing projects
Other companies, such as Uber, have developed technologies with similar characteristics, such as the Multinet system. This offers, like the MEC-View project, the detection of obstacles, even predicting what decision will be made by pedestrians, cyclists, or other vehicles that cross their autonomous vehicles.
Using artificial intelligence, this system can predict, at the moment, what is the most possible trajectory of the object, as well as develop a plan for it. The great difference of this system, compared to other similar ones or the MEC-View itself, is that MultiNet is based on the uncertainty of the behavior and movement of objects. It is capable of human reactions and, by collecting data before use, in real-time, defines a prediction of behavior and refine it to obtain the possible potential trajectories. Thanks to this system, Uber has confirmed that it exceeds, in precision, other options on the market, with its system being between 9% and 13% more precise.
The improvement of safety on the road for drivers and pedestrians is, once again, a priority for leading technology companies, which seek to minimize risks and ensure that we can move more and more with greater peace of mind. Autonomous driving continues to be one of the great future goals of the automotive industry.