Vehicle Situational Awareness Technologies

This paper presents the elements of an ongoing research program to develop, test and commercialize selected new technologies for smart cars to perform automatic signaling of a vehicle's intentions and to improve driver situational awareness at traffic intersections. The research builds on several previous projects and, as a guiding principle, is based on non-cooperative onboard technologies, allowing for a practical implementation that is designed to offer early benefits to equipped vehicles. The paper presents several of the technical trade offs in technologies for the systems and architectural considerations that were taken into account during the design phase.