International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
On the Realization of Autonomous cars in
diverse conditions
Abhishek Patnaik1 and Pratik Tiwari2
1
B.Tech Student, Dept. of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, SRM University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu,
India
2
B.tech Student, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, SRM University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
ABSTRACT
Automation has revolutionized the entire world intending to make human existence simpler at the same time well
ahead of time memorial. In this techno-savvy realm every day in automation comes with a new innovation trying to
be a part of our life. However, this magnificent improvement comes at the cost of rising side effects which
essentially covers accidents (owing mostly to human errors), fuel price hikes, and damage to mankind and natural
resources thus hiking complications. This necessitates better and modified autonomous systems to improve human
existence standards. An attempt to address these issues with objective of enhanced simplicity and safety is proposed
as an autonomous or driverless car design with aided features. The proposed design aims to bring into light the
usage of autonomous cars in comparison to the existing cars and reflects the significant features and related
changes it offers. Through this work, the design and mandatory doctrines of proposed autonomous car are
comprehensively communicated. Basic factors viz., road, weather, overtaking, existing traffic conditions are
thoroughly analyzed and selected special features are added and to design the autonomous car as per the worst
environmental and physical conditions possible. With the presence of self-sustaining cars in automation domain, it
is widely expected to bring drastic increase in present safety levels monetarily, naturally, reduction in causalities,
thefts and crime control along with simplifying world around us and to play a major role in future automation.
Keywords: Automation, autonomous car, vehicle-communication, object-detection, safety
1. INTRODUCTION
Automation is an important part of human existence which has contributed incessantly to simplify our lives. From time
memorial, automation domain has gravitated from carts to supersonic jets to in recently autonomous or driver-less
implying to co-relate with our surroundings. Self-sustaining or autonomous car are widely believed to be capable of
fulfilling human transportation needs similar to the standard existing cars. Being driverless, they are made proficient to
sense the environment and navigate without the human input with the aid of electronics techniques like radar, LIDAR
sensor, GPS, camera. The sole reason of their existence is to overcome the shortcoming of present day automation with
enhanced safety and simplicity levels.
(a)
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International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
(c)
Figure 1. Data representation of fatal accidents and related casualties in major cities in India (a) Northern region (b)
Southern region (c) Central region
The alarming rise in number of fatalities (please see fig.1) from last few decades owing to present automation demands
superior and well controlled systems. The vision to modify the automation industry with an autonomous car is actively
pursued following the classical achievement by Mercedes Benz in 1980. A simple driverless van was devised and
driven for few kilometers with speed could range up to a maximum of 100 km/hr. This lead to leading automobile
industries like Volvo, Renault, Audi, BMW, and General Motors etc. started working on autonomous car. These
industries have contributed with their own techniques in the field of driverless cars. Volvo have defined awareness with
vehicle to vehicle communication, Audi introduced automatic parking & traffic jam pilot, Mercedes introduced
distronic plus in which driver is warned by visual and acoustic signal. All the above mentioned works have reflected in
advanced pace of autonomous cars being realization on the road. All these significant contributions are different aspects
which are certainly mandatory for an autonomous car and over time have resulted in a commercially available
autonomous car as open air shutter with viable maximum speed of 12.1 miles per hour in USA. Having established that
the autonomous cars are much better options than the existing ones and have a broader role to play in future however,
upon careful introspection, one can notice that there are aspects and conditions which are yet to be addressed in view of
an autonomous car. Hereby, in the proposed design an attempt is made to cover the untouched aspects of the existing
autonomous car technology to make it commercially verifiable option in future automation. The entire proposed design
of the work is developed by considering worst possible situations for the autonomous cars to perform and sustain. A
busy Indian road and associated circumstances were thoroughly considered for the proposed design with a futuristic
view of having an autonomous car in a developing country like India.
2. PROPOSED DESIGN
The vision of a driverless car is accomplished with incorporating essential changes for basic needs viz., road, weather,
overtaking, parking, speed control and prevailing traffic conditions. Furthermore, in comparison to existing cars,
special attention has been laid on additional mandatory features viz., lane Analyses, traffic lights detection, object
detection (living and non-living), fuel analysis, vehicle to vehicle communication, and absence of driver (to avoid
human errors). Almost all of above mentioned features are not present in modern day cars. The efforts are put together
to have a basic car which can realize necessities and is affordable (cost effective) to a wider section. The aspect wise
exploration of entire design is discussed below.
a) Lane Analysis
Lane analysis in automation is one of the most common and important aspect to be taken care of especially for selfsustaining cars. For a car without driver it is made possible using devices like laser and camera. Up till now
autonomous cars are tested for the roads which are well planned and structured however, for places where the
unstructured roads have good proportion it is yet to be articulated. In the proposed design, autonomous cars are
specifically conversed with unstructured roads. Figure 2 shows the schematic of lane analysis for proposed model. The
basic extension technique adapted for the image analyzing and collecting information for the lane formation is Hough
transformation. The technique works by capturing imperfect instances of objects by a voting procedure. This voting
procedure is carried out in a defined space, from which information about specified object are obtained as local maxima
in a so-called accumulator space that is explicitly constructed by the algorithm for computing the Hough transform.
Lane detection is done through the details available on the road. In cases of lane disappearance from the road these left
over sign are the key to compute the image after analyzing and converting it into a complete path to be followed. The
proposed design can process the unstructured road also along with other natural problems like rain and fog.
Volume 3, Issue 9, September 2014
Page 263
International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
Figure 2. Schematic of Lane Analysis
Further it is defined in the proposed design that the lane analysis will advance the technique of overtaking as the source
car have to switch as well as come back to its original lane. It is also important to notify the vehicles behind while
changing the lane for overtaking maneuvering. This makes the design more effective than the existing ones.
b) Overtaking
A driverless car is mostly expected to overtake while in use. Safe overtaking is expected to have vehicle crossing another
vehicle safely well aware of vehicle coming from behind from opposite direction. At the same time, the overtaking
aspect of driving is also associated with being major cause of the road accidents. For instance, the health and safety
authority have confirmed India as the country leading the list of the fatalities caused by the road accidents (please refer
fig.1). In the proposed design, systematically maneuvering and overtaking is accomplished by a developed algorithm
with due consideration to the reliability of the car. Figure 3 highlights the overtaking scenario by the proposed model. In
this algorithm, the source car first detects the vehicle ahead and calculates the distance using ultrasonic sensors and
measures the relative speed. A stereo camera is utilized to detect the vehicle by using edge detection technique. In case
of vehicle approaching from other end viz., in two lane road systems, the source vehicle detects and moves within safe
distance checks the speed of the incoming vehicle and then enters the second stage of decision for overtaking. The
decision to overtake primarily depends upon the calculated speed and is taken spontaneously within selected distance
from the front vehicle. The time difference between source vehicle and vehicles coming from behind as well as from
opposite direction is measured. If the detected speed lies in the speed interval defined in algorithm then the time
difference is compared by the source vehicle and the upcoming vehicle. Before the source car overtakes, it has to
acknowledge about the vehicle’s distance from the vehicle ahead of source vehicle so that the source car safely overtakes
and return safely to the same lane at a safety distance from the car behind. It is important to note that, this method could
be very effective in detection and prevention of road accidents.
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International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
Figure 3. Schematic of overtaking by an autonomous vehicle
c) Vehicle to vehicle communication
To avoid road accidents and related losses, the most important criteria is definite communication between two vehicles.
Communication between two vehicles is largely affected by overtaking, switching of lanes, road traffic, human crossing
etc. The existing automation systems are made to adopt to significant methods which still remains questionable. This
alarming and essential part of driving in proposed autonomous cars is adjusted with Doppler’s effect. According to the
Doppler’s effect the ultrasonic wave are ejected to detect any objection in the path. The wave path is found to be
disturbed by any object in between the source while moving in towards or in opposite direction. Hereby, vehicles
communicate using ultrasonic waves which are send from the car and have a receiver of a defined pitch. The pitch is
usually defined from vehicle to vehicle and receives the waves at a particular frequency.
Figure 4. Schematic of vehicle to vehicle communication
Once the signal is received from the vehicle the appropriate decision is taken. With this, the important factors like
speed of vehicles in a closed range and corresponding motion will be noted. The entire conceptualization is explained
in figure 4 for careful understanding. The addition attribute of vehicle to vehicle communication is that it assist other
Volume 3, Issue 9, September 2014
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International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
vehicles coming behind for the object detection such as stray animals, pits, projections and pedestrians. Furthermore it
also inform about the signs that are present on the roads alike traffic signals. Theoretically, this is the most effective
and reliable method and if implemented would be of great help in preventing accidents owing to prior information
because of proper communication.
d) Object Detection
The concept behind this technique is to map the environment and identify the still and moving objects around and take
safety decisions for movement of the car. The most challenging part of object detection emerges when entering in the
most crowded urban places where all kind of detection problems such as detection of pedestrians, detection of vehicles
and stray animals during night has become more difficult to perform. Also during heavy rain and fog the visibility of
the road becomes low and gets difficult to judge the surrounding around the vehicle. In the proposed design, the object
detection is accomplished by an algorithm by using a high end camera. The camera detects the objects using edge
detection technique by forming blocks around it.
Figure 5. Schematic of object detection in autonomous vehicles
Figure 5 details the object detection technique used in proposed model. During rainy conditions and fog it is difficult to
acquire clear image of objects and form edge therefore thermal imaging camera are used in for such conditions. For
situations like unstructured roads, heavy traffic, pit formations a robust algorithm is required for thermal imaging
camera to identify vehicles and objects during day time. Various methods have been implemented to detect unstructured
roads and potholes such as background subtraction, texture based detection, edge detection and pattern recognition
which will be used as per the conditions .So the present design focuses on a common method for robust detection and is
competent to cover all these aspects and will be immensely useful to detect the obstacles on the road. Also the
information about the detected objects are communicated to alert the vehicles behind in order to prevent fatal accidents.
e) Smart Interface
With the smart interface, the proposed design intends to make autonomous cars more secure and user friendly. Similar
to smart phones, the autonomous car’s mode of function will totally depend on the program that is defined for the car
as per the user. This will provide higher security from thefts which in itself is a major issue till date. The car will have
the data saved electronically only for the accustomed users in the aid of a password known only to the user. The car
could be opened only by this password and in case of three wrong entries a message would float directly to the main
user. This will bring revolutionize the safety of the cars. Furthermore, taking one step further as an additional feature
the car will have a hard disk. The hard disk can have important files and folder of the user which only he/she can
access. The drive will be protected by biometric authentication and a password. This system will be used by the
Demographic data and will be access by only the registered family member. The security is specially considered and the
drives, folder all are protected and access only by family members.
Volume 3, Issue 9, September 2014
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International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)
Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org
Volume 03, Issue 09, September 2014
ISSN 2319 - 4847
3.CONCLUSIONS
With the livid view of enhanced safety and simplicity in automation world, a novel method in the form of a conceptual
design is proposed for autonomous cars precisely aiming at mainline issues along with incorporation of special features.
Aspects yet to be addressed in existing autonomous vehicles are touched and explored in the elementary form. Special
care has been taken to make the vehicle more simple and cost effective keeping in mind requirement of automation
world post 10 years. The proposed design of driverless car is expected to be effective even with essential task like
overtaking, lane analysis, objection detection and vehicle to vehicle communication in the worst possible scenario. It is
extensively anticipated to bring severe increase in present safety levels monetarily, naturally, reduction in causalities,
thefts and crime control along with simplifying world around us and to play a major role in future automation.
References
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Schmidhuber, J., "Prof. Schmidhuber's highlights of robot car history” IDSIA.CH. N.p., n.d. Web, 2011.
CNET-CES “Audi A7 takes the Wheel at CES 2014”.(As of 31/08/ 2014)
Auto evolution “A Short History of Mercedes-Benz Autonomous Driving Technology”.2013. (As of 31/08/2014)
Mercedes Benz.”S500 Intelligent Drive”.2013.(As of 31/08/2014)
Emerging technologies, “Autonomous Cars- Not if but when” IHS Automotive 2014
Anup Doshi, “Community Driver Intends: A Layered Architecture for Cooperativ Active Safety Applications”
2010 13th International IEEE Annual Conference on Intelligent Transport System.
[7] M.A. Bauer, “V2Eye: Enhancement of Visual Perception from V2V Communication” 8th Annual IEE Consumer
Communication and Networking Conference.
AUTHORS
Pratik Tiwari is undergraduate student in Department of Aerospace Engineering, SRM University
Chennai. He is interested in broad field of heat transfer and combustion. He has worked on convective
heat transfer along with exploring physics in impinging jets. Presently he is investigating smoldering
combustion and automation.
Abhishek Patnaik is undergraduate student in Department of Instrumentation and Control
Engineering, SRM University Chennai. He is interested in broad field of automation and in Image
processing.
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