Integrated vehicle´s lateral safety: the LATERAL SAFE experience

The applications developed and the evaluation results of the EU funded automotive safety PReVENT IP subproject LATERAL SAFE are described. The data synthesis algorithms that aim at achieving a reliable representation of the objects and their kinematics, in the lateral and rear fields of the host vehicle are first presented. The fusion architecture implemented is a distributed sensor-level fusion system that processes centrally the tracks of four independent tracking systems: a rear-looking long-range radar, two lateral short-range radar networks and a lateral-rear synthesised image processing unit. Then the functionalities of the three applications of the project are briefly described including lane change aid, lateral collision warning and lateral and rear area monitoring. The paper ends with a short overview of the technical evaluation results and the conclusions drawn after the end of the project.