Toward vision-based intelligent navigator: its concept and prototype

Proposes a novel concept of an intelligent navigator that can give a driver timely advice on safe and efficient driving. From both the current traffic conditions obtained from visual data and the driver´s goals and preferences in driving, it autonomously generates advice and gives it to the driver. Not only can operational-level advice be generated, such as emergency braking due to an abrupt deceleration of the vehicle in front, but also tactical-level advice, such as lane changing due to a congested situation ahead. Two main components of the intelligent navigator - the advice generation system and the road scene recognition system - are explained. A three-level reasoning architecture is proposed for generating advice in dynamic and uncertain traffic environments. Online experiments using the prototype system show the potential feasibility of the proposed concept.