On Electric Vehicle Alert for Detection and Emergency Response

Abstract

Research and/or Engineering Questions/Objective This paper summarises the activities to be carried out within the project recently approved by the European Commission to develop effective warning systems to be implemented in electric vehicles particularly to protect vulnerable pedestrians such as visually impaired people and the elderly. The project, entitled eVADER from ‘Electric vehicle alert for detection and emergency response’, is currently sponsored by the EC with grant no. 285,095 and it combines the efforts of an international consortium made up of Universities, Research Institutes, Tier-one suppliers and OEM’s. One of the important objectives of the project is to recognise that recent studies suggest that vehicles, driven in electric mode, either hybrid or pure electric vehicles, are considerably quiet and, thus, that they constitute a safety hazard for pedestrians and bicyclists in traffic. It is claimed that such vehicles are not acoustically perceived due to the power unit being exchanged from a combustion engine to electric motors; something that essentially cuts away all power unit noise and leaves tyre/road noise, the latter of which is the same as for similar-sized vehicles with combustion engines. Actions have been taken by the US and Japanese governments as well as within international bodies such as UN/ECE and ISO, with the expected outcome that “minimum noise” of vehicles shall be measured with a standard method and legal limit values for such “minimum noise” shall be established. Methodology Recent findings reported in NHTSA Technical Report (September 2009) suggest that pedestrian and cyclist crashes involving both electric vehicle (EV) and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) driven vehicles commonly occurred on roadways, in zones with low speed, with higher incidence rates for EV and Hybrid EV (HEV) or EV when compared with internal combustion driven vehicles (ICE). The study showed that for vehicles moving slowly or stopping, backing up or entering or leaving a parking place the HEV was about two times more likely to be involved in a pedestrian accident than ICE vehicles. Similar trend was also found for cyclists, particularly at intersections. Accordingly, special concern is given to noise at speeds below 20 km/h for which the problem is expected be the worst and where not enough data is available. Results eVADER will investigate the interior and exterior soundscape of electric vehicle for safe operation, considering driver’s feedback, feasible pedestrian reactions, driver and pedestrian warning systems and pedestrian safety. The project will also analyse innovative methods to improve the acoustic detectability of electric vehicles in urban scenarios. The project will define solutions to warn vulnerable users of a nearby moving vehicle while providing means for heightening the awareness of drivers in critical situations. Among other’s some of the most important areas covered by eVADER will be: (1) Optimum warning signals definition to induce correct driver reaction for safe operation. (2) Adaptation of the warning signals to the real in-service vibro-acoustic environment. (3) Optimum warning signals definition for pedestrians in close-to-accident situations. (4) Adaptation of the warning signals to real urban and exterior noise. (5) Integration of the generation of acoustic warning signals with in-vehicle intelligent systems data such as external microphones, vehicle speed (CAN) or Advance Driver Assistance (ADAS) systems. (6) Use of in-vehicle complementary information to improve directivity, timing, intensity, modulation and frequency characteristics of the warning signal, depending on real close-to accident scenario. (7) Optimum warning signals maintaining the quietness of residents. Limitations of this study The project is quiet ambitious because it must combine, psychoacoustic knowledge, electro-acoustic design of highly directive acoustic sources, state-of-the-art ADAS systems and other in-vehicle intelligent systems and integrate all of them to build up a clever warning system that will detect pedestrians and will act selectively when any of them are in a close-to-accident situation. This will guarantee that this warning system will no increase the noise pollution in cities. What does the paper offer that is new in the field including in comparison to other work by the authors? The concept of integrating ADAS and in-vehicle intelligent safety systems with a sophisticated and highly directional acoustic source is a novel concept not presented before. Conclusions The project analyses innovative methods to improve the acoustic detectability of electric vehicles in urban scenarios. The project also defines solutions to warn vulnerable users of a nearby moving electrical vehicles while providing means for heightening the awareness of drivers in critical situations.

F2012-F07-002