Intelligent environments for transportation

Intelligent vehicles have ability to receive alerts. They have multiple sensors that monitor the surroundings. Thus intelligent vehicles can receive alerts proactively when collision is sensed as about to happen (passive safety).

Intelligent vehicles also have intelligent driver assistance controls that control the vehicle (active safety) to avert a collision. Collision alerts and driver assistance controls for safety include;

• Collision detection and warning alerts
• Intersection collision warning if approaching traffic at intersections
• Obstacle warning if other vehicles or animals are in a vehicle's path
• Lane change warning if other vehicles are in adjacent lanes when the driver's intention to change lanes is sensed
• Lane departure warning if vehicle is drifting out of the lane when the driver's intent to change lanes is not sensed
• Road departure warning if the vehicle is running off the road ( from driver drowsiness)
• Forward collision warning if vehicle is too close to a vehicle in front
• Rear impact warning if vehicles behind are too close
• Driver assistance controls
• Intelligent speed control to control vehicle speed based on speed limit communications from the intelligent infrastructure
• Intelligent lane keeping control to control steering if the vehicle lane departure is sensed without the use of a turn signal.
• Intelligent stability control to control throt t les or brakes when vehicle instability is sensed

In-Vehicle Surveillance with Platform DVR
In intelligent transportation environments, vehicles can have real-time communication capabilities built inside a digital video recorder (DVR). Fleet management, entertainment, and security can all be provided on the DVR itself.

The vehicle can be tracked through the onboard GPS module and provide security through multiple cameras. These DVRs can be used for vehicles such as buses, cash vans, emergency vehicles, and trains.

The DVRs can be built with the Intel processors like the Intel® Atom™ processor. The DVR has Wi-Fi, 3G, and GPS communications along with four-channel real time H.264 video capture and hardware compression. The DVR platform utilizes an onboard H.264 codec chip to convert captured footage into high quality video.

This platform can be built using Intel embedded processors, which utilize less energy, giving off less heat, making the DVR platform a fanless system. Besides the I/O for the DVR, the platform has both HDMI and VGA video outputs. It has gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 3G mobile communications, and a GPS module for tracking.

The DVR also includes wide power input range (10–36V) and 12VDC/1 Amp out to power peripherals such as cameras and sensors. Other hardware specifications include an internal 2.5-inch hard drive bay, CompactFlash socket, four USB 2.0 ports, two high speed serial UARTs, an RS-485 serial port, alarm/ relay, and 1 GB DDR2 memory IC onboard (expandable to 2 GB via So-DIMM).

The DVR system can support Linux and Windows, and the SDK includes features for alarm I /O, streaming, RS-485 control, and display.