Collision Avoidance System Using Laser Beams

This paper describes a vehicle collision avoidance system using laser beams. First, our system estimates the position in which the vehicle will be 1 second later, and projects it onto the road surface by laser beams. Second, our system captures positions of the each laser beams using a special camera installed in the vehicle. And the system calculates the difference between the positions on normal roads and that of on abnormal roads like an obstacle on the road. By using our system, we are able to identify bumps, hollows and obstacles on the road surface with a high accuracy. Additionally, our system is able to detect the laser beams of other vehicles, so by detecting the laser beams of other vehicles, we are able to judge whether or not the vehicle will collide, even if the incoming vehicle is not visible at a blind corner. We assert that our system is effective in many situations, such as head-on encounters at a blind corner, merging roads and changing lanes. In order to evaluate the validity of our system, we have evaluated the detection rate of the laser beams, the obstacle detection rate and the collision avoidance rate with other vehicles. Higher rate of success in our tests obtained, even if environments with high luminosity that are difficult to detect laser beams