Friday, February 13, 2009

I spy ice spy

Continental Corporation introduced "Ice Spy" in a recent press release. From the press release:
"Hanover, February 2009 – In the cold months of the year, black ice surprises motorists time and again. This is clearly reflected in the accident statistics. According to the Federal Office of Statistics, black ice and snow or ice were at the root of 5,230 accidents involving personal injury in 2007. To prevent drivers from being caught unawares by the danger, the international automotive supplier Continental is working on bringing an intelligent early-warning system to production readiness. The system will warn drivers following behind a vehicle so equipped of icy road conditions up ahead"
Although a bit vague on the details, the system utilizes temperature sensors to detect ice when the vehicle passes over it. Black ice is especially tricky for motorists as it is highly transparent which makes it hard to detect as this video illustrates.



The press release mentions that slippery conditions can already today be detected by analyzing the vehicle dynamics, I assume for example wheel slip. Coincidentally, today I also read a paper from the Finnish technical research center VTT on the topic of ice and water detection:

Kutila, M. "Road State Monitoring for Cooperative Traffic Safety System." Scientific activities in transport telematics 2008, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. p. 24-27. Download report

Their approach is based on the fact that light reflected off of ice or water has less horizontal polarization. Using near-infrared cameras and image analysis they show that ice and water can be detected in front of the vehicle.

Detecting slippery conditions before passing over them is of course preferable to detecting it when you're on top of it, Continental's sensors does not provide this by themselves. However this is where car-to-car communication comes in:
"In the future, car-to-car (C2C) systems will provide valuable service in enabling vehicles to communicate with other vehicles and with the traffic infrastructure. It will make it possible for a vehicle detecting black ice to inform the vehicle behind it of this danger.”
Both Continental and VTT are part of the SAFESPOT project that investigates cooperative safety services.