Realization of a driver's warning assistant for intersections

A driver's warning assistant (DWA) is an automatic copilot system that is designes to support the driver in actual traffic situations. In contrast to systems that concentrate on autonomous driving, a DWA presents warning message to a driver instead of acting directly upon the vehicle or the environment. In order to study the feasibility of a DWA's functions and the acceptance of DWA's warning messages, we investigated urban traffic situations, especially approaching an intersection. Based on a system architecture of a DWA, experimental results obtained with a DWA implemented in a passenger car (BMW 735 iL) will be discussed. The experimental car has been equipped with on board facilities to evaluate image sequences and vehicle data in real-time on a transputer network.