NEXYAD dans le journal LES ECHOS
News
REAL TIME ONBOARD RISK ESTIMATION
CORRELATED WITH ROAD ACCIDENT
REAL TIME ONBOARD RISK ESTIMATION CORRELATED WITH ROAD ACCIDENT :
AN ENTIRELY SOLVED PROBLEM AND A PRODUCT ALREADY AVAILABLE FOR DEPLOYMENT
by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Measuring road safety in the context experienced by the driver is a topic of interest for several activities :
. car manufacturers, who can inform the driver of potential dangers
. autonomous vehicle developers who need to prove that the driving actually minimizes risk of accident.
. fleet managers and insurance companies who wish to measure the risk taken by drivers (how they drive)
. managers of road infrastructure that alway change infrastructure to adapt and lower the risk of accident
The company NEXYAD has been developing since 2001 an embedded onboard module, SafetyNex, to
estimate in real time the risk of accident.
PRECONCEIVED IDEAS ABOUT ROAD ACCIDENTS AND DRIVING STYLE
Many trials have been completed or in progress, particularly by insurance companies and fleet managers,
In order to measure what is called the « driving style ».
The assumption is that some drivers are more « nervous » than others, and that this has an impact on the accident: those that speed up or slow down quite often brutally would be « bad drivers » while those with a quieter driving style would be « good » drivers.
This assumption is contradicted by the facts. There is no statistical connection between the driving style and
the accident.
Formally, one can easily fancy very well that if a driver operates very quietly, without slowing, without
accelerating at 30 km / h, and if this driver passes through a stop road sign without braking … then the driving style is quiet but very accident-prone.
We then see that beyond the possible statistical link (that doesn’t exist), there can be no relationship of cause and effect.
All experiments that were conducted led to this result.
All those that will be conducted, based on more or less intelligent thresholding of the acceleration values are doomed to failure.
Do not confuse eco-driving and safe driving.
Driving style cannot be interpreted itself without context description :
. infrastructure shape and characteristic, on which the vehicle is traveling
. traffic (presence of other road users)
. weather conditions (visibility, grip, …)
. level of driver vigilance (distraction, drowsiness, sleep …)
NEXYAD has developed a scalable solution capable of taking into account all these factors.
SafetyNex is therefore able to estimate the risk of driving using all those variables.
Version 2.1 of SafetyNex, under deployment, takes into account the adequacy of driving style with the type and shape of infrastructure (breaks on route characteristics, turns, pedestrian crossings, intersections …).
This version has been intentionally reduced to « driving style vs infratructure characteristics », because it already gives a 90% correlation with accident and because this version is deployable at very low cost:
. on smart phone
. electronic device (developed by an automotive tier one company), without using the OBD socket)
CORRELATION OF RISK OF ACCIDENT ESTIMATED BY SafetyNex V2.1 AND ACCIDENT
NEXYAD participated in collaborative research programs since 2001, and worked then with experts from the road equipment.
In particular, SARI research program led to detecting what experts call « Break on the route characteristics ». For example, a turn with a big curve may be a danger when it arrives behind a long straight line, while the same curve will not be dangerous bend on a mountain road.
NEXYAD published a paper at the conference on road safety May 6, 2010 in Paris: PRAC 2010
Risk Prevention and Save The Conduct, Session 1 Characterization of road risk vs. infrastructure
« Evaluation du risque routier pour l’aide à la conduite ou le diagnostic de l’infrastructure », Johann Brunet, Pierre Da Silva Dias, Gérard Yahiaoui, PRAC 2010, Mai 2010, Paris.
The work that led to this publication were integrated in the available product SafetyNex. This means that by construction, the risk estimated by SafetyNex is correlated to the accident. This is true by construction, and NEXYAD conducted tests on roads, downtown, on motorways in urban areas, etc … and was able to validate this result.
PRINCIPLE OF SafetyNex V2.1
SafetyNet is a knowledge based system (expert system) which applies rules of the experts of the equipment.
These rules are stored in a rules data base in a mathematical form that can adapt to gradual actual characteristics of the infrastructure.
Required inputs are :
. the navigation map and the GPS: To examine the shape and type of the infrastructure located downstream of the vehicle (turns with their radius of curvature, points of interest like pedestrian crossing, crossroads, etc …)
. the instantaneous vehicle speed
From these two inputs, SafetyNex evaluates, by applying the rules, the adequacy of the driving speed of the vehicle to difficulty and danger of infrastructure.
A sporty driver accelerating hard, braking hard, but passing dangerous places at low speed will be scored with a low risk.
A quiet driver that passes through a stop road sing at 30 km / h without braking will be scored with a high risk.
A brutal braking cannot be considered as « bad driving » if it is necessary to avoid an accident …
We see then, that SafetyNex risk estimation is not correlated with the absolute value of acceleration, but with ACTUAL speed adaptation to difficulty and danger of the infrastructure, in real time.
Additional inputs (optional) are already scheduled, and can afford to modulate the estimated risk to increase acuracy of SafetyNex :
. grip (if one has a sensor to connect to the input provided for the purpose of SafetyNex)
. weather report (if one has the temporal and spatial information)
. atmospheric visibility (if one has adequate measure: example: a camera and the measuring module of atmospheric visibility : VisiNex)
. distance to potential obstacles (if it has an adequate sensor : eg radar, lidar, or camera with RoadNex ObstaNex modules)
. a driver distraction factor (if the driver is observed with a camera and / or if one monitors the activity of mobile phone, etc …)
All these additional inputs are already ready to be used by SafetyNex but of course, they increase the cost of deployment, involving sensors (camera, …) and additional computing power before getting in SafetyNex to process signals and images from the optional sensors.
Using SafetyNex V2.1 with only the required inputs already allows a very high correlation of the estimated risk with the accident. We recommend to implement this version, already infinitely more effective than any other onboard measurements.
The interest of SafetyNex is that the future is already assured: Moore’s Law by rapidly lowering the cost of electronics and embedded computing, SafetyNex is ready to process the additional inputs, when users want to integrate cameras and sensors.
TYPICAL USES OF SafetyNet V2.1
. Insurance Companies:
– Pay how you drive
– Predictive modeling of bonus malus: the same accident under the same conditions does not lead to the same conclusions based on accumulated historical and recording the last seconds risk SafetyNex
– Generation of a dumb risk variable, correlated to the accident, to help actuaries refine pricing (big data)
. Fleet managers
. Automotive equipment suppliers:
– Alarm on risk
– Intelligent Navigation able to advise the driver
. Engineers and researchers from autonomous vehicle:
– Driving Quality Assessment generated by the robot
CONCLUSION
Embedded estimation of road risk of accident is now a problem completely solved by a product available for deployment, SafetyNex.
SafetyNex is deployable at Low cost on:
. mobile phones
. electronic device of a Automotive Tier 1 supplier (without plugging the OBD).
And SafetyNex already planned to integrate (once the cost is acceptable) grip sensors and cameras (for example) to estimate traffic and atmospheric visibility, as well as information such as weather and driver distraction.
All of these are already processed by SafetyNex rules based system, so that the tool can quickly evoluate with each decrease in the cost of sensor elements and cost of computing power needed to compute sensors outputs.
To deploy SafetyNex, contact NEXYAD: Olivier BENEL obenel@nexyad.net +33 1 39 04 13 60
Final Day at ITS World Bordeaux
ITS World in Bordeaux has been a very intense week for MOVEO – Groupement ADAS specially for NEXYAD that received a lot’s of visits. Congress’s persons from everywhere in the world came to see our demos of road detection, obstacles detection, visibility measurement, estimation of risk for the driver in his environment, etc…
Booth B112 Moveo – Groupement ADAS
ITS France presents Nexyad
ITS France associated with VEDECOM présents NEXYAD activities and products,
and also others companies of Groupement ADAS – MOVEO.
Visit ITS FRANCE at booth C75 and NEXYAD Booth B112
NEXYAD on the booth of PSA PEUGEOT CITROEN
at ITS WORLD in Bordeaux
NEXYAD is present on the PSA PEUGEOT CITROEN booth at ITS WORLD congrès in Bordeaux
(presentation of the collaborative research project CASA – FUI Mov’eo Label)
Nexyad dans le journal Le Monde
La voiture autonome fait rêver la filière française
Un article du journal Le Monde.
«Avec les autres sociétés, nous rassemblons environ 150 personnes et réalisons tous ensemble un millions d’euros de chiffre d’affaires, soit une entreprise de taille intermédiaire. Cela nous permet de démarcher les équipementiers et les constructeurs, et de les rassurer sur notre pérennité. Seul, c’est beaucoup plus compliqué», explique Gérard Yahiaoui, le PDG de Nexyad, une PME qui développe des algorithmes capables d’agréger les images captées par les caméras afin de «voir» la route. C’est surtout l’un des principaux concurrents de la start-up israélienne Mobileye, le leader mondial de ce nouveau marché.
Opening of ITS WORLD in Bordeaux
Tuesday, first day for the Congress and already a lot of business at the Moveo Groupement ADAS Booth 112.
Booth installation at ITS WORLD in Bordeaux
Groupement ADAS (Mov’eo) installing the booth at ITS WORLD in Bordeaux
Dominique Fernier (Transpolis) and Denis Foussard (FH Electronics) installing the booth with Nexyad
Demos, real robotized car, films of ADAS use cases.
NEXYAD will show RoadNex, ObstaNex, VisiNex, SafetyNex.
ITS WORLD BORDEAUX 4th to 9th of October 2015
NEXYAD on booth B112 at ITS WORLD in Bordeaux.
From the 5th to the 9th of October, NEXYAD will show their onboard modules for ADAS of booth B112 at
ITS World Congrès in Bordeaux.
– Road detection with RoadNex
– Obstacles detection with ObstaNex
– Visibility measurement with VisiNex
– Risk/road safety estimation with SafetyNex
LINK to symposium : http://itsworldcongress.com
NEXYAD in French Magazine
NEXYAD was compared to Mobileye and considered as a serious player in the competition.
Magazine : Le Journal de l’Automobile, pp 52-54, 18 Sept 2015
« MobilEye a de la concurrence : longtemps en position monopolistique, la société israélienne a désormais un
concurrent qui s’annonce sérieux dans le domaine des algorithmes de gestion des caméras embarquées, Nexyad.
Rencontre avec les ingénieurs français qui pourraient changer la donne »
http://www.journalauto.com/lja/article.view/23321/mobileye-a-de-la-concurrence/6/services
Nexyad cité dans LES ECHOS
Onboard road safety/risk Measurement correlated to accidents
How to use SafetyNex V2.1 for Insurance applications, and for
Automotive applications (ADAS & autonomous vehicle)
by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION: Description of 2.1 SafetyNex
SafetyNex is a software module proposed by the French company NEXYAD. This module aims to match the driving style (acceleration, vehicle speed) with the danger characteristics of infrastructure.
SafetyNex development started in 2001 and benefited from three national collaborative research programs (PREDIT and FUI) that allowed NEXYAD modeling expertise of road equipment notation accident-prone infrastructure.
Indeed, the accident-prone nature of a local infrastructure, cannot be deduced from statistical studies on this local element, for the simple reason that accidents are rare events.A driver has one accident every 70 000 km.
To investigate the accident, the experts of the equipment mainly use two methods:
. aggregated statistics at national and European level : it provides large numbers of accidents and thus make statistics relevant. But heterogeneous infrastructure through Europe makes it difficult to project results on a local infrastructure that has its own characteristics, sometimes far from the average characteristic in France or Europe.
. the observation of « near misses » or « almost accident » as they are numerous : most potential accidents can be nearly avoided by drivers. Experts of infrastructure developed observatories for those danger situations and it brings useful information.
From these elements, the experts of the infrastructure have published a set of rules for predicting accidents, based on characteristics, the accident-prone characters of a piece of infrastructure.
For example, a bend may be accident-prone if its radius greatly shortens in its middle (curve which closes), but a « normal » curve may become dangerous if it comes after a long distance of straight line (this is called « break out on the pathway « ).
NEXYAD integrated all these rules in SafetyNex and has made numerous tests on real world to validate the efficiency of scoring danger.
SafetyNex V2.1 reads on-board navigation map that gives infrastructure characteristics , downstream of the vehicle, and then SafetyNex scores the relevancy of the driving style, knowing the shape of the road ahead and other important things (pedestrian pathway, …).
Note: in a higher version (already being tested), SafetyNex may also reflect the presence of other users on the road (cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians …) by coupling it to RoadNex (road detection by camera), and ObstaNex (obstacles detection by camera).
But this version will require to have appropriate computing power to process videos. The Moore law lets us think i twill be easy and cheap in 2 or 3 years.
For now, we think that adaptation of the driving type with infrastructure characteristics meets a real issue and SafetyNex V2.1 is the only available (and for sale) module in the world for performing this function.
The output computed by SafetyNex is the road safety risk, between 0 and 100%, at every moment.
It is possible to use SafetyNex in real time to alert the driver.
It also may be used off-line, aggregating the risk : SafetyNex used to complete big data with revelant variables to study the road safety risk, in a statistical way.
SafetyNex is available in three types of running environments:
. PC under Windows or Linux
. Electronic device of an Automotive Tier One Company, for the new vehicles and aftermarket
. smartphones
SafetyNex V2.1 FOR USE OF INSURANCE
Insurance Companies have several ways to use SafetyNex V2.1:
. free distribution of the SafetyNex App for smartphones to all their customers :
In this case, the business model is to seek partners who want to reduce their cost of acquiring customers online.
In fact, when you divide the advertising budget of a major retailer (Amazon, Fnac, Darty, …) by the number of purchases, there are about 30 euros (cost of a customer).
The idea of NEXYAD then is to propose a serious game that « gives » points to drivers who behave well.
These points are converted into « coupons » with one or more distributors. The drivers will go on the website in order to validate coupons by purchasing products. In doing so (spotted digitally with flash code …), the distributor will give back 15 euros : 7,5 euros for the cupons, and 7,5 euros for the Insurance Company that distributed the NEXYAD App to their millions of customers. The insurer therefore makes money and share revenue with NEXYAD and its technology partners.
This solution is particularly interesting for several reasons:
. the insurance company earns money directly on millions of purchases.
. drivers do their best to earn coupons, and therefore change their driving behavior to achieve it.
The insurer therefore modifies in a sustainable way the driving style, and contributes to the decline in the number of accidents. The Communications Department of the the Insurance company may use this fact for communicating it to the public.
. the largest distributors lower their customers acquisition costs and they can then lower their advertising budget
. the driver improves self safety, and is able to purchase more.
. distribution in an electronic device :
The electronic device has the advantage of being still operational without driver intervention.
This solution is particularly interesting for business fleets, and allows to quickly and efficiently initiate a type of pricing system « pay how you drive » that may be seen as an extension of the bonus / malus system, but with a predictive power.
. constitution of big data for actuaries:
Risk can be recorded onboard, or in aggregate, giving statisticians a new variable for more accuracy on pricing.
SafetyNex V2.1 FOR USE IN ADAS AND AUTONOMOUS CAR APPLICATIONS
The road safety risk measurement is of course interesting for automotive applications :
. SafetyNex read the shape of infrastructure downstream of the vehicle (electronic horizon), and can therefore help to choose which types of sensors are relevant.
. SafetyNex can estimate the maximum distance targetable by sensors (radar, camera, …) depending on the shape of the infrastructure (turn, climb, …)
. During a delegation of driving, the robot drives the vehicle and then SafetyNex V2.1 can estimate the road safety related to the automatic driving.
The road safety score can be used in several ways:
. Off-line: the engineers who design and develop driving delegation system uses the risk score of SafetyNex V2.1 as a feedback, and try to minimize it by successive tests.
. On-line: the risk score is used by the decision-making system to generate actions that lead to the lowest possible risk.
CONCLUSION
SafetyNex V2.1 is now available and NEXYAD is currently working on deployment opportunities worldwide at the beginning of 2016.
This module is unique and has a direct effect, if properly used, on road safety.
For more information: sales@nexyad.net
DEMO WITH SOUND IN URBAN TRAFFIC
Put the sound on for this demo with vocal explanations :
Visibility Measurement for Road Safety
Visibility Measurement for Road Safety by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Visibility is one of the structural elements of road safety. Indeed, the sense of sight is the only one that let us perceived the future path of the vehicle and then let us act on it : the driver « can see » in front of the vehicle, he predicts where the vehicle will go, and he can act on the controls (brake, steering wheel, …) in order to control the trajectory.
No other way allows us to anticipate.
If we model the task of driving with an automatic control engineering scheme, then we can notice that vision is used quite everywhere :
Vision plays a critical role in driving task, and what sizes the efficiency of this sense is « visibility ».
Visibility can be affected by many kinds of factors:
. the absence or insufficience of light (that is why the infrastructure is sometimes illuminated at night, and why vehicles are equipped with lighting.
. rain deposited on the windshield (that is why vehicles are equipped with wipers)
. mist on the windshield (that is why vehicles are equipped with demisting systems)
. humidity, fog or mist suspended in the air in the road scene.
Experts of road infrastructure add elements to enhance the visibility of the path :
. lane markings (white lines), reflective elements.
Similarly, automobile experts equip their vehicle with systems enabling them to improve visibility for the driver, but also allowing the vehicle to be more easily seen by other drivers.
We then understand that measurement of visibility is an important area of potential improvement of road safety in via ADAS.
VISIBILITY MEASUREMENT
The founders of the company NEXYAD have been working since the 80s on the measurement of visibility, early on military applications.
Indeed, it is the military who have studied since the 60’s which criteria allow human visual perception system to detect objects on their clutter.
For the military, the constant search for stealth (camouflage, for example) requires modeling the performance of the detection by human, depending on the light of a scene in the visible wavelength.
The work carried out tests on panels of thousands of soldiers, and led to predictive models for human vision of the ability to detect objects or not, depending on the image quality.
NEXYAD is one of the very few companies in the world to hold these models and have experience of their implementation for more than 20 years.
In simplified terms, we can consider that our eyes and brain need, depending on the size of the objects to be detected, a different contrast level.
We can then compare the contrast available in a scene (eg a road scene) with needed contrast to detect, , for each size of objects.
The comparison results in two scores :
. the apparent size of the smallest detectable object : as the apparent size of an object decreases with distance, it can then be deduced the maximum distance of detection for a reference object (a car, a truck, a pedestrian). Distances will obviously be different for every object because they don’t have the same size. Johnson criteria give let also estimate the maximum distance for object recognition, and the maximum distance for object identification.
. ease of interpretation of the visual scene. NEXYAD summarized this in a score computed from available and needed contrast: the Visual Quality Score (VQS).
This measure of visibility enables automotive application objectify the subjective. NEXYAD has developed two product lines from the same technology :
. a visibility test bench : VisiNex Lab https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=159
Place a vehicle on a test bench and VisiNex Lab measuring visibility among time. If there are disturbs of visibility from rain, for example (using NEXYAD RainNex rain machine, or another rain machine), then we see scores for degraded visibility. If one starts the vehicle visibility restoration systems (eg in the case where the disturbance is the rain : the wipers), then we measure the performance of the visibility restoration.
VisiNex Lab is used by the automotive industry and is still the only tool for measuring the performance of wipers, demisting system, lighting system, …
. an embedded module for ADAS : VisiNex Onboard https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=438
VisiNex Onboard measures the image quality and predicts the detection power of the driver and onboard artificial vision modules. So we get a rating of confidence for artificial vision systems.
Again, NEXYAD is the only non military company to dispose of this technology.
CONCLUSION
Every tier one company or car manufacturer should use NEXYAD modules VisiNex in order to measure performance, robustness, and reliability of their wipers, lighting, and of their camera-based ADAS.
VisiNex Onboard is currently under implementation into the asynchronous real time framework RT-MAPS.
For more information : sales@nexyad.net
SafetyNex v2.1 has arrived !
Nexyad SafetyNex module (safety level estimation for ADAS) is now running in RT-Maps from Intempora.
SafetyNex v2.1 estimates the risk taken by the driver according to the road infrastructure known by the navigation map.
Video with sound (spoken explanations)
See our Products page : https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=441
SafetyNex for Onboard Road Safety Measurement
SafetyNex for Onboard Road Safety Measurement by NEXYAD
INTRODUCTION
Car manufacturers and insurance companies both need a system that would estimate in real time the risk taken by the driver.
Most commercial applications use to consider that a driver that do not accelerate much doesn’t take risk, and that a driver that drives more sporty is dangerous.
However, insurance companies statisticians could notice that there no correlation between the driving style and the accidents.
It is completely obvious : danger comes when the driving style is not adapted to the infrastructure. So driving style doesn’t has no meaning by itself.
NEXYAD company has been working since 1995 on onboard risk estimation, and recently launched their module SafetyNex that estimates a risk which is correlated (by construction) with accidents.
SafetyNex is the result of three collaborative French research programs :
. ARCOS
. SARI
. SERA
SafetyNex measures onboard the adequacy of driving style (and in particular the speed of the vehicle) with the characteristics of the infrastructure : adequacy of the current speed and initiated acceleration to the radii of curvature of bends downstream, to the presence of downstream crossings, or pedestrian crossings, … etc.
It is possible to add to SafetyNex optional inputs such as :
. weather report,
. maximum grip
. atmospheric visibility (rain, fog …)
. distance to obstacles (coming from an ADAS system) and in this case, we use not only infrastructure characteristics but also trafic flow information that describe the way other users move on the same infrastructure.
Similarly, can be integrated into SafetyNex data from characteristics of ADAS in order to measure the adequacy of these driver assistance systems to the situation experienced by the vehicle on the infrastructure.
For example, if the vehicle has radar or camera, the data of the opening angle enable SafetyNex (which read shape of the infrastructure from the onboard navigation map) to compute the distance of geometric visibility, not for the driver, but for embedded artificial perception systems.
EXAMPLE OF USE IN URBAN TRAFFIC
The example below shows the predictive nature of safetyNex : when you get in an intersection, it’s a little before that you must slow down because you can not know what is likely to emerge from this intersection. However, when one is in the intersection, it is not dangerous to re-accelerate. This is the way that safe drivers use to drive.
Therefore, the risk score is not correlated to the value of the deceleration or acceleration but to the adequacy of speed to potential dangers of the infrastructure. You may drive sporty or lazy and have the same good or bad safety score computed by SafetyNex.
Video with sound (spoken explanations)
CONCLUSION
SafetyNex is now available for sale and is operating in the following environments:
. Framework RT-MAPS PC : This version is for automakers researchers, scientists of tier one techno suppliers, statisticians and actuaries of insurance companies. It allows real-time replay, in order to see what areas make the risk climb, it also allows to correlate the new variable (risk) with all other variables available, and for car manufacturers, it lets develop ADAS based on this module.
RT-MAPS is interfaced with the Data Base Management Systems, which is convenient to apply SafetyNex on the company’s information systems.
. electronic device of an automotive tier one company : the announcement will be made soon by the automotive tier one techno supplier.
. mobile phones (December 2015), which will allow everyone to have this road safety module.
To know more : sales@nexyad.net
Visibility Measurement for ADAS and Autonomous Vehicle
Visibility measurement for ADAS and Autonomous Vehicle
By NEXYAD
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and partial or total delegation of car control systems will integrate more and more cameras. Those cameras are used to capture video and images are inputs for obstacle detection algorithms, road detection algorithms, detection of pedestrians systems, …
However, a camera can « see » only under certain conditions, and the algorithms used to exploit image need a certain level of image quality. It is possible that some algorithms test themselves if they are in a case of good image quality or not, but in the general case, they don’t, and it is then prudent to have a qualification system that is independent of the detection systems.
The company NEXYAD has worked for years on atmospheric visibility measurement for military application, and was able to develop predictive models of the ability for a human to detect objects. This work can be easily set to pass from a performance prediction of the human vision to a prediction of performance for a machine vision system.
The models consist in comparing the contrast in the scene with the required contrast for detection and / or pattern recognition.
Such a system requires that is respected a compromise between several characteristics of the image:
. number of different gray levels (for a digital camera, it depends on the number of bits)
. size of the objects to be detected
. contrast of objects from their background
Note for Automotive engineers : a performance specification for a camera-based detection system, without giving the minimum contrast, le maximum number of pixels, the number of bits … does NOT have any sense. It is important to know that fact in order to make applications that work and application that know when they work.
For instance, we are all able to detect stars in a dark night sky : the size of objects is very small, the number of Grayscale is very low (pure black and pure white), and the contrast of objects from the background is huge.
Similarly, we are able to distinguish clouds over gray sky : the size of objects is very large, and even on edges there is no detail (no high frequency / contours), and the number of different gray levels is very large (gradual grey scale from black to white).
Between these two extremes are all possible cases, and in particular with all traffic scenes that may vary greatly from one to another :
. sunny day, overcast day, dark night, undergrowth, sunset, night in headlights, fog, rain, etc …
In addition to these technical compromise, there are criteria (eg criteria Johnson) that allow to objectify the subjective.
NEXYAD has developed a tool called VisiNex that integrates models and criteria described above, which led to two products:
. VisiNex Lab : test bench for visibility measurement. It sets a vehicle with calibrated visibility disturbances (rain machine, fog machine, …), and VisiNex Lab measures the evolution of the available visibility during the disturbance and during activation of visibility restoration systems (lighting, demisting, wiping, …).
VisiNex Lab is used to adjust the rain sensors, the wiper systems, the lighting systems. VisiNex is a world leader on this type of use : https://nexyad.net/Automotive-Transportation/?page_id=159
. VisiNex Onboard : NEXYAD took his model into onboard applications to apply and qualify road visibility along the route running (important place to qualify for the road safety applications).
VisiNex Onboard is currently being integrated into the framework for asynchronous real-time applications development RT-MAPS, and will soon be in the NEXYAD vision modules pack for ADAS and driving delegation applications.
Standard visibility on a highway scene. Degraded visibility when approaching a tunnel
VisiNex Onboard can be used in automotive application on the following topics :
. visibility measurement to control Visibility restoration systems (wiper, lighting, …)
. qualification of visibility conditions where an obstacle detection or road detection system will work properly.
The second point is important because road safety applications require to maximize the reliability of vision systems.
To know more :sales@nexyad.net
Using the NEXYAD road detection (RoadNex)
to make obstacles detection more robust
The detection of obstacles on the road, or even recognition of those obstacles, has become an
important issue for the next few years, in order to propose to the driver:
. Smart Systems for driving assistance : ADAS
. Delegation (partial at first, later full) of the driving task, to go step by step to the so-called autonomous
vehicle
NEXYAD developed a vision-based obstacle detection system (ObstaNex) that aims to offer an alternative to
the current reference product on the market (MobilEye).
We detail the general principles of detection in a previous article.
It is interesting to note that NEXYAD also developed a road detection module named RoadNex.
RoadNex indicates the edges of the rollable way (thus highlights tighter if an obstacle is wayside, this may
be useful) and also indicates the rollable flat area (surface) in front of the vehicle.
RoadNex (NEXYAD): the rollable lane detection. For a clear urban lane.
RoadNex (NEXYAD): the rollable lane detection. For a urban labe cluttered by a vulnerable road user
in motion
One can see on this picture that RoadNex, even if it does not detect obstacles (because it detects
lanes), finally finds the « negative » of obstacles.
One of the uses of RoadNex is eliminating rollable areas from possibly detected obstacles by another module
(camera, radar, lidar …): the above image.
A simple confirmation that RoadNex not colored area corresponds to obstacles detection alarms
is sufficient to confirm the presence of an obstacle and to initiate, for example, the braking.
This system of cooperation between RoadNex and an obstacle detection system (ObstaNex, other
Vision-based module, radar, lidar, …) is particularly useful in city (see pictures RoadNex above)
and on the highway :
RoadNex (NEXYAD): the rollable lane detection. Case of clear highway lane
RoadNex (NEXYAD): rollable lane detection while taking over a truck on highway
NEXYAD is currently working on a low-level fusion of ObstaNex and RoadNex in the context presented above.
To contact us sales@nexyad.net
Other NEXYAD publications about ADAS ON NEXYAD WEBSITE
. DRIVING DELEGATION : KEY ELEMENTS
. ROAD DETECTION FOR ADAS AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE : NEXYAD MODULE RoadNex V2.1
Driving Delegation: key elements
Driving Delegation: key elements for an artificial perception system
Publication of September 2, 2015
Authors : Gérard YAHIAOUI & Pierre DA SILVA DIAS
INTRODUCTION
The automotive industry starts offering ADAS, and plans to propose in the near future partial or total driving delegation systems.
Main cases to be processed first may be:
. Highway driving, where the number of events per kilometer is small because the infrastructure has been designed to minimize path irregularities (little or no turns, every car in the same direction, wide track, geometric visibility up to several kilometers, enough little interactions between vehicles, at least when the traffic is flowing).
. The city, where infrastructure complexity is very large, where interactions between the road users are very strong, making detection a difficult tasks, but where speed of the vehicle is low.
In all cases, these future ADAS require developing advanced systems of perception.
ADVANCED PERCEPTION
Perception consist in detecting objects, clustering, and possibly tracking them in their own trajectory, from selected sensors (cameras, radar, lidar, slam, ultrasound, …)
It is usually presented as several phases :
. Detection: we perceive that « something » comes off the background, but we do not know what it this is. The Johnson criteria for detection give a theoretical limit of one period, or a minimum width of two pixels to detect a stationary object.
. segmentation and tracking: when zones are detected as being detached from the background (the landscape for image processing, the cluter for a radar, …), the detection must be agglomerated to track large enough objects that may have a meaning.
. Recognition: Recognition is to be able to say what it is. The Johnson criteria for human vision is about 6 periods (for stationnary objects) which gives 12 pixels.
. identification: identification gives, in the recognized class, the precise name of the object.
Detection is by far the most complex. It is potentially based on several principles:
. breakage hypothesis : we made a number of assumptions about world geography. We choose this hypothesis and make sure they are verified for the landscape (or cluter), and not for the objects to be detected. The non-validation of assumptions corresponds to a detection.
. the confrontation of a knowledge of the landscape or cluter: Comparing the « background » as it is supposed to appear in the absence of additional objects with said background which contains objects lead to detection of those objects.
. the knowledge of the shape of the objects to be detected: in this case the detection and pattern recognition are the same. System detects an object in its environment because it recognizes this object.
Human perception jointly implements the three principles.
Perceptions systems incorporate sensors and methods of processing, and are generally effective in a frame capture conditions, and little or not effective in the other frames. For example, a camera in the visible wavelenghts (and its image processing methods), will generally not be effective at night or in fog because « you can not see anything. »
PERFORMANCE, STRENGTH, RELIABILITY
No detection system can operate in any case when dealing with a real problem in the open world.
Designing a detection system then comprises two important phases:
. extend the maximum possible number of cases where the detection system works.
. have a diagnosis that allows to know when it is or when it is not in a position to that the perception system is effective.
We talk about performance (very efficient detection of all objects of interest), strength (number of cases where the collection system remains effective), and reliability (Situational Awareness in which one is and thus the confidence that can be placed in the collection system).
These three elements, performance, robustness, reliability, should be fully known in order to cooperate collection systems (for example, a camera and a radar).
NEXYAD proposed the Methodology AGENDA for characterizing life situations, using the formalism of orthogonal plans of experiments. The recognition of cases of functioning mode can be based on the description of life situations with this methodology. This gives a theoretical and practical framework for an estimation of robustness and reliability.
Performance is measured with statistical comparison operators: in general, it is considered the output of a detection system is a categorical variable with two categories: « detected » and « not detected ». This variable must be compared to a qualitative variable of reference that also has two modalities: « Presence of an object to
be detected » and « absence of objects to be detected. » The comparison can not be made by calculating a percentage (yet it is often that performance is measured this way), but it must use tools such as contingency table, the Khi2, normalized Khi2, khi2 in the box, etc …
To extend the life situations of the domain where the system detects objects correctly, we use to make cooperate several detection systems which use complementary types of sensors (eg in fog, we will trust in radar or infrared detection, but not detection by conventional camera).
A reliable system is one that is able to answer « I do not know »: in the case of driving delegation a system that could detect all objects so powerful, robust, and reliable in 30% of the time has a great value.
The delegation of driving frees 30% time of the driver, which is a real value proposition.
SAFETY OPERATION
Safety is a discipline that encompasses many issues with the objective of ensuring the proper functioning of the system in all cases.
In particular, we must be vigilant concerning detection systems which require to have several measurement channels, such as stereovision.
If detection works only when you can have both cameras, then safety experts refuse such a system because two cameras means 2 times more likely that one fails.
We then see that perception system must have quite still usable « degraded mode » when simulating glitches sensors. A good design of a perception system for ADAS incorporates all these elements.
SYNTHESIS
The race for performance that interests the engineers is rarely the real issue in industrial systems. A system that allows to delegate the driving in 30% of cases (eg clear overcast day dry) and « knows » when there is a case for which it works or does not work, can delegate driving and release the driver for 30% of the time.
This is a proposal for a very high value for the driver.
A system that works effectively in 99% of cases without knowing precisely when it works is absolutely unusable. No manufacturer will put such a system in operation for road safety applications.
The company NEXYAD has been working on these issues for twenty years, especially on road detection, obstacles detection, measurement of visibility (to describe cases where the detection is reliable, for example), the estimation of road safety (suitability driving style with the infrastructure).
NEXYAD developed:
. efficient and very robust basic bricks: RoadNex, ObstaNex, VisiNex onboard, SafetyNex
. a methodology for characterizing life situations in which it develops and tests an ADAS: AGENDA (Improvement performance, the recognition of cases of good performance, and validation of ADAS).
. know-how in collaboration between multiple perception systems.
Road detection for ADAS and autonomous vehicle :
NEXYAD module RoadNex V2.1
NEXYAD module RoadNex V2.1
The detection of the road is a key element of driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles.
Indeed, objects, obstacles, other road users, must be detected but also positioned relatively to the road.
The detection of the entire route, that is to say not only its markings or edges, but all the way, should enable
embedded intelligence to select appropriate action.
The company NEXYAD ihas been working on this issue for over 20 years without interruption, and has accumulated a large number of cases of road types, of coatings, in various atmospheric conditions.
This is to detect the rollable area on the road, without regard to, in a first step, lane markings.
Indeed, in Europe, there are many unmarked roads, and work on a marked road may change the markings and
make a « follow the markings strategy » dangerous.
In the images below you can see on the left a typical French countryside road with no markings, and on the right image, new markings was achieved while former markings still strongly visible.
These cases are quite common on our European roads and a driver assistance system, or a driving delegation
system, must at least understand such cases and if necessary tell the driver to cope with it by himself.
The NEXYAD road detection module, RoadNex V2.1 is a brick to go further to cope with these cases :
RoadNex V2.1 should be coupled with road signs detection, road markings detection, obstacle detection, in order to build an intelligent perception system. RoadNex is then a key module of such a system.
The road detection module NEXYAD, RoadNex V2.1 is available as a component into the asynchronous real time framework RT-MAPS : See HERE
Nexyad started building a Validation Database for ADAS
Nexyad started building a Validation Database for ADAS based on methodology AGENDA: the ultimate way to control performance, robustness, and efficiency range of your camera_based ADAS.
To read more : HERE
