Fusion of cooperative localization data with dynamic object information using data communication for preventative vehicle safety applications

Cooperative sensors allow for reliable detection, classification and localization of objects in the vehicle's surroundings-even without a line-of-sight contact to the object. The sensor principle is based on a communication signal between the vehicle and a transponder attached to the object of interest-a pedestrian, for example. Thereby, localization information is gathered by measuring the round-trip time-of-flight (RTOF) and evaluating the angle-of-arrival (AOA) of the incident signal. After that, tracking algorithms are used to recover the kinematic state of the object providing a basis for situation assessment. This paper investigates possibilities and benefits of extending this principle by the communication of information from inertial sensors which are locally attached to the transponder. Furthermore, this paper presents a robust approach for fusing the localization data with dynamic object information using the Dempster-Shafer theory. The approach is evaluated by performing real-world experiments for the analysis of pedestrian accidents.