U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations
| Project Information | ||
| Project ID: | FHWA-PROJ-09-0061 | |
| Project Name: | Next-Generation Vehicle Positioning in Global Positioning System-Degraded Environments for Vehicle Safety and Automation Systems | |
| Project Status: | Completed | |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2009 | |
| End Date: | March 31, 2013 | |
| Contact Information | ||
| Last Name: | Gibson | |
| First Name: | David P | |
| Telephone: | 202-493-3271 | |
| E-mail: | david.gibson@dot.gov | |
| Office: | Office of Operations Research and Development | |
| Team: | Trans Enabling Technologies Team [HRDO-10] | |
| Program: | Exploratory Advanced Research | |
| Project detail | ||
| Project Description: | The next generation of safety and vehicle automation will rely on precise positioning, yet global positioning system (GPS)-based positioning is hampered by blockages of the GPS signala broader approach is needed that does not rely exclusively on GPS. However, there is no one "silver bullet;" therefore, this proposed work seeks to achieve a major improvement in vehicle positioning performance by developing a multifaceted approach to achieving precise positioning, even in situations in which the GPS signal is inadequate due to a dense tree canopy, building shadowing, or other factors. The work builds on previous work done by the partners in other domains to apply these techniques to future safety and automation applications. Three key technology areas hold promise individually, and the research intends to show that a combined, integrated system is even more powerful by exploiting the strengths of each technique. First, terrain-based localization (based on precise measurements of vehicle pitch and roll, combined with wheel odometry) can be readily used to find the vehicles absolute longitudinal position within a premapped highway segment, compensating for drift, which occurs in dead-reckoning systems in long longitudinal stretches of road. Second, visual odometry keys upon visual landmarks at a detailed level to correlate position to a (visually) premapped road segment to find vehicle position along the roadway. Both of these preceding techniques rely on foreknowledge of road features; in essence, a feature-enhanced version of a digital map. This becomes feasible in the "connected vehicle" fixture, in which tomorrows vehicles have access to quantities of data orders of magnitude greater than todays cars, as well as the ability to share data at high data rates. The third technology approach relies on radio frequency ranging based on Dedicated Short Range Communications radio technology. In addition to pure radio frequency ranging with no GPS signals, information from radio frequency ranging can be combined with GPS-range measurements (which may be inadequate on their own) to generate a useful position. | |
| Goals: | The key project objective is that global positioning system (GPS) data can be better processed if compressed. | |
| Test Methodology: | Algorithmic testing | |
| Partners: | U.S. Department of Transportation: Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA); Role(s): Other stakeholder | |
| Expected Benefits: | The expected benefit is the improved operation of global positioning system. | |
| Related URL(s): | http://wwwcf.fhwa.dot.gov/exit.cfm?link=http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~dmbevly/FHWA_AU_EAR2/ |
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| Project Findings: | New algorithms and ways of handling global positioning system (GPS) data were discovered. | |
| FHWA Topics: | Research/Technologies--FHWA Research and Technology | |
| TRT Terms: | Global Positioning System Operations Research Transportation Automobile Navigation Systems Radio Frequency |
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| FHWA Disciplines: | None |
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| Subject Areas: | Transportation (General) |
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