Chapter 1 - Introduction

Abstract

Intelligent Transport Systems—understood as the systems that apply the technologies of Electronics, Automatic Control, Computer, and Communications to the field of transport, to aim at the reduction of accidents, energy savings, pollution reduction, and the increased efficiency of the transport system as a whole—can be studied in a very broad way. An intelligent vehicle could be defined as a vehicle that is capable of taking information about its state and/or the environment, processing that information, and making decisions, providing information, and/or acting. These kinds of vehicles include high performance technology such as onboard sensors, positioning the vehicle on a digital map, monitoring of the near environment using onboard sensors, reception of distant information through wireless communications, and monitoring of the driver and the interior of the vehicle. All of them are nowadays active research lines.