DEVELOPMENT OF AN EVENT-REPORTING INTELLIGENT VEHICLE NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR AREAS WITH URBAN CANYONS

Abstract

Common vehicle navigation systems employ mostly GPS satellite positioning to track the vehicle's position and velocity. The tracked position can be dynamically shown on a digital map or automatic route guidance can be performed. So-called “Intelligent GPS Vehicle Navigation Systems”, simply speaking, are extensions of common GPS vehicle navigation systems. It can be said, that they are GPS vehicle positioning systems with embedded intelligence. From the authors' point of view, an intelligent system should be able to detect the changes of the real-world situation and to give an appropriate response to the changes. Therefore, an Intelligent GPS Navigation System should have all the basic functionality of a common GPS navigation system, and be able to detect and react to the conditions that are of concern of the driver or the vehicle manager. To achieve this, an intelligent GPS navigation system should be integrated with different types of sensors and communication devices that are able to monitor and perform event reporting to the vehicle's real-word situation. Hence, event reporting is an essential component of an Intelligent Vehicle Navigation System (IVNS). With regard to the navigation part of the system, it is essential that the vehicle's trajectory can be continuously tracked to provide necessary guidance for the driver. However, for GPS-alone systems a reliable position determination in urban canyons may not always be possible, therefore it is necessary to investigate the integration of other vehicle tracking devices and methods.After the discussion of the potential applications of an event reporting IVNS, a more detailed description of a prototype system will be given. Such a system is being developed in a research project at the Department of Land Surveying and Geoinformatics of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Finally, field test results of the prototype IVNS conducted in Hong Kong are presented and the integration of wireless location services for positioning and a new GPS-alone position tracking method for urban canyons are briefly discussed.