In-vehicle Safety Warning System to Facilitate Driver’s Lane Change Decisions

Abstract

Lane changing is the driving maneuver that moves a vehicle from one lane to the adjacent lane with the same direction of travel. The behavior of lane changing is one source of road accidents. The driver should carefully evaluate the distance from the surrounding cars before changing to another lane. Implementation of sensors offer an opportunity for better decision making for safer and efficient lane change process. Situational awareness is provided to drivers in real time within the coverage zone of the sensors. In this work, two-level warning system is implemented to provide cautionary and imminent warning in the event a driver intends to perform lane change. Experimental results reveal that the in-vehicle safety warning system can urge drivers to re-assess their lane change decision through visual and audible warning based on the ISO17387:2008 standard.