Method of early pedestrian warning in developing intelligent transportation system infrastructure

Abstract

The development of highly automated and driverless vehicles keeps gaining pace, which creates a need for ensuring pedestrian safety in an environment with a much lower noise level. This issue is further exacerbated by the popularity of various gadgets, which pedestrians may use to listen to music tracks while crossing the road. One of the advanced features of modern headphones (headsets) is active noise control, which cancels out any ambient noises and makes warning pedestrians through sound signals all the more challenging.Intelligent transportation systems offer an option to control the media system of the pedestrian’s personal gadget. However, it is not efficient to move the standard sound signal thesaurus into the personal space centered around the pedestrian’s headphones, as the pedestrian may be unable to identify the signals quickly and correctly. This calls for a special context-oriented solution.This paper outlines the architecture of an early warning system, proposes a methodology for creating a sonification thesaurus, and summarizes the results.