Radar sensors and sensor platform used for pedestrian protection in the EC-funded project SAVE-U

The automotive industry and sensor suppliers have responded to the European Commission's request to reduce the road fatalities by 50% until 2010 and they are developing advanced systems for road safety. Short range radar (SRR) sensors in the 24 GHz domain allow coverage of the surroundings of the vehicle, complementing the existing 77 GHz radars used for adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems since 1999. This paper deals with a special variant of pre-crash systems, namely: "pre-crash for vulnerable road users protection". The target is the protection and collision mitigation of pedestrians and bicyclists versus a vehicle. To achieve trigger information for automatic protection systems (like automatic braking or other reversible systems) as well as warning information for drivers, a high performance sensor platform is necessary. This paper presents approaches from the EC-funded project SAVE-U (sensors and system architecture for vulnerable road users protection) of the fifth framework program of the European Commission. The sensor platform consists of short range radar sensors, cameras in the visible and infrared domain. The focus is located on a high- and low-level- data fusion architecture to fulfill the strong requirements. The intension of this paper is mainly to describe the 24 GHz short range radar sensor development for the detection capability of pedestrians in ranges up to 30 m and the sensor fusion technique.