Dual Radar System for Predicting Collisions at Uncontrolled Intersections

A lane-crossing turn at an uncontrolled intersection requires observation of traffic travelling in two directions. Two low-cost radars were used for estimating the time-of-arrival of vehicles approaching from each direction of a two-lane main road. The uRAD USB v1.2 radar allowed for both range and velocity estimation of said vehicles. The triangle FMCW wave-form was selected for single-lane monitoring with information extracted using a custom processing algorithm. The suitability of the hardware and processing algorithm was assessed using simulations. A roadside test rig was used to capture both radar data and video footage. The radar estimates were compared to both video footage and cellular GPS measurements. Results indicated that the system could determine the time-of-arrival of approaching vehicles with sufficient accuracy while realtime processing produced results at a sufficient rate for a driver to act on the information. The detection of left-lane vehicles was occasionally impeded by those on the right lane. Changing the height of the system did not mitigate this impedance.