Evaluation of wave propagation effects for detection of vulnerable road users

The protection of vulnerable road users (VRU) is a key issue of future driver assistance systems. An important point is to determine whether a VRU is visually hidden to the driver. This additional information is essential for the driver to prevent an accident or to reduce its severity. We show that by using a transponder attached at the VRU, wavelength dependent diffraction effects can be utilized to distinguish between visible and hidden VRUs. Several diffraction measurements were carried out taking place in open space areas with simple big scattering objects and in different road traffic scenarios demonstrating a reliability of nearly 100%. If future driver assistance systems for detecting VRUs are complemented with automotive electronics which enable distinction between visible and hidden VRUs, accidents can be avoided.