Traffic Situation Estimator for Adaptive CruiseControl

Abstract: The Traffic Situation Estimator is a method that analyses vehicle behaviour by monitoring and counting the surrounding traffic. This is done with image analysis that keepstrack of several vehicles through consecutive frames under good lightning conditionson a straight one way road. The behaviour of the detected vehicles is then analysedin a state machine driven counter to estimate the traffic rhythm and determine if thedetected vehicles are approaching, getting away, have been overtaken or have overtakenthe ego-vehicle. Depending on the result the Traffic Situation Estimator suggest different reactions helping the driver to follow the traffic rhythm which will improve safetyand the energy efficiency. If the user is not following the traffic rhythm the applicationwill give advice to the user how to adapt to the traffic rhythm by driving faster, sloweror optionally suggest to overtake vehicles ahead.