Continental and Deutsche Telekom develop collision warning system to protect pedestrians and cyclists

Continental and Deutsche Telekom are developing a system that warns of accidents between connected vehicles and cyclists – or other vulnerable road users such as scooter riders and pedestrians. The solution calculates the paths taken by cars and bicycles. If they are likely to cross at the same time, the system warns both road users via mobile communications in real-time. Initial road tests have been successful, a release shows.

“Vulnerable road users in particular are often overlooked in road traffic. What’s more, according to the European Road Safety Council, more than 80 percent of accidents between pedestrians or cyclists and motorized vehicles end fatally for the vulnerable road users. Thanks to real-time networking and collision warning, we therefore give cyclists or pedestrians more visibility. In this way, we reduce serious accidents, injuries, and traffic fatalities,” says Karsten Michels, Head of Research and Advanced Development at Continental.

The collision warning system is based on satellite positioning (GPS), acceleration sensors, mobile communications, and cloud computing. The car transmits its position and acceleration values to the cloud via mobile communications. The cyclist also sends this information to the cloud via smartphone. It calculates the paths for the next five seconds and sends a warning to the car and the cyclist’s end user device if a collision is imminent. To ensure that this information reaches both road users as quickly as possible, the nearest cloud computer in the mobile network to the location of the possible collision is always used.