Reinforcing Traffic Safety by Using CAM to Verify Velocity Accuracy

Abstract

The benefits of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) span a range of areas, such as road safety and service reliability. Thus, traffic accidents can be avoided, and ultimately human lives can be saved. As C-ITS disseminate in-vehicle information, an error in the disseminated velocity accuracy may cause accidents, particularly in the automated and autonomous driving contexts. Hence, it is vital to detect these errors and warn vehicles about the inaccuracy of the speed reported by the vehicle in the C-ITS Cooperative Awareness Message (CAM). To illustrate the potential of our solution, we present one use case with platooning green light priority and another to save the life of a cyclist when it jumps into the lane of a vehicle without signaling or without enough space to do so. Our solution integrates a Roadside Unit (RSU) with a velocity detection device to enforce the accuracy of the disseminated velocity from a vehicle using C-ITS. We compare the velocity disseminated by a vehicle, via CAMs, with the velocity acquired from a standard deployed "speed detection device". To show the feasibility of our proposal, we emulate a vehicle sending and receiving C-ITS messages in a virtualized environment. The RSU receives C-ITS messages to get the disseminated velocity of a vehicle and, if needed, warn that the disseminated velocity is inaccurate. Focusing on our experiments, it takes less than 5000 to process the information and report the inaccuracy. Additionally, our work introduces a data calibration warning that could be needed by autonomous vehicles.