Automatic System for Roadway Safety – ASRS 01

CALIN CIUFUDEAN, CORNELIU BUZDUGA

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Stefan cel Mare University

13 University str., 720229, Suceava

ROMANIA

Abstract: - One of the objectives of the European Union (EU) as well as of other state authorities is to

create safe roads for vehicles all over the EU space. Considering the rapid development of road traffic

and, regrettably, an increase in the number of accidents, the system presented in this paper has the role

of informing road traffic participants about infrastructure and environmental conditions. Hardware

support, software support as well and further development of the ASRS 01 system is presented.

Keywords: - Automatic system, microcontroller, roadway, safety, sensors, wireless communication.

Received: January 23, 2023. Revised: September 22, 2023. Accepted: November 7, 2023. Published: December 5, 2023.

1 Introduction

The condition of the weather and the roadway has

always been of great importance in terms of road

traffic safety. A large number of road accidents

were due to bad weather or road conditions, but

most accidents could have been avoided if the road

users had been warned in time of the situation they

were in and if they had adapted to the conditions on

the road that were waiting for them. The main

weather conditions that have caused a large number

of road accidents over the years are fog and hail.

The main problem is not the fog or the fog, but the

failure to inform motor vehicle drivers and the

failure to adapt to the situation in question, because

if drivers were informed of the dangers on their

route, accidents could be avoided. The autonomous

system for informing road traffic participants is

designed in such a way that as many road traffic

participants as possible can be informed in real time

about traffic conditions, to streamline and increase

its safety. This paper presents the software support

of the autonomous system for informing road traffic

participants, the development environment, and the

programming language in which it is made,

everything is completed with a prototype of this

system. This paper presents the ease and simplicity

of implementing this system on a large scale

because it has a low-cost price and increases road

traffic safety by a large percentage because road

traffic participants have time to adapt to the

appropriate infrastructure and environmental

conditions of the situation in question. Compared to

all the systems that appeared on the market up to the

given moment, the present work differs from them

in that the system is autonomous and automatic. The

system is autonomous because the entire system is

operations and decisions are made by a

microcontroller, thus eliminating the human

operator.

For example, radio stations Highway Advisory

Radio Stations (HAR) of the United States

Department of Transportation inform participants of

the automotive traffic about the weather and traffic

jam conditions. These are usually located near

highways and densely populated locations, such as

big cities and tourist locations. These systems are

licensed by the Federal Communications

Commission (FCC) in the United States of America

to deliver a maximum of 2nV/m over 1.5 km. (0.93

miles) using up to 10 W to reach the limits when

using vertical antennas (most commonly used).

Evacuation systems in critical cases, such as those

near chemical or nuclear plants, are allowed to use

higher power in case of emergency. These systems,

in special situations such as extreme emergencies of

people evacuation can reach 100 W [1-4].

This concept is not limited to the United States,

passenger information stations broadcast in Canada,

France on certain highways also in Australia, Japan,

in Italy where we meet Iso Radio, a radio station

produced by RAI on the frequency 103.3 MHz

frequency modulation (FM) [5-7].

Another example of such a system is Traffic Radio,

a digital radio station from England. This radio

station broadcasts traffic information for England's

main roads and highways, run by the Global Traffic

Network for the Highways Agency. Traffic Radio

can be heard on digital radio stations (Digital Audio

Broadcasting - DAB), 1386AM, but also on the

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Internet. It is available 24 hours a day, every day of

the year and the information is updated every 10

minutes during peak hours. It has to offer news

about regional traffic, reports on specific areas, and

national-level news [8, 9]. The information comes

from the National Traffic Control Centre, which has

1,000 CCTV cameras and 3,750 sensors, and the

seven regional command dispatches of the

Highways Agency. Traffic Radio is not intended to

compete with local UK radio stations, most of

which also broadcast traffic information. This

service runs 24/7, so drivers can immediately listen

to the latest traffic information. All these systems

presented above have the disadvantage that they

need personnel to retrieve the information and pass

it on [10, 11].

Another technology used in this area is the Traffic

Message Channel (TMC). The technology transmits

traffic and road information to traffic participants.

For traditional FM radio stations, digital encoding is

usually done through the FM-RDS system. Radio

Data System (RDS) is a communications protocol

that standardizes various types of transmission

information, including date and time, station

identification, and announcements. Radio Broadcast

Data System (RBDS) is the American version of

RDS. Originally a project of the European

Broadcasting Union (EBU), the standard has

become an International Electro-Technical

Commission (IEC) standard. Both standards

transmit data at 1187.5 bits per second on a 57 kHz

subcarrier, so there are exactly 48 subcarrier periods

per data bit period. The RBDS/RDS subcarrier is set

to the third harmonic of the 19 kHz FM tone to

minimize interference and intermodulation between

the data signal, the FM tone, and the 38 kHz DSB-

SC differential signal. TMC can also be transmitted

via satellite radio or digital radio stations [12, 13]. It

contains a list of 2048 phrases representing events

that can be decoded by the TMC receiver in the

language spoken by the user. Some expressions

describe isolated situations, such as accidents, while

others describe serious incidents that result in traffic

jams. In Europe, location is integrated into maps

provided by navigation systems from companies

such as NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas. In some

countries, such as the United States or Canada,

private commercial companies own location tables

and use TMC services for profit. Using the display

module, different warning messages related to

detected weather phenomena can be displayed. Data

is transmitted to the control center via a GPRS

modem. For example, the radar video recording

module (SIV-R), equipped with an industrial

computer, records the speed information of the radar

and the image of the camera; when the speed

information indicates that the set limit has been

exceeded, the image captured by the camera is

associated with the speed value, date and time, and

location. The information is saved together.

Information is stored on solid-state drive (SSD)

storage media, ensuring storage of at least 1,000

images. The computer's connection to the Internet

allows the photos to be automatically transferred to

a central server for storage and processing of the

information that the operator can access for viewing

and use. The video recording module with flow

monitoring SIV-AT is equipped with an industrial

computer to collect weight information from the

road traffic monitors and images from the camera;

when the weight information indicates that it has

exceeded the set limit, the image captured by the

camera is saved together with the weight value, date

and time, and location information. Store

information in SSD storage media, ensuring at least

1,000 images are stored. The HSDPA USB stick

connects your computer to the Internet,

automatically transferring images to a central server

for storage and processing of the information.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.

A hardware description of the ASRS 01 system is

given in Section II. The software support is

described in Section III, while Section IV concludes

the present work and gives a few directions for

future research on the discussed topics.

2 Hardware Support of the ASRS-01

The block diagram of the ASRS-01 is displayed in

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. The block diagram of the ASRS-01.

The components of this system are a development

board with a microcontroller Arduino ATmega328;

an MP3 Trigger with a micro SD flash memory on

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which mp3 format files are stored and the Trigger

plays them by outputting to the audio jack; FM

Modulator transmits the signal received from the

MP3 Trigger on FM radio waves; temperature and

humidity sensor; relay and motor module; IR

distance sensor. The system shown in Fig. 1 has the

role of monitoring the state of the roadway and road

conditions with the help of a microcontroller and a

series of sensors. The information received by the

sensors is processed by the microcontroller and

transmitted further, in the form of recorded audio

messages, by radio to the drivers of the vehicles that

come within its range on a certain preset FM

frequency. This system tries to improve traffic

safety by warning the driver of the dangers and road

conditions ahead so that he can change his driving

style and adapt to the road conditions appropriate to

the situation in question. The ASRS-01 system

consists of a development board with a

microcontroller that takes all the information from

the environment with the help of three sensors

(humidity, temperature, and distance). The Arduino

Duemilanove has several facilities for

communicating with a computer, another Arduino,

or another microcontroller. The ATmega328

provides UART TTL (5V) serial communication,

which is found on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX).

An on-board FTDI FT232Rl centers USB serial

communication and FTDI drivers (included with the

Arduino software) and provides a virtual software

COM port on the computer. The Arduino software

includes a serial monitor that allows plain text data

to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX

and TX LEDs on the board will turn on and off

repeatedly when data is being transmitted via the

FTDI chip and the USB connection to the computer

(but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1).

A Software Serial library allows serial

communication with all pins on the Duemilanove.

The ATmega328 also supports I2C(TWI) and SPI

communications. The Arduino software includes a

Wire library to simplify the use of the I2C bus, and

for SPI the SPI library is used [14 - 16]. With the

help of the temperature and humidity sensors that

are integrated into a physical capsule, the

microcontroller will take the temperature and

humidity from the surrounding environment, and

with the help of some algorithms in the program, it

will determine if the fog or fog conditions are met.

The IR distance sensor is attached to the mobile part

of the engine control assembly, also having the role

of checking if there are pits or unevenness on the

road surface. The engine control assembly includes

two relays that control the direction of the engine

and the IR distance sensor that has the role of

determining the return and stop position of the

engine. All this information from the sensors is

processed by the microcontroller, which sends

further to the MP3 Trigger a set of instructions to

access the MP3 Trigger's micro SD flash memory

where the warning and information messages

recorded in mp3 audio format are found. Depending

on the instructions from the microcontroller, the

MP3 Trigger can play the following warning and

information messages:

- Display temperature from -20 to 50 degrees

Celsius with an accuracy of 1 degree Celsius.

Example: "Temperature: 23 degrees Celsius";

- Display humidity from 0 to 100% with an

accuracy of 5%. Example: "Humidity: 45 percent";

- Fog warning. When the conditions of fog, a

relatively low temperature, and high humidity in the

air are met, the MP3 Trigger will play the message:

"Warning fog!";

- Pole warning. When there is relatively high

humidity in the air and the temperature is below the

freezing point of water, the MP3 Trigger will emit

the message: "Attention pole!";

- Unevenness warning. After the IR distance sensor

scans the road surface, if it finds a bump or a

pothole it will issue the following warning: "Caution

bumpy road!".

Furthermore, the MP3 Trigger emits an audio signal

that reaches the FM modulator, the latter having the

role of transmitting the messages on a pre-set FM

frequency.

3 Software Support of the ASRS-01

Arduino uses the Processing development

environment based on the C/C++ programming

language. As a hardware project, Arduino uses the

Wiring language and development environment.

The Arduino development environment makes some

minor transformations to ensure the correctness of

the code in C or C++. The program files file is then

loaded onto the board: and transmitted via USB or

over the serial connection via the boot loader that is

already on the chip or with external programming

hardware.

For example, the Sharp distance sensor is a

component that can be used with Arduino to

measure the distance to various surrounding objects.

The SHARP GP2D120XJ00F proximity sensor is

only effective between 3 and 40 cm. In this case, the

sensor is attached to a mechanism that moves with

the help of a motor and is used to detect unevenness

and control the direction of rotation of the motor.

We exemplify the broadcast program in the memory

of the ASRS-01 system as follows:

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Fig. 2. Generalized activity diagram.

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Setting the MP3 Trigger volume is done as follows:

Serial.write('v'); // set volume command

Serial.write(20); // volume value. 0 (zero) maximum

volume to 64 minimum volumes

The mp3 files on the microSD memory card must be

named in the format TRACKxxx.mp3, where xxx =

001 to 255 (e.g. TRACK001.mp3,

TRACK010.mp3, etc.). Other file name formats will

not work. Although "only" 255 files are possible,

their size is not limited [17]. An example of a

program that plays 10 seconds of all tracks on an

mp3 is as follows:

void setup() {

Serial.begin(38400); //initialize serial

communication at 38400 bps

Serial.write('v'); // set volume command

Serial.write(20); // volume value. 0 (zero)

maximum volume to 64 minimum volume

}

void loop() {

piece = piece + 1;

if (piece > 255) piece = 0;

Serial.write('t'); // command play track

Serial. write(track); // the value of the track to be

played (between 0 and 255)

delay(10000); //waits 10 seconds then moves to the

next track

4 Conclusion

In this paper, an autonomous system for informing

road traffic participants is presented. On a large

scale, the role of this system is to automate the way

of informing road traffic participants, thus

increasing safety and smoothing of traffic. Because

this system is autonomous and automatic, it can

work around the clock, day and night, unlike the

previous systems in which qualified staff is needed

to operate the system. The appearance of the

"human factor" decreases the stability of the system

because of fatigue, stress, and even routine errors

that lead to the wrong information about motor

vehicle drivers. The simplicity and low-cost price of

this system make it easy to implement at the

national level, or even internationally, if the

messages sent are in an international language.

As can be seen from the hardware description, this

system is autonomous because it can be powered by

batteries, so it can be placed anywhere, without the

need for power cables, and because all devices are

of low power, the batteries can last a long time

before they are recharged, compared to the other

systems where a radio broadcasting station is

needed which has a relatively high consumption.

Also, the system is automatic, with all operations

and decisions being made by the microcontroller,

while the others require experienced personnel to

operate and maintain the system.

Another important feature is the system’s versatility,

as it can be easily implemented in railway or even

naval traffic. Due to the low price of all devices, this

system can be implemented on a large scale, thus

covering a larger information surface and safer and

more fluid car traffic.

A main characteristic of this system is its autonomy,

being powered by batteries that must be recharged at

certain periods. In the future, batteries could be

replaced or recharged by green energy sources such

as photovoltaic and wind energy. Thus, warning

messages related to fog, poles, and the condition of

the road are issued, but as a future development,

ASRS 01 system will deliver more information

about the ambient environment and the safety of the

road by modeling it with Deep Learning algorithms

with the help of several sensors such as vehicle

wheel adhesion sensors, road roughness sensors,

control system to avoid aquaplaning of the vehicle,

dynamical tire pressure control system correlated

with the condition of the road.

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Contribution of Individual Authors to the

Creation of a Scientific Article (Ghostwriting

Policy)

The authors equally contributed in the present

research, at all stages from the formulation of the

problem to the final findings and solution.

Sources of Funding for Research Presented in a

Scientific Article or Scientific Article Itself

No funding was received for conducting this study.

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare

that are relevant to the content of this article.

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