2 Technical Approach ................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Sensor Architecture ......................................................................................................10 2.2 Omnidirectional lens and the MEMS mirror enabling scanning.....................................11 2.3 Novel omnidirectional optics with a plastic lens............................................................12
2.3.1 Omnidirectional lens............................................................................................................. 12 2.3.2 Lens material ........................................................................................................................ 12 2.3.3 MEMS Mirror....................................................................................................................... 13 2.3.4 The receiver and Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) integration........................................... 15
3 Laser scanner development ........................................................................................ 17 3.1 Requirements and user needs ........................................................................................17 3.2 Specification and architecture .......................................................................................21
7 MiniFaros work plan .................................................................................................. 30 7.1 Overall strategy and general description........................................................................30 7.2 Project Timeline ...........................................................................................................32 7.3 Work Package list.........................................................................................................33
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Block diagram of the low-cost miniature Laser scanner. ........................................................... 11 Figure 2: Concept of a novel omnidirectional optics -the new scanner working principle........................ 11 Figure 3: Projection of an omnidirectional lens......................................................................................... 13 Figure 4: ‘Honeycomb-structure’ to reinforce the mirror plate. Backside view of the mirror. .................. 15 Figure 5: Cross-section view of the hermetically packaged scanning mirror. ........................................... 15 Figure 6: Concept of a novel Time to Digital Converter (TDC) to be integrated in the laser radar
receiver. ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Figure 7: Accidents distributed by car segments ....................................................................................... 17 Figure 8: Accidents distributed by car segments ....................................................................................... 19 Figure 9: ADAS – user interest in targeted size vehicle segments............................................................. 20 Figure 10: a biaxial system with separate receiver and sender lens and a coaxial system based on
one single lens ............................................................................................................................ 21 Figure 11: SW architecture & object detection algorithm ........................................................................... 22 Figure 12: Detailed architecture of the infrastructure-based system............................................................ 23 Figure 13: Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems application areas and the position of Laser scanner
Table 1: Accident types for cars. Possible driver assistance systems and potential for MiniFaros laser scanner. .............................................................................................................................. 18
Table 2: Accident types for trucks. Possible driver assistance systems and potential for MiniFaros laser scanner. .............................................................................................................................. 19
Table 3: The applications targeted by the MiniFaros Laser scanner ........................................................ 25 Table 4: MiniFaros demonstration plan.................................................................................................... 28
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The wish and determination for considerably fewer accidents have been pronounced by a number of European stakeholders, like the EU programme 'Halving the number of road accident victims in the European Union by 2010'. This ambitious safety goal is to be met as scheduled. A number of reasons for that can be brought up:
the slow market introduction of Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems (IVSS);
the high cost of safety applications.
Today IVSS are limited to a small part of the premium car segment. Future safety systems must be made affordable to penetrate all vehicle segments, since small and medium size cars are the ones dominating the road traffic and thus most of the accidents.
The MiniFaros project, funded in terms of the 7th European Framework aims to develop totally new low-cost miniature Laser scanner technology that opens up the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems market for small and medium size vehicles and broadens the range of possible applications by providing low cost, small size, high performance (field of view of up to 300 degree) sensors.
This novel laser scanner will be further demonstrated and evaluated both in serving various applications in vehicle environment (not only on passenger cars but also on trucks) and regarding its generic nature as a sensor that has use outside the vehicle by providing infrastructure based road user information to at an intersection via V2I-communication.
The deliverable is organized as follows: an introduction section describes in brief the innovative Laser scanner of MiniFaros and its role in giving a boost for IVSS infiltrating in the market. In Chapter 2, there is a description of the project’s objectives in terms of technological, software (algorithms for object recognition) and demonstration issues; the technological & scientific objectives of MiniFaros and the means to achieve follow in the same section. Chapter 3 and 4 cover the system architecture and the applications respectively. Chapter 5 covers the demonstration procedure of Laser scanner, whereas Chapter 6 and 7 describe the workplan and the consortium synthesis.
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Introduction Currently underway developments, such as different Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functions that integrate in the same platform or cooperative driving systems aiming at providing drivers more time to respond to sudden changes in the travel environment, assume extensive environment monitoring, data collection and a perceptual model of the environment to be further used for various safety functions. The MiniFaros project develops and demonstrates a totally new type of laser sensor for enhanced environment perception. It is epoch-making in terms of its optics, electronics and ability to serve numerous automotive applications and even beyond. The low-cost miniature-sized Laser scanner addresses the need for further accelerating the penetration of IVSS, advancing in-vehicle safety systems performance, supporting integration and future autonomous driving. Its results will be evaluated and demonstrated in a passenger car, a truck and in the infrastructure. The project’s vision is accident-free traffic realised by means of effective environment perception systems and firmly believes that laser scanners are the predominant generic environment sensing technology. Minifaros is funded under the Information and Communication Technologies FP7 Workprogramme.
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1 Project Objectives
The MiniFaros project shall develop a totally new low-cost miniature Laser scanner technology that opens up the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) market for small and medium size vehicles and broadens the range of possible applications by its low cost, low power, small size and robustness.
The following technical objectives are defined to meet the overall objective of the MiniFaros-project:
� Create an affordable sensor with a novel optics concept for which the target of manufacturing costs is less than 40 euros. The novel Laser scanner will serve multiple applications in parallel, due to its high performance like the large field of view of up to 300 degrees. Current state-of-the-art Laser scanners cost 180 - 300 euros and mostly address just a single application with a rather high cost. Radar prices which raise up to the field of 300 degrees today are too high to really boost the penetration of ACC systems and consequently they have been limited to a small part of the premium car segment.
� Reduce considerably the size of the new sensor compared to the state-of-
the art Laser scanners. The target size of the novel Laser scanner is 4 cm x 4 cm x 4 cm, in order to allow the positioning of the sensor in various locations not only on the vehicle but also for other applications. Small sensor size brings closer the vision of a 360 degree electronic safety zone around the vehicle by allowing the use of such sensors in new locations of the vehicles such as mirrors and light housings etc.
� Remove macro mechanical scanning from the system by the utilization of
new optical components. Eventhough the rotating mirror in the Laser scanner has been proven reliable, some major OEMs do not feel comfortable with sensors having large moving parts, and furthermore the current rotating mirror also limits the Laser scanner down-sizing. Consequently, the objective is to use Micro-Electro-Mechanical systems (MEMS) mirrors in the novel miniature Laser scanner replacing DC-motors for scanning.
� Integration of a receiver and a Time-to-Digital-Converter (TDC). The aim is
to integrate the Laser scanner’s receiver and time interval measurement unit, so called TDC, as customized high-performance integrated circuits. These circuits are essential when reducing the size and cost of the sensor. The techniques to be developed will also enable the compensation of the timing error induced by the varying amplitude of the received echo by measuring the width of the received pulse with the time-to-digital converter within a single measurement event. Moreover, the measurement of several successive pulses in a single event will be
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possible, which is important in adverse weather conditions such as rain and fog.
� Integration of optical and mechanical components to ease the assembly,
reduce the number of components and furthermore the size and the price of the components to enable low cost mass production. Integration is also performed by means of using free-form and aspheric surfaces in order to reduce the number of optical components in the system.
� Develop object recognition algorithms for safety applications dedicated to
the novel Laser scanner. This includes the development of enhanced object detection and tracking algorithms and performing improved object classification.
� Show and demonstrate the novel Laser scanner serving various
applications in vehicle environment, both on a truck and passenger car. Limited user tests will be included to find out user reactions towards the new system with the selected applications.
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2 Technical Approach A main innovation in the MiniFaros project is the combination of omnidirectional lenses and MEMS mirror technology supported by a new electronics solution. Generally the deflection mechanism in laser scanners provides a horizontal angular scanning of the laser spot e.g. rotation of a mirror, to achieve its field of view. With the novel concept the scanning is not achieved by a horizontal angle deflection, since the deflection mechanism scans the projection of the surrounding environment imaged by the omnidirectional lens and not the real environment. The omnidirectional lens itself captures the complete field of view of the surroundings at any time. The applications of this laser scanner device require good direction selectivity, which can be provided with an additional component. As the beam needs to travel a circular motion on the omnidirectional lens, the component needs to be able to provide both horizontal and vertical deflection. This can be realised with a MEMS mirror. In this Chapter the main technological issues that will be addressed in MiniFaros are covered and more precisely, the sensor architecture, omnidirectional optics and MEMS mirrors. 2.1 Sensor Architecture
The working principle of the MiniFaros Laser scanner is ilustrated in Figure 1. The MEMS mirror is driven and synchronized by the control unit. The tilt angle measurement provides an angular feedback signal to the MEMS control to allow the control of the scanning. The laser is triggered by the system control. When the laser beam is actually generated an electrical signal from the laser starts time measurement at the TDC. The generated laser beam is deflected by the MEMS mirror into the omnidirectional lens, which directs the laser pulse into the environment. The backscattered fractions of the laser beam are collected by the omnidirectional lens and deflected into the receiver by the MEMS mirror. The receiver provides an electrical signal to stop the time measurement at the TDC when the backscattered laser beam is detected. The TDC determines the measured time interval between transmission and reception of the light pulse. This information is used by the processing unit to calculate the distance to the object that caused the reflection, while computed distance values are available at the interface.
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The laser beam is launched from a laser diode and guided into the omnidirectional lens by optical fibre. Then the beam is collimated and directed on the MEMS mirror by the collimating lens integrated in the centre of the omnidirectional optics. The beam is rotated by the two axes circular scanning system of MEMS mirror making the laser beam rotating 360 degrees around the optics outside in the field. From the MEMS mirror laser pulses are reflected back to the omnidirectional optics passing through the toroidal free-form lens surface. While the laser beam travels inside the lens, the propagation direction is changed as illustrated in Figure 2 from vertical to horizontal by the free-form reflective surface, the omnidirectional part of the optics.
The laser beam is now travelling towards the obstacle, on which the range is to be determined. The backscattered fraction of the laser beam is collected by the omnidirectional lens. Working in reverse, the received laser beam is directed towards the MEMS mirror by the omnidirectional reflective surface. The MEMS mirror scanning system selects the direction the receiver is looking at with synchronization to the MEMS mirror of the transmitter unit. Received laser beam fraction is focused on the detector by the collimating lens located in the centre of the optics. However, in case the beam is approaching from some other direction, it cannot enter to the detector.
2.3 Novel omnidirectional optics with a plastic le ns
2.3.1 Omnidirectional lens
The term omnidirectional lens in this case refers to the capability of the lens to rotate the laser beam full 360 degrees without rotating or moving itself (Figure 3). The omnidirectional property of the novel optics is based on free-form refractive and reflective toroidal surfaces. In the middle of the optical component an aspheric lens is integrated for a laser beam collimation or for focusing the received beam onto the detector. The other two toroidal free-form lens surfaces of the omnidirectional optics correct the asymmetrical shape and further reduce the divergence of the laser beam. 2.3.2 Lens material
The lens material can be plastic or glass depending on the project requirements. Plastic has the following advantages over glass:
• Lower price, • Lower weight, • Mounting mechanics solutions considerably easier than for glass, • Integration of several optical functions in the same part easier ending up in
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Plastic might be more sensitive to extreme temperatures than glass, however this will be taken into account in the tolerances of the lens in the planning phase. There is a way for cost effective replication of glass lenses of similar type if plastic as a material becomes problematic. Glass can be moulded in a similar way like plastic, and due to higher viscosity, the surface figure is likely replicated better with glass than plastic. The factor that could push the material selection towards glass could be better environmental resistance against humidity. The other important factor is the fact that glass has thermal expansion coefficient that is better matched with aluminium. This further reduces mechanical stresses inside the device.
Figure 3: Projection of an omnidirectional lens
2.3.3 MEMS Mirror
Preliminary examinations based on suitable range and size indicate that automotive Laser scanner applications require a ‘large’ MEMS mirror having a diameter of about 7 mm and a deflection angle of about ±15 degrees. Thus three major issues with regard to the MEMS mirror have to be solved in the MiniFaros project:
• Mirror flatness/ large mirror; • Very large tilt angle; • Automotive environment;
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The dynamic mirror deformation has to be limited to below one tenth of the chosen wavelength - a typical requirement in most optical systems, which means the deformation must not exceed 100 nm. The mirror deformation scales proportional to the fifth power of mirror diameter, and to the second power of scan frequency, while it is also linear with the tilt angle. The deformation limit of 100 nm is already reached at a mirror diameter of 3.5 mm for a MEMS mirror with a typical thickness of 60 µm. For a mirror with a diameter of 7 mm the deformation can be calculated to exceed 3500 nm. For comparison only, the largest known MEMS scanning mirror so far has a size of 6x7 mm2 and a peak-to-valley-deformation of up to 5000 nm (Nippon Signal EcoScan). The dynamic deformation can be reduced by increasing the mirror's thickness but this reduction of deformation only scales by the second power of thickness and increasing the thickness also means to increase the mirror's moment of inertia. The latter increase has to be compensated by even higher driving forces which are very difficult to generate. Thus, developing a MEMS mirror of that size that meets the flatness requirements of one tenth of the wavelength is a major research task in the development of a novel laser scanner. (ii) Very large tilt angle Preliminary examinations indicate that the large deflection mirror has to be driven to very large mechanical tilt angles of about ±15 degrees. Up to now fabricated large MEMS-deflection mirrors have only been driven by electromagnetic forces. But those do not enable hermetic packaging and require expensive chip level tailoring, e.g. manual mounting of permanent magnets. Thus the final package size and costs would exceed the target costs. A considerably smaller actuator volume can be achieved by use of electrostatic actuation. However, due to the comparatively low electrostatic driving forces very high Q-factors have to be provided to accumulate the necessary rotation energy required to sufficiently deflect such a large mirror. Therefore, effective reduction of gas damping is required as well as development of new sophisticated 3D-driving comb electrode geometries. (iii) Automotive environment The third challenge is to meet automotive requirements: In order to guarantee failure-free functionality over a broad temperature range (typically -40...+85°C) hermetic packaging of this large scanning mirror is essential. Due to a considerable mirror size and very large deflection angles, a cavity depth of more than 2 mm is required. This is about 10 times more than of known state of the art MEMS cavity sizes and therefore requires stacking and bonding of at least 4 wafers. Based on the requirements listed above, the concept of an electrostatically driven two-axes deflection MEMS mirror is proposed. Specifically to solve the problem of (i) dynamic mirror deformation the thickness of the mirror plate has to be
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increased up to several hundred microns. In order to simultaneously minimize the moment of inertia the mirror plate shall be fabricated as a compound of a continuous 60 microns thick polysilicon layer reinforced by an underlying several hundred microns thick silicon honeycomb structure etched out of the silicon substrate (Figure 4).
Figure 4: ‘Honeycomb-structure’ to reinforce the mi rror plate. Backside view of the
mirror. To achieve (ii) the targeted large deflection angles and in parallel to guarantee stable operation even under (iii) automotive conditions hermetic vacuum wafer level packaging is to be applied (Figure 5). Vacuum packaging on wafer level is a challenging task but it effectively reduces damping and thereby enables very high Q-values up to several hundred thousands.
mirror
glass cap wafer
glass bottom wafer
spacer wafer
spacer
wafer
MEMS wafer
Figure 5: Cross-section view of the hermetically pa ckaged scanning mirror. 2.3.4 The receiver and Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) integration
In order to meet the goals of the project with regard to the size and the costs of the MiniFaros Laser scanner the receiver and the time interval measurement units will be realized as high performance integrated circuits that are not available on the current market. The receiver will amplify the current signal receiving from the avalanche photo detector and determine its time position in a wide dynamic range of 1:100,000. The timing walk error that is being produced by the varying amplitude will be corrected by measuring also the width of the received pulse and using this information for the correction.
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Figure 6: Concept of a novel Time to Digital Conver ter (TDC) to be integrated in the laser
radar receiver. The time interval unit (time-to-digital converter, TDC) will be capable to measure simultaneously three separate stop signal positions and stop pulse widths. This kind of functionality is important especially in traffic applications since the varying weather conditions (fog, rain, snow) may produce multiple reflections that all need to be detected and characterized. The rms precision of the TDC unit will be about 10 ps, which corresponds to about 1.5 mm precision in distance measurement. The unit will be stabilized with regard to environmental conditions and technology parameter variations using on-circuit delay-locked loops (DLL) that provide auto-calibration and achieve much better stability and jitter performance than a free-running ring-oscillator. The resolution of a TDC with DLL calibration is constant regardless of the operating temperature. The phase noise of the ring-oscillator increases as a function of the time interval to be measured and the resolution varies as a function of the temperature. The measurement speed of a TDC based on DLL is, thus, much faster because no calibration measurements are needed to determine the resolution of the TDC. To utilize the full potential in miniaturisation the down-sizing of electronics is required, as well. This will be achieved by the integration of electronic key functions as described above. The basic principles of the circuit level solutions to be used in the receiver and time-to-digital converter are presented in the publications produced by the University of Oulu group [1][2][3][4][5][6].
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3 Laser scanner development To reach the objectives of small and low cost laser scanner a number of new techniques have to be developed and evaluated.
The rotating mirror in laser scanners has previously been realized with a macro mechanical scanning system. This relatively large moving part in the sensor has not been fully accepted by OEMs even though it has been proved reliable. By the use of a MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical system) mirror in the novel laser scanner might alter this. By developing a MEMS mirror for the laser scanner will also enable downsizing of the sensor.
The receiver and the Time-to-Digital-Converter (TDC) are the major integrated circuits in the sensor. These components are essential when reducing the size and cost of the sensor. By integrating these into a common circuit will be an advantage regarding cost and size. The integration will also enable other benefits like compensation of timing error and a possibility to measure several pulses in a single event that will be beneficial for operation in bad weather conditions like rain and fog.
The use of free-formed optics and aspheric surfaces developed for the laser scanner will reduce the number of optical components and also make it possible to integrate the optics and the mechanics in the sensor. This will also make it possible to decrease the sensor size and lower production cost further.
3.1 Requirements and user needs
Figure 7: Accidents distributed by car segments Accident review and analyses from European accident statistics have been performed and shows that pedestrian protection and pre-crash functions are the main scenarios that can be addressed by an ADAS function using data from the
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MiniFaros laser scanner. In total around 54% to 82% of all severe accidents for cars and trucks could be addressed by ADAS safety functions that could be using a MiniFaros laser scanner. The laser scanner can also be used for a number of ADAS comfort functions as stop and go and parking assistance.
Accident type Description Frequency Possible ADAS
function
MiniFaros laser scanner
potential
1 Longitudinal
collision 3% FCW, Pre-crash,
AEB Yes
2 Longitudinal
collision 19% FCW, Pre-crash, AEB, ACC, S&G Yes
3 Lateral collision
3% LCW, LCA Yes
4 Longitudinal
collision 10%
FCW, Pre-crash, AEB
Yes
5 Intersection
collision 20% Intersection assist
Yes for urban situations
6 Pedestrian
collision 18% Pedestrian protection Yes
7 Longitudinal collision
1% FCW, Pre-crash, AEB
Yes
8 Lane departure
14% LDW, LKA No
9 Lane
departure 10% LDW, LKA No
10 Misc. collisions 2% - No
100% 54%-74% Table 1: Accident types for cars. Possible driver a ssistance systems and potential for
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6 VRU collision, 24% Pedestrian
protection, FCW, Pre-crash, AEB
Yes
7 Misc. collisions 13% - No
100% 64%-82% Table 2: Accident types for trucks. Possible driver assistance systems and potential for
MiniFaros laser scanner.
The requirements are described in functional terms regarding range, field of view, accuracy et cetera. The state-of-the-art ADAS survey show that the general requirements of the laser scanner sensor would be approximately:
Range: 80 meters
Range accuracy: 0.1 meters in near-field and 0.3 meters else
Field of view: 250 degrees
Angular accuracy: 0.25 degrees
Update frequency: 25Hz
Object recognition algorithms have to be developed for the laser scanner for the safety applications addressed by the sensor. This includes the development of enhanced object recognition and tracking algorithms and performing improved object classification in order to be able to decide the correct strategy for avoiding objects in the traffic environment.
Figure 8: Accidents distributed by car segments The laser scanner will be shown and demonstrated serving various safety applications in vehicle environment. Both a car and a truck demonstrator will be used.
User needs shows that in order to get an increased penetration of ADAS functions especially in mid and lower class vehicle segments the systems have to be more affordable than sensor systems present on the market today.
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3.2 Specification and architecture
Two basically different embodiments of the laser scanner systems appear promising.
APD
receiver lens
MEMS mirror
sender lens
laser diode
laser diode
lens
biaxial configuration coaxial configuration
Figure 10: a biaxial system with separate receiver and sender lens and a coaxial system based on one single lens
The biaxial variant requires two different omnidirectional lenses to separate the optical paths of the transmitter and the receiver. As a major feature this setup promises good decoupling capabilities between the transmitter and receiver path to minimize optical crosstalk. The major drawbacks are a high size ratio and very challenging adjustment requirements in the optical path. The long term stability of these adjustments is assumed to be critical.
The coaxial variant opens the chance to design a more compact sensor since both the transmitter and the receiver path use the same omnidirectional lens. The disadvantage of this solution is the increased risk of optical crosstalk due to stray-light paths and bulk scattering effects in the instrument. On the other hand this set-up relaxes several major requirements regarding adjustment accuracy and long term stability. That is why this system appears much more feasible.
The sensor specification is valid for both sensor types. Only at those points where a clear discrepancy in the abilities of the two variants becomes apparent the specs were adapted accordingly.
The central functional component of the laser scanner will be a two-sided MEMS mirror rotating at more than 1000Hz, deflecting the outgoing laser beam by 30°. This deflection is just enough to allow an omni-directional lens to guide the beam into the defined direction. In the coaxial system the same lens is used to collect the reflected laser pulse and to image it on the APD.
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In case of the biaxial system a second omnidirectional lens is used to guide the reflected, returning laser pulse onto the backside of the MEMS mirror and from there into the detector.
Ap
plic
atio
nLa
yer
Pe
rce
pti
on
Laye
rSe
nso
r
Laye
r
HM
I Lay
er
MiniFaros
laser scanner
segmentation
pre-processing
vehicle sensors
classification
accustical / visual warning
dynamic objects
laser scanner
raw data
pre-crash system
pedestrian protection
system
minimum distance
system
vehicle state
information
tracking
active prevention
active warning
start inhibit
system
right turn assistant
system
stop and go
system
Figure 11: SW architecture & object detection algor ithm An FPGA will be used for the prototype to analyze the received laser pulses and derive the measured distance, direction and further information. A connected DSP will analyze the raw measurements provided by the FPGA in order to perform low level pre-processing and handle the data communication with the sensor. In this case, Ethernet will be available for data transfer and configuration while the CAN interface will not be able to provide scan data but will accept vehicle state information for optimized scanner internal pre-processing.
Besides the in-vehicle system specifications, an infrastructure demonstration system has been specified as well. In contrast to the in-vehicle system, there are no applications defined for the infrastructure system. Instead, information on road users in the sensors’ vicinity (e.g. an intersection) is transferred via wireless
Figure 12: Detailed architecture of the infrastruct ure-based system
4 Applications Currently, there are numerous Active Safety and ADAS applications that are either on the market, in the development pipeline or already under enhancement. Generally speaking, these are related to lateral and longitudinal control of the vehicle. The MiniFaros Laser scanner proposed here is targeted to applications from short to medium ranges (0 – 60 m). Thus, most of the different applications are covered. These belong above all to ADAS but extend through Active Safety areas to Advanced Protective Safety systems needed for Collision Mitigation, as illustrated in Figure 13.
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. Figure 13: Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems appli cation areas and the position of Laser
scanner therein The MiniFaros Laser scanner covers especially areas in the vicinity of the vehicle. The applications concern vehicle control in terms of keeping lane position and lane change situations, where the sensor information can be still used for information, warning and intervention. Furthermore, the sensor information can be used in the event of an unavoidable crash for different collision mitigation applications, and finally, some typical and accident-prone manoeuvres in trucks such as turning and pulling out when the blind spot is in front of the vehicle (Table 3). Overall, a dozen different applications can be listed. Totally six different sensor types can be identified to implement the listed applications today (with possible upcoming ones, it makes 7-8 sensors). Consequently, there is ample room for fewer and a more generic sensors to enter the market in vehicle and traffic safety areas. Furthermore, also areas outside transport such as moving work machines and other industrial applications can be envisaged, as well.
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With the capability to address this set of different applications in vehicle environment and beyond, the development is aiming at a really generic low-cost sensor having a lot of potential in future environment perception technologies.
Application Market situation Environmental sensors currently used
Collision Avoidance Systems (CAS) • Lateral Collision Warning (LCW) • Pedestrian detection and
Some of these on market with very low penetration rates
Radar (77 GHz, 24 GHz), vision systems
Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) & comfort • Lane Change Assistance (LCA) • Turning assist for trucks • Stop&Go
LCA and STOP&GO on the market with very low penetration rate
Radar (77 GHz, 24 GHz),
Infrastructure applications for cooperative driving • V2I-communication at intersection
areas • Especially driver assistance at
intersections via V2I-communication (turning)
None yet None yet
Moving work machines in mines, forests, harbours
None yet None yet
Mobile robots • Search and rescue in disaster
areas • Household applications
Prototypes Video
Table 3: The applications targeted by the MiniFaros Laser scanner In order to demonstrate the MiniFaros’ capabilities, 6 safety applications have been specified in order to address the most relevant accident scenarios for trucks and passenger cars. They cover three pedestrian related as well as three frontal crash scenarios. The related HMI concept has been described briefly and will be detailed throughout the project, while the system architecture has been defined in detail. The software components and modules, performing the data processing from tracking and classification to the risk assessment inside the applications have been specified as well.
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5 Demonstration The MiniFaros Laser scanner will be integrated in a passenger car, a truck and in the infrastructure. Thus, two demonstration approaches are opted for:
• The vehicle-based MiniFaros Laser scanner detects, tracks and classifies the road users and obstacles (object recognition) and directly serves several safety applications in parallel;
• The infrastructure based MiniFaros Laser scanner located at the intersection test site provides road user information via V2I-communication to the vehicles. If the vehicle is close to the equipped intersection (the test site) the road user information of the intersection monitoring system and the onboard perception system is combined in a sensor fusion module serving the safety applications, as well.
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6 Expected impact
The following expected impact is aspired by the MiniFaros project:
• World leadership of Europe's industry in the area of Intelligent Vehicle Systems and expansion to new emerging markets, improving the competitiveness of the whole transport sector and the automotive industry.
• Significant improvements in safety, security and comfort of transport. This includes contribution towards the objective of reducing fatalities with 50% in the EU by 2010, and longer term work towards the 'zero-fatalities' scenario.
• Significant improvements in energy efficiency, emissions reduction and sustainability of transport. This includes contribution to reduction in the energy consumption and congestion in road transport.”
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7 MiniFaros work plan In this Chapter an overview of the administrational and organisational aspects of the MiniFaros project are presented, icluding a project short description, the expected project outputs, timelines and effort tables.
7.1 Overall strategy and general description
The work within the MiniFaros project is separated into seven different work packages. WP 1 focuses on overall management activities like administrative, technical and risk management as well as proper quality control to ensure the good quality of the whole project work. WP 2 organises dissemination of the project results and achievements to various stakeholders, audiences and research communities. A special focus will be paid on the promotion of the explored results with regard to the MiniFaros Laser scanner. In WP 3, previous performed accident studies and new cognitions in the area of Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems will be analysed in order to derive the relevant scenarios to be addressed by the MiniFaros Laser scanner. Once the relevant scenarios are defined, safety function and sensor requirements including object recognition and sensor fusion will be derived. WP 4 specifies the scenarios and the considered applications that will be addressed and adapted in MiniFaros. Therefore, the overall system architecture, the demonstrator level specification and architecture as well as the sub-system level specification will be described. The key development of components and modules of the MiniFaros project is to be held under WP 5. This includes the development of optics, MEMS mirror, mechanics, measurement and control electronics, the object recognition and sensor fusion. Based on the components and modules developed, WP 6 focuses on verification of the components and modules and its integration to the MiniFaros Laser scanner. In addition the integration of the MiniFaros Laser scanner into the demonstrators and the infrastructure including adaptation of V2I-communication will be performed, as well. Furthermore the selected applications will be adapted.
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Finally, a modular test and evaluation plan will be designed in WP 8 within the first 12 months. The different sensor, system and user tests will be performed in order to evaluate the selected applications and the MiniFaros Laser scanner compared to its specifications. A system benefit and impact assessment of the MiniFaros Laser scanner and its applications will be conducted and the overall MiniFaros results and achievements will be assessed with regard to the define project objectives. The project shall conclude with a demonstration.
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8 Consortium
The project is composed of 7 partners, with Sick AG acting as the coordinator The Consortium is well balanced featuring both manufacturers as well as research organisations, to assure that the product to be created is meating the end-users needs and requirements while allowing proper validation. Partners’ expertise and research activities are complementing each other, forming thus a firm basis for the successful development of the MiniFaros Laser scanner. The involved partners are:
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9 Conclusions This consortium is industry and research driven due to the need of innovative solutions to deal with both commercial needs and challenging complexity of miniaturisation of optics (mirror included) and electronics. The partners have a major role in European automotive industry and research and in some respect the leading role in the world (laser technology). The project will further strengthen the competitiveness of and collaboration between industrial companies and research institutes & academia in the creation of desirable and safety-oriented driver support functions. In particular, small and medium size vehicles are addressed with the low-cost miniature Laser scanner, since small and medium size vehicles are dominating the road traffic and thus most of the accidents. Also heavy vehicles make a target for the MiniFaros Laser scanner, since accidents where heavy vehicles are involved – even though much fewer - tend to be considerably more often serious. Looking at the consortium from the industry side, this project’s main focus is safe driving in all conditions and underlying technologies such as sensors, communication, positioning and HMI. MiniFaros combines expertise from automotive OEMs (small and mid size passenger cars and heavy goods vehicles), automotive suppliers, basic and applied research. Overall, this diverse expertise is needed making this kind of project possible. Most of the partners have gained experience in previous IVSS projects. The novelty of the MiniFaros activities lies in the extended utilization environment perception technology, and especially laser technology aiming at a generic and affordable sensor enabling fast market penetration of IVSS in medium term.
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10 References [1] J. Jansson, A. Mäntyniemi, J. Kostamovaara, “A CMOS Time-to-Digital
Converter with Better than 10 ps Single-Shot Precision”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 41, No. 6, June 2006, pp. 1286 - 1296.
[2] J.-P. Jansson, A. Mäntyniemi, J. Kostamovaara, ”Synchronization in a Multi-level CMOS Time-to-Digital Converter,” to be published in IEEE Transactions on Circuits Syst. I. in 2008.
[3] Mäntyniemi, T. Rahkonen and J. Kostamovaara, "An Integrated 9-channel Time Digitizer with 30 ps Resolution", 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, ISSCC 2002, San Francisco, CA, February 4 - 6, 2002, pp. 266 -267.
[4] P. Palojärvi, T. Ruotsalainen, J. Kostamovaara, “A 250MHz Fully Differential BiCMOS Receiver Channel with Leading Edge Timing Discriminator for Pulsed Time-of-Flight Laser Rangefinder”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 40, Issue 6, June 2005, pp. 1341-1349.
[5] J. Pehkonen, P. Palojärvi, J. Kostamovaara , “Receiver Channel with Resonance-Based Timing Detection for a Laser Range Finder”, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, Volume 53.
[6] T. Ruotsalainen, P. Palojärvi, J. Kostamovaara, “A wide dynamic range receiver channel for a pulsed time-of-flight laser radar”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 36, no. 8, 2001, pp. 1228-1238.
