An indigenous onboard driver assistance and warning system (ODAWS), a bus signal priority system and a Common Smart IoT Connectiv (CoSMiC) software have been launched under the second phase of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)’s Intelligent Transportation System Endeavor for Indian Cities initiative. According to a government press release, the systems were jointly created by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras).
Onboard Driver Assistance and Warning System
Speeding incidents have increased with improved highway infrastructure and a rise in vehicles, exacerbating safety concerns. As per the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India (MoRTH), in around 84% of cases, a “driver error” was the cause of the accident. This assumes significance in the context of the potential for technology applications to warn and advise drivers, minimising errors.
The release said that ODAWS incorporates vehicle-borne sensors to monitor driver propensity and vehicle surroundings that send out acoustic and visual alerts. The project involves sub-modules such as the navigational unit, driver assistance console, and mmWave radar sensor. The positional and dynamic characteristics of surrounding vehicles are probed using the mmWave radar sensors. The navigational sensor provides a precise geospatial orientation of the vehicle as well as trends in driving behaviour. The ODAWS algorithm is used to interpret sensor data and offer real-time notifications to the driver, boosting road safety.
Bus Signal Priority System
Unreliable public transport systems are a major reason for people to opt for personal vehicles. Improving public infrastructure will be essential in the bid to popularise sustainable traffic solutions. One of the major causes of delays for public transport buses in urban arterials is the delay at signalised intersections. The bus signal priority system is an operational strategy that modifies normal traffic signal operations to better accommodate in-service public buses at signal-controlled intersections. Unlike blind priority, which is only used for emergency vehicles, the system operates using conditional priority. It will minimise person delay by providing priority to public transport buses, either through green extensions or red truncations, considering all vehicles approaching a signalised intersection.
Common SMart IoT Connectiv
CoSMiC is middleware software that provides the standard-based deployment of the Internet of things (IoT), which follows the oneM2M-based global standard. It facilitates users and application service providers in vertical domains to use application-agnostic open standards and interfaces for end-to-end communication with well-defined common service functionalities. The CoSMiC common service layer is used to interface with any vendor-specific standards and to increase interoperability with smart city dashboards. The horizontal silo architecture ensures interoperability between different IoT devices and applications and avoids vendor lock-in. CoSMiC complies with twelve common service functions: registration, discovery, security, group management, data management and repository, subscription and notification, device management, application and service management, communication management and delivery handling, network service exposure, location, and service charging and accounting.
The CoSMiC platform provides interworking proxy entity (IPE) APIs to connect non-oneM2M (NoDN) devices or third-party applications to the CoSMiC platform. CoSMiC also includes a dashboard page showing IoT units, products, applications, and live data in a geographical information System (GIS) map. A secondary data repository is also available for historic charts and reports.
