Researchers will use Floating Car Data (FCD to gather information on road conditions. This requires that several vehicles with a computer, GPS and various wheel sensors be driven over roadways selected at random.
"By using the data it receives from GPS and from sensors," Wilson explains, "the onboard computer can determine the position the vehicle it is traveling in to within 60 centimeters in real-time."
Using the individual courses of the vehicles on a particular stretch of road, the scientists compute an average, which Wilson calls "the ideal course. The result is a roadmap that deviates by mere centimeters from the real roadway. This technique is based on a statistical method. And here the greater the quantity of data collected during trips, the more exact the result. This approach can be used to replace many of the methods currently used in conventional map-making."
Wilson hopes that information gathered by PASS about a vehicle's position will make it possible to implement a wide range of functions, including warnings of dangerous curves, headlights with adaptive light distribution, and lane recognition by means of radar.
What's more, he says, PASS will support every position-related system in the vehicle, so "It will increase safety and reliability, and reduce errors."