Intelligent Blind Crossings for Suburban and Rural Intersections

Blind intersections have high accident rates due to the poor visibility of oncoming traffic, high traffic speeds, and lack of road infrastructure (e.g., stoplights). These intersections are more commonplace in rural and suburban areas, where traffic infrastructure is underdeveloped. The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) aims to address such safety concerns through a network of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) that intercommunicate. This project proposes a lightweight road-side unit (RSU) tailored to rural and suburban areas, aiming to minimize visibility issues by facilitating communications across such intersections. This is accomplished through the creation of an RSU based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) that utilizes an algorithm based on virtual traffic light methodologies. The components of the system will include: an FPGA with an adaptive virtual traffic light algorithm, a communication module to monitor inter-vehicular communication, and a solar power system to optimize power usage. The implementation of the proposed system will achieve a reduction in end-to-end delays. The main objectives of this proposal are threefold:

1. to study the impact of non-visible communication on rural and suburban blind intersections;
2. to design a hardware implementation of an adaptive virtual traffic light that integrates into the existing IoV; and
3. to drive the reconfigurability of 2 using 1.