Goin' Mobile Japan

Trendwatch:GPS and mobile technologies get more accurate and may possibly prevent traffic accidents

Nissan and docomo collaborated to develop technology that may possibly prevent car accidents involving pedestrians (introduced in the article dated October 23 in the GPS section). Utilizing both GPS and mobile technologies, the system is able to identify situations where a pedestrian is behind a building or blind intersection and an oncoming driver cannot see the pedestrian from his or her vehicle. The mechanism of this system is that an information server hosted by a mobile operator receives GPS data from the pedestrian’s mobile phone and the vehicle’s navigation system. T he server identifies the risk of a possible collision and promptly alerts the driver involved by sending an emergency signal as outlined in the diagram below.

www.nissan-global.com (English site)

There are 2 objectives of this experimental trial as Nissan quoted in its news release:

1. Verification of the effectiveness of the system to support safer driving:
   Nissan will monitor the changes in driver-behavior, such as the response time and deceleration after the alert, for quantitative analysis.
2. Optimization of data-processing logic:
   Nissan will test the data-processing logic, based on a sophisticated software program, which can determine a pedestrian on the street, by identifying the data sent from the cellular phone carried by the pedestrian and calculating the speed of the moving -target.

In addition to the development of more fuel-efficient cars (electric, fuel cell etc.), automobile manufacturers are placing a premium on safety as vital objective and they understand that mobile technology would be applied.

Another interesting application of GPS and mobile handset is a “Real Space Perspective Keitai” (introduced in the article dated September 29 in the GPS section). The sensor is jointly developed by KDDI R&D Laboratories and the University of Tokyo research group and comes equipped with a 6-axis sensor that consists of 3 axis acceleration sensors and 3 axis terrestrial sensors. The technology identifies a person who may be standing, walking, jogging, or riding bicycle, vehicle, bus or train so that, for example, a pedestrian can find stores or objects behind buildings by facing the handset in a certain direction. In addition, by using this technology, a mother can be notified if her child is on a bus on the way back home.

www.kddilabs.jp (Japanese site)

As we see in the two interesting developments above, our future safety will be enhanced by the utilization of GPS and mobile phone technologies. We know more countries are considering that GPS equipped mobile phones for emergency situations such as identifying the location of Mobile E911 callers, but GPS should play a more active role in the safety of citizens in the near future.