Knoxville, Tennessee, will host a demonstration of a connected vehicle intersection safety system, as part of the three-day Intersect16 event, an annual high-tech transportation program where transportation and technology leaders from around the world gather to discuss and debate the future of Intelligent Transportation for Smart Cities.
Intersect16 is organized by Knoxville-based Gridsmart Technologies Inc., the developer of the world’s only single camera, sensor agnostic system for intersection actuation, traffic data collection, and situational awareness. Gridsmart and its partner, Denso International America, will host the demonstration tomorrow (October 27), showcasing how Gridsmart’s single camera intersection management system and Denso’s Connected Vehicle and Infrastructure (CV2X) technology, using 5.9GHz dedicated short range communications (DSRC), work together to prevent vehicle and pedestrian crashes at intersections.
Led by Gridsmart’s CEO and co-founder, Bill Malkes, and Denso’s vice president of wireless technologies, Roger Berg, the live demonstrations will simulate at-speed near misses and accident avoidance. This will be a first of its kind demonstration in Knoxville and will highlight the potential to move traffic more efficiently through intersections, reduce gridlock and traffic crashes, while protecting pedestrians and bicyclists. Three crash prevention scenarios will be presented, including: wrong direction car detection, blind-corner vehicle and pedestrian detection, and high-speed bumper-to-bumper accident detection.
The demo will feature Gridsmart’s iconic Bell Camera, which delivers the industry’s only horizon to horizon view that includes the center of the intersection, where vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians actually cross paths. The system uses vision-based tracking with a fisheye camera, allowing it to track vehicles into and out of the intersection. The camera provides data for the GS2 Processor that runs the Gridsmart Engine, a suite of vison-tracking algorithms that builds a three-dimensional model of objects approaching the intersection, with their trajectories tracked through user defined zones.
Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero will meet with a group of America’s transportation leaders on October 26 at Intersect16 to discuss whether Knoxville could become the newest testbed for companies conducting research on connected and self-driving vehicles. Several cities, including Ann Arbor, Michigan, Contra Costa, California, and Tampa, Florida, have already established testbeds on both public and private roads, which are creating new economic development in their regions. However, few, if any, can offer researchers all of the assets of Knoxville, including a four-season climate, hills and flat land.
“Connected and self-driving vehicles are on the cutting edge of transportation and with our existing high-tech industry and diverse geography, we may have a unique opportunity to build a new industry right here in Knoxville led by companies like Gridsmart,” said Rogero. “While this is just a discussion, we’ll have the right people in the room to consider the viability of this opportunity.”
Among those expected to be in attendance, are: Paul Brubaker, CEO and president of the Alliance for Transportation Innovation; Utah Department of Transportation’s director, Carlos Braceras; Randy Iwasaki, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority; and Regina Hopper, CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.
