Lidar and AI combine to help improve road safety

This approach focused on the most vulnerable road users, namely pedestrians and cyclists, and could be used to help improve driver awareness, reduce accidents and better understand behaviour in work zones.

In a recent study, a team led by associate professor Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and graduate student Linlin Zhang at Missouri’s College of Engineering created a new method to understand how pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles interact, particularly at traffic signals.

“By having a better understanding of how pedestrians and cyclists interact with each other on the roads, this study will help us design advanced systems that will allow vehicles to better understand and avoid other road users. This is important especially as autonomous vehicles become more common,” Adu-Gyamfi said in a statement.

The technology can help spot near misses between cars and pedestrians, allowing experts to better understand how to prevent accidents. As it becomes more widely available, it could track how people and cars approach intersections and share that data with vehicles.