In recent years, there are many collision accidents between vehicles due to human errors. As one of countermeasures against the collision accidents, automotive radar systems have been supporting vehicle drivers. By the automotive radar mounted on the vehicle, it is possible to recognize the situation around the vehicle. The ranging with automotive infrared laser radar is very accurate, and able to understand the object existence in the observation around the vehicle. However, in order to grasp the situation around the vehicle, it is necessary to be aware of the attribute of the detected object. The information obtained by the automotive radar vehicle is only the direction and the distance of the object. Thus, the recognition of the attribute of the detected object is very difficult. In this paper, we propose a novel vehicle information acquisition method by using 2D reflector code. Through experiments, we show that the proposed method is able to detect 2D reflector code and is effective for vehicle information acquisition.

We have developed Pedestrian-Vehicular Collision Avoidance Support System (P-VCASS) in order to protect pedestrians from traffic accidents and its effectiveness has been verified. P-VCASS is a system that takes into account pedestrian's moving situations. It gives warning to drivers of neighboring vehicles in advance if there is a possibility of collision between vehicles and pedestrians. There are pedestrians to move around. They are dangerous for vehicle drivers because they have high probability of running out into the road suddenly. Hence, we need to take into account the presence of them. In this paper, we propose a new estimation method of pedestrian's running out into road by using pressure sensor and moving record. We show the validity of the proposed system by experiments using a vehicle and a pedestrian terminal in the intersection. As a result, we show that a driver of vehicle is able to detect dangerous pedestrians quickly and accurately.

In order to obtain road information, we propose an information acquisition method using infrared laser radar by detecting 3D reflector code on roadside. The infrared laser radar on vehicle scans the 3D reflector code on guardrail. Through experiments, we show that the proposed method is able to obtain road information by detecting 3D reflector code on guardrail.

Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) is one of the most important technologies to realize advanced Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). We extensively apply the IVC technology to the communications between pedestrians and vehicles. We call this kind of communications VPEC (Vehicle-PEdestrian Communications). The objective of this paper is to present an effective control scheme for VPEC and to evaluate the performance of proposed scheme by experiments. We deal with direct communications between pedestrians and vehicles. Due to the battery shortage of pedestrians' terminals (p-node), we have presented a reflect-transmission scheme. In this paper, we propose a new access protocol for reflect-transmission scheme, and show its validity by various experiments with several vehicles.

The RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tag technology is expected as a tool of localization. By the localization of RFID tags, a mobile robot which installs in RFID readers can recognize surrounding environments. In addition, RFID tags can be applied to a navigation system for walkers. In this paper, we propose an adaptive likelihood distribution scheme for the localization of RFID tags. This method adjusts the likelihood distribution depending on the signal intensity from RFID tags. We carry out the performance evaluation of estimated position error by both computer simulations and implemental experiments. We show that the proposed system is more effective than the conventional system.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology is expected to be used as a localization tool. By the localization of RFID tags, a mobile robot equipped with an RFID reader can recognize the surrounding environment. In this paper, we propose a novel effective scheme called the communication range recognition (CRR) scheme for localizing RFID tags. In this scheme, an RFID reader determines the boundaries of the communication range when it is appropriately positioned by the robot. We evaluate the estimated position accuracy through numerous experiments. We show that the moving distance of the RFID reader in the proposed scheme is lower than that in conventional schemes.

Many researchers have recently studied various applications such as Inter-Vehicle Communications (IVC) and Road-to-Vehicle Communications (RVC) for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). RVC is a key technology that can connect vehicles with the internet through Road Side Units (RSUs). Relative positions between vehicles vary within short periods of time. Neighboring vehicles and barriers cause shadowing that blocks communication for extended periods of time between RSUs and vehicles. We propose a fast scheme of Mobile IPv6 handover using dual-band communications in RVC. This scheme uses ISM and UHF dual bands. It switches to the UHF band during handover or in the shadowing period. We demonstrate that the proposed scheme can establish continuous communications through computer simulations.

The printed dipole on a semi-infinite substrate is investigated. The solution is based on the moment method in the Fourier transform domain. We analyze far-field and near-field radiation patterns for a printed dipole. Therefore, we make radiation fields clear.

The radio frequency identification (RFID) system has attracting attention as a new identification source that achieves a ubiquitous environment. Each RFID tag has a unique ID code, and is attached on an object whose information it contains. A user reads the unique ID code using RFID readers and obtains information about the object. One of the important applications of RFID technology is the indoor position estimation of RFID tags. It can be applied to navigation systems for people in complex buildings. In this paper, we propose an effective position estimation method named Broad-type Multi-Sensing-Range (B-MSR) method to improve the estimation error of the conventional methods using sensor model. A new reader antenna with two flexible antenna elements is introduced into B-MSR. The distance between two flexible antenna elements can be adjusted. Thus, two kinds of system parameters can be controlled, the distance between two antenna elements and the transmission power of the RFID reader. In this paper, four sensing ranges are settled by controlling the values of two parameters. The performance evaluation shows four characteristics of B-MSR. Firstly, it reduces the initial estimation error. Secondly, it reduces the moving distance. Thirdly, it reduces the number of different sensing points. Fourthly, it shortens the required estimation time.

Many people have suffered and died due to a lot of large-scale disasters such as earthquake, fire, and terrorism, etc. In disasters where most evacuators become panic, two things are necessary for their immediate evacuation. The first is to estimate the location of the disaster occurrence. The second is to construct an evacuation support system that searches for safe and efficient evacuation routes. In this paper, we propose Emergency Rescue Urgent Communication -- Evacuation Support System (EUC-ESS) based on Mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANET) composed of many mobile terminals. Using experiments and computer simulations, we show that this system would support evacuators in determining appropriate routes for survivors.

In this paper, we propose a novel array antenna-assisted adaptive modulation scheme for fast fading environments. Although adaptive modulation is an efficient technique capable of establishing high bit-rate digital transmission in a multi-path fading environment, it is sensitive to the fast time variation of the channel because of difficulties in tracking the channel state. To resolve this problem, an array antenna-based Doppler spread compensator was applied to the adaptive modulation scheme. Computer simulation results indicated that the proposed scheme can markedly improve the bit error rate and throughput performance for the region in which the maximum Doppler frequency normalized by the packet length is up to 0.1.

Many people have faced mortal risks due to sudden disasters such as earthquakes, fires, and terrorisms, etc. In disasters where most people become panic, it is important to grasp disaster positions immediately and to find out some appropriate evacuation routes. We previously proposed the specific evacuation support system named as Emergency Rescue Evacuation Support System (ERESS). ERESS is based on Mobile Ad-hoc network (MANET) and aims to reduce the number of victims in panic-type disasters. This system consists of mobile terminals with advanced disaster recognition algorithm and various sensors such as acceleration, angular velocity and earth magnetism. However, the former ERESS did not have the clear criteria to detect the disaster outbreak. In this paper, we propose a new disaster recognition algorithm by Support Vector Machine (SVM) which is a kind of machine learning. In this method, an ERESS mobile terminal learns the behaviors of its holder by SVM. The SVM acquires the decision boundary based on the sensing data of the terminal holder, and it is judged whether to be the emergency. We show the validity of the proposed method by panic-type experiments.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) system has gained attention as a new identification source that achieves a ubiquitous environment. Each RFID tag has a unique ID and is attached to an object. A user reads the unique ID of an RFID tag by using RFID readers and obtains the information on the object. One of the important technologies that use the RFID systems is the position estimation of RFID tags. Position estimation means estimating the location of the object with the RFID tag. Acquiring the location information of the RFID tag can be very useful. If a user can know the position of the RFID tag, the position estimation can be applied to a navigation system for walkers. In this paper, we propose a new position estimation method named Swift Communication Range Recognition (S-CRR) as an extended improvement on previous CRR that shortens the estimation delay. In this method, the position of an RFID tag is estimated by selecting the communication area model that corresponds to its boundary angles. We evaluated its performance by experiments and simulations of the RFID system. As the results, we found that S-CRR can estimate the position of an RFID tag comparatively accurately and quickly.

The RFID tag system has received a lot of attention for ubiquitous computing. An RFID tag is attached to an object. With the unique ID of the RFID tag, a user identifies the object provided with the RFID tag and derives appropriate information about the object. One important application in the RFID technology is localizing RFID tags, which can be very useful in acquiring the position information concerning the RFID tags. It can be applied to navigation systems and positional detection systems for mobile robots. This paper proposes a new adaptive multi-range-sensing method for 3D localization of passive RFID tags by using a probabilistic approach. In this method, a mobile object (human, robot, etc.) with an RFID reader estimates the positions of RFID tags with multiple communication ranges dynamically. The effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated in experiments.

In recent years, researchers have studied extensively about vehicle collision avoidance. The authors have developed Vehicular Collision Avoidance Support System (VCASS) based on IVC in order to prevent a vehicular collision beforehand. The system grasps the relative locations of vehicles by exchanging the GPS information in each vehicle. Then the system warns drivers if it detects some danger of collision. VCASS can drastically reduce the potential accidents of vehicular collisions. However, VCASS can not avoid collisions between vehicles and pedestrians, but avoid collisions just between vehicles. About 30% of fatal accidents by vehicles are happened with pedestrians in Japan. So it is necessary to develop a new system for pedestrians. This paper deals with collision avoidance between pedestrians and vehicles. There are two problems to develop such system. First it is necessary to reduce the power consumption of the pedestrian terminal, because pedestrian terminals have small-sized battery compared with vehicles. Second it is necessary to consider the movement characteristic of the pedestrian. In this paper, we propose a new Pedestrian-Vehicular Collision Avoidance Support System (P-VCASS) which extends VCASS. P-VCASS solves above two problems. We show the validity of the proposed system by experiments using some vehicles.

In this paper, we develop a VCASS substitution system (S-VCASS) using a personal mobile terminal in order to improve the effectiveness of VCASS in an environment comprising both VCASS and non-VCASS vehicles. We propose three new pedestrian state judgment algorithms that can be implemented on a personal mobile terminal for inter-vehicle communications. We evaluate the performances of the three proposed algorithms with real vehicles. Finally, we show that the proposed algorithms can recognize vehicles without VCASS.

Various recent intelligent transport system projects are promoting vehicle safety and efficient vehicular traffic control all over the world. One of ITS applications is a system that solves road traffic problems by using vehicular communications technology. Inter-vehicle communication (IVC) is the communications technology for vehicles to exchange moving vehicle information by wireless networks without any base stations. The Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) is expected to provide new applications for passengers of vehicles by enabling vehicles to communicate with each other via IVC as well as with roadside base stations via roadside-to-vehicle communications. However, when each vehicle transmits its own information to neighboring vehicles, the amount of information being transmitted increases significantly. To solve this problem, we present a novel real-time recognition method for vehicular traffic congestion via VANET with IVC. Vehicles collect the original GPS information of other vehicles by communicating with each other, and they create content that may be useful for drivers by analyzing that original information. The proposed method can reduce the information amount and deliver the analyzed contents to other vehicles efficiently. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method provides real-time information of vehicular accidents and traffic congestion to distant vehicles accurately.