In our daily travel, we see many accidents on the roads due to rash driving and other reasons. Major reason of these accidents takes place due to breaking traffic rules, over speeding, overtaking or ignoring driving rules. So, there have been many advancements in the technology to recognize traffic signs known as TSR (Traffic Sign Recognition). This technology warns and directs and prevents the driver while driving, and makes the drive safes and convenient. The TSR systems came in late 2008 for the first time and were developed by Continental AG and Mobileye.
The first generation systems were only compatible to identify European speed-limit signs. The second generation systems could recognize overtaking too. Cars like Volvo, Volkswagen and Phaeton use this technology and are updated with the information. You will not find cars that are installed with TSR in India, but there are some high-end cars that are coming with intelligent driver assistance systems.
The TSR was developed in two phases:
- Phase 1: In this phase, the TSR started detecting traffic signs in a video or image by the use of digital image processing.
- Phase 2: It was an upgraded system, and could detect signs with the help of artificial neural network.
But even today, it is a challenge to view the situations in different modes even if the TSR can recognize and interpret the situation.
Working of the TSR system:
It displays all the information like traffic signs and symbols on the instrumental dashboard that are recognized by the TSR. If your car exceeds the speed limit, it will flash a message on the screen. This device consists of a front facing video camera which is affixed behind the rear view mirror of the car and it keeps its eyes on the coming traffic signs and finally displays them on the screen fitted inside the car. With this camera-based detection system, you can always compare the data that is collected by your GPS.
With its risk-reducing features, it also supports speed-limit rules, traffic rules and safe driving altogether. Therefore, a TSR has an intelligent brain of detecting fixed signs and variable LED, keeping the obstacles (like signs covered by trees or any other object) in mind. There are many cars that come with the default installation of the system such as Mercedes Benz E-Class and S-Class, BMW 1-Series, 5-Series and 7-Series. Apart from a green car, there are many other luxury cars for the time-being. You can buy a second-hand ferrari car and enjoy the most amazing and luxurious drive.
This device is not available in any of the models in the Indian market. Also, logically for these types of systems in cars in our country, there should be a good infrastructure support, then only it will be of use.
