October marks Pedestrian Safety Month in the U.S., a national effort to raise awareness about the importance of pedestrian safety.
Led by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), this annual observance is part of a broader effort to reduce pedestrian fatalities and injuries through education, community engagement, and the implementation of technological advancements in vehicles. By focusing on the steps to improve road safety through driver assistance and safety features and alerts, the automotive industry can help reduce the risk to vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians.
Addressing the Challenges Around Pedestrian Safety
According to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), in 2023, over 7,000 American pedestrians were killed by motor vehicles – a dip of 5.4% from 2022 and the first decline seen since the COVID-19 pandemic ended.
While this is a positive step, it highlights the urgent need for continued efforts in pedestrian safety. A single year of improvement does not reverse the long-term trends of rising pedestrian fatalities seen over the past decade. More work needs to be done to keep the numbers trending downward.
Rapid urbanization and increasing traffic volumes contribute to pedestrian safety concerns. With more vehicles and pedestrians sharing congested spaces, the risk of accidents increases drastically. The situation is even more complex with distracted driving, speeding, and inadequate infrastructure for pedestrians in urban environments. These factors underscore the importance of implementing targeted measures to enhance pedestrian safety across the country.
Governments and organizations are rallying behind education and awareness initiatives like Pedestrian Safety Month to bring attention to this critical public safety issue and advocate for safer streets. NHTSA, for example, works closely with local communities to run public awareness initiatives that highlight the importance of safe driving behaviors and pedestrian vigilance. International campaigns, such as the Global Road Safety Campaign, also contribute to these efforts.
The Role of ADAS in Improving Pedestrian Safety
Of course, we cannot overlook the critical role technology also plays in bringing safety to our streets.
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) enhances road safety by leveraging technology to assist drivers in making smarter decisions and reacting to potential hazards more effectively. ADAS features such as Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Blind Spot Detection (BSD) and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) are increasingly becoming a standard in modern vehicles, leveraging various modalities of sensing that can detect and respond to potential hazards, including pedestrians.
Vision-based sensing, for example, has rapidly become a critical component for ADAS, driven by government regulations, New Car Assessment Programs (NCAP), and growing consumer awareness of vehicle safety. Initiatives like Vision Zero, which aim to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, highlight the importance of integrating this technology into vehicles. The United Nations’ Global Road Safety Campaign further emphasizes the need for proactive measures to protect vulnerable road users worldwide. By incorporating advanced vision-based sensing, ADAS can more robustly detect pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users, significantly reducing the risk of collisions and supporting both Vision Zero’s and the UN’s broader goals for safer streets globally.
The need for improved VRU protection – which aims to safeguard pedestrians in particular – was recently bolstered by NHTSA AEB regulation FMVSS 127. This progressive regulation includes testing requirements for pedestrian AEB (PAEB), including low-light and nighttime testing, placing stringent requirements on vision processor performance.
To help automakers deploy high performance perception capabilities, indie has developed the iND880xx, a class-leading video camera processor system-on-chip (SoC) family. This latest SoC enhances indie’s comprehensive suite of sensing solutions for computer vision, LiDAR, radar, and ultrasound, and sets new benchmarks in image signal processing (ISP) performance and functionality, providing cutting-edge capabilities for both viewing and sensing applications. The iND880xx SoC enhances ADAS by processing multiple camera streams in a variety of high dynamic range (HDR) lighting conditions, improving environment perception and real-time decision-making. This technology will play a crucial role in helping OEMS meet safety regulations and elevate road safety through improved vision-based sensing.
Reviewing the iND880xx, New Electronics also commented, “Balancing the competing needs of low light sensor performance (luminance) and the ability to differentiate colors (chrominance) for high-performance perception (for example, to accurately differentiate red and amber traffic lights) has been an ongoing challenge for legacy vision processors. High latency initialization and pipeline processing has also limited legacy ADAS camera system real-time safety capabilities. The iND880xx family addresses these challenges through the product’s proprietary ISP pipeline ability to support concurrent, low-latency processing of four independent sensor inputs, delivering a combined maximum throughput of 1400 megapixels per second.”
Recognized as the “2024 Auto Sensor Innovation of the Year” by AutoTech Breakthrough Awards, the iND880xx processor family enables key safety applications, including automatic emergency braking (AEB), lane keep assist (LKA), blind spot detection (BSD), driver and occupant monitoring (DMS/OMS), smart back-up, and vulnerable road user (VRU) detection.
“indie’s advanced ADAS sensing capabilities enable improved perception across a wide range of environmental conditions in challenging driving scenarios. This has been a technical and commercial challenge to-date. Our processors are purpose-built to support the automotive industry’s trajectory towards mass-market vehicle safety and increasing automation,” said Donald McClymont, indie’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “By addressing critical industry needs for enhanced safety, regulatory compliance, and high-performance – but cost-effective – ADAS functionality, we are supporting both growth in the industry and the all-important improvement in road user safety.”
Committing to a Safer Future with ADAS Innovation
As we observe Pedestrian Safety Month, let’s commit to making our roads safer for everyone. ADAS is a vital technology that can reduce crashes and injuries, and also help to save lives.
At indie, we are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of ADAS innovations, providing solutions that enable OEMs to integrate these advanced safety features into their broad vehicle portfolios while improving the driving experience, and protecting pedestrians, drivers and occupants.