Radio Frequency ID Tags to Enhance Safety

This project was originally conceived and executed to deliver a proof-of-concept of a near-term “cooperative vehicle-highway system” using a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging system to significantly improve the reliability of rear-end truck-based forward collision warning (FCW) systems. A hardware apparatus was developed but proved difficult and relatively costly to design and prototype; however, one set of RFID apparatus was delivered by our Raytheon subcontractor to PATH, then it was tested at PATH. Because of range limitations it did not perform to the extent that it could conceivably enhance FCW systems.At the time this work was being conducted, the emergent TO 5217 dealing with Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII) was beginning, and an idea – curve overspeed warning – was inspired by the generalization of “look-ahead” within this project. The work under this project, therefore, was transformed into conceiving and the start of implementing such a system of dynamic road-curve assistance and, to complement TO 5217, to investigate some of the test results. In the end, this system was deemed to be practicable and was in fact further investigated in TO 5217 and TO 6217.