Joint proving tests of the Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) and Advanced Cruise-assist Highway Systems (AHS) were conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (formerly the Ministry of Transport) for Smart Cruise systems. Thirteen domestic vehicle manufacturers participated in the tests on a proving test course set up at the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Seven services and eight test systems were tested. The objective of these systems is to receive information from the road infrastructure via Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) concerning, for example, obstacles in the road ahead and the presence of oncoming vehicles; then, the systems provide warnings and information to motorcycle riders in order to reduce the occurrence of collisions. Honda provided a scooter, with an engine capacity of 250 cm3, loaded with a road-vehicle communication receiver to receive the road information from the Dedicated Short Range Communication system, an information control ECU, and a newly developed Human Machine Interface (HMI) for motorcycles. The tests were conducted to confirm the effectiveness of the road-vehicle communication system from the viewpoint of driver acceptance.The proving tests yielded the following findings:(1) Information provided from the road infrastructure via DSRC for the purpose of enhancing active safety was confirmed to also be effective for motorcycles.(2) An HMI system that combined sound information with visual information was confirmed to be capable of providing information appropriately for each driving assistance service.
Article of Honda R&D Technical Review Vol.13 No.2 (7 - 12)