Ultra-Wideband-Based Time Occupancy Analysis for Safety Studies

Abstract

This study investigates the use of ultra-wideband (UWB) tags in traffic conflict techniques (TCT) for the estimation of time occupancy in a real-world setting. This study describes UWB technology and its application in the TCT framework. Many experiments were conducted to evaluate the accuracy of the occupancy time measurement using a UWB-based tag. The UWB performance was measured using data from UWB tags as well as a video camera system by subtracting the time occupancy within a conflict zone. The results show that the UWB-based system can be utilized to estimate occupancy time with a mean absolute error difference from ground truth measurements of 0.43 s in the case of using two tags and 0.06 s in the case of using one tag in an 8 m × 8 m study area with double-sided two-way communication. This study also highlights the advantages and limitations of using UWB technology in TCT and discusses potential applications and future research directions. The findings of this study suggest that the UWB-based localization of multiple tags needs further improvements to enable consistent multi-tag tracking. In future work, this technology could be utilized to estimate post-encroachment time (PET) in various traffic scenarios, which could improve road safety and reduce the risk of collisions.