Smart Intersection Platform

CCI Team identified, evaluated, and selected the Iteris-Continental smart intersection technology consisting of a dual-sensor (camera and radar) system. VTTI deployed this solution at VTTI Smart Road and Blacksburg’s downtown locations as part of two research projects. The smart intersection measures several attributes of each object that passes through it at every frame in-camera and radar field of view.  These attributes are packed into BSMs (Basic Safety Messages) and PSMs (Pedestrian Safety Messages) for vehicles and pedestrians, respectively.  The attributes measured are the geographic coordinates, speed, heading, and acceleration as well as a unique identifier that is assigned to each object.

System Integration

In order to continuously collect data on traffic at the intersection, a Docker container had been developed based on Python scripts that are used for processing the information being sent from the
Iteris-Continental Smart Intersection system. A high-level diagram of the interface between the Iteris-Continental system and the VTTI Kubernetes Cluster is shown. The Python scripts consist of the main script that retrieves the traffic data, processes the metrics that are described below, and sends the processed messages for a live feed of vehicles and pedestrians at the intersection on VCC Monitor.

There are also 4 other scripts that are used to decode the messages sent from the Iteris-Continental system using Google Protocol Buffers to decode the serialized data being retrieved. This Docker image
is run at VTTI’s Kubernetes Cluster which ensures that the scripts run continuously as the image is restarted when an error occurs.