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Worldwide, 1.2 million people die in road crashes yearly; 43,000 in Europe alone. This implies a cost to European society of approximately 160 billion euros, and takes up 10% of all healthcare resources. To reduce these rates, safety technologies have been developed which help to minimize the severity of injuries to vehicle occupants. However, studies have shown that most deaths due to road accidents occur in the time between the accident and the arrival of medical care. Therefore, a fast and efficient rescue operation would significantly increase the injured person's probability of survival. The aim of this project was to define the On-Board Unit (OBU) hardware and software installed in all modern vehicles which could request medical and technical support after a road accident. This device, based on the information from the vehicle sensors, automatically decides whether the car has suffered a road accident or not, the severity of the accident and the kind of accident (impact area).

There are a variety of approaches and development projects centered on platooning. IDIADA is currently involved in the SARTRE Project, which is part of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission. This project has helped to establish some important concepts which show why platooning systems are a good way to increase safety and reduce pollution on tomorrow's highways. IDIADA's activities within the project have led to performing virtual testing of the fuel consumption that a platoon achieves due to better aerodynamics. Also, dynamic simulations of how a platoon would behave in certain normal and emergency situations have been made. The validation trials for the project will demonstrate the qualities and benefits of platooning as a safe and eco-friendly option for the mobility of tomorrow.

Driving is a highly complex activity which requires the driver's full attention. Presently, the human factor is related to 90% [1] of accidents and driver distraction is one of the principle causes. The objective of this project was to create a semi-autonomous system for testing with somnolent drivers. Our system is comprised of a GPS which checks position and velocity of the car continuously, a robot which decides with data from the CAN and GPS if the vehicle is being driven properly and an actuator on the brakes and the engine to stop the car. The robot will monitor these parameters continuously in order to take control of the car if it detects that the vehicle is not being properly driven in order to avoid a possible accident. This device will be on standby. To do this, it was necessary to create a system which allows the driver to handle the car without any influence, but when it detects driving errors can stop the car to put it in a safe state.