Controller for Urban Intersections Based on Wireless Communications and Fuzzy Logic

A major research topic in intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) is the development of systems that will be capable of controlling the flow of vehicular traffic through crossroads, particularly in urban environments. This could significantly reduce traffic jams, since autonomous vehicles would be capable of calculating the optimal speed to maximize the number of cars driving through the intersection. We describe the use of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications to determine the position and speed of the vehicles in an environment around a crossroad. These data are used to estimate the intersection point, and a fuzzy controller then modifies the speed of the cars without right of way according to the speed of the car with right of way. Experimental tests conducted with two mass-produced cars on a real circuit at the facilities of the Instituto de Automatica Industrial, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, Spain, gave excellent results.