WiSafe: Wi-Fi Pedestrian Collision Avoidance System

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel Wi-Fi-based pedestrian collision avoidance (PCA) system: WiSafe. Compared to vision-based and radar-based PCA systems, WiSafe has a key advantage of Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS). WiSafe can assist drivers in discovering pedestrians in NLOS and blind spots, where the views of drivers are blocked by buildings, vehicles, or other obstacles. In particular, it is very useful when driving in poor visibility conditions such as at night, in heavy rain, or thick fog. WiSafe can save split seconds, which can potentially save lives. Instead of using wireless access in vehicular environments/dedicated short-range communications to protect pedestrians, WiSafe provides a simple, effective, and low-cost solution. Without changing Wi-Fi standards, WiSafe is compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n and can be implemented by apps on smartphones or wearable devices. The complete analysis, implementation, and experiments are presented in this paper. The results show that WiSafe can achieve and even exceed the PCA requirements.