| New Stage of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)
Future Expectations for ITS
MASAKI Toshio
Roles of ITS for Realizing Safe and Secure Traffic Transportation Society
SUZUKI Katsuyoshi/ SEKI Yoshiro/ NAKAMURA Junichi
The Cabinet Office of Japan proposed "the world's safest traffic environment" by reducing the annual number of road traffic fatalities to 5,000 or less by the end of 2012 as part of the New IT Reform Strategy in 2006.
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) comprise an advanced information and telecommunications network for linking roadside infrastructure to onboard devices of vehicles, in order to support driving safety and comfort as well as environmental preservation. The Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS) and Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system are in practical use and have been contributing to the reduction of traffic congestion in recent years. Moreover, the Advanced Cruise-Assist Highway System (AHS) and Driving Safety Support Systems (DSSS) are planned to be deployed in order to reduce traffic accidents. Nationwide proof tests were conducted in FY2008 as one of the activities to verify the effectiveness and interoperability of these services.
Toshiba is aiming at the further development of innovative ITS in cooperation with the relevant organizations.
Leading-Edge Trends in ETC and Toshiba’s Efforts
KIMURA Kenji/ MATSUI Kiyoshi
The Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system commenced operation in the Tokyo metropolitan area in 2001. Since then, it has been steadily deployed throughout Japan and almost 80% of vehicles passing tollgates were utilizing this system as of June 2008. The reasons for the rapid dissemination of ETC include the introduction of various discount services and promotion by expressway operators at each stage, as well as standard specifications of devices due to the standardization of wireless communication and security at the first stage of development.
ETC technology is expected to further expand to a wide field of applications from now on, such as the introduction of distance-based toll systems on urban expressways and deployment of the service to the private sector using wireless communication technologies.
Practical Realization of Vehicle License Plate Recognition System
SAKURAI Yusuke/ AOKI Yasuhiro
Vehicle license plate recognition technology has become essential in recent years for correct identification of individual vehicles passing through Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system lanes.
Toshiba has been developing a vehicle license plate recognition system with high robustness against the external environment such as sunlight conditions. Through field tests carried out toward commercial production, problems that degrade the recognition performance under certain conditions were identified. By newly employing a two-stage binarization method and optimizing the pre-processing parameters prior to recognition, we confirmed that improvements were achieved in the recognition rate and the robustness of the system under the external environment, even in the case of shadows with strong contrast in summer sunlight conditions.
Traffic Control System for Long Inner-City Tunnel on Metropolitan Expressway
MURANO Takenori/ WATANABE Tomohide/ TEZUKA Takaharu/ NUMATA Yasushi
The traffic control system for the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway has been introduced not only to avoid traffic congestion, but also to enhance the safe, comfortable, and smooth-running environment of the expressway. This traffic control system is a vitally important social system that must be in operation without any gaps, even when it is modified to cope with expansion of the route network or system upgrading and updating.
The Central Circular Shinjuku Route, which has been constructed to alleviate traffic congestion throughout the Metropolitan Expressway, is an 11 km-long large-scale inner-city tunnel under Tokyo. Metropolitan Expressway Co., Ltd. and Toshiba have developed a traffic control system that has several special functions for a long tunnel, in order to realize safer and more reliable traffic control for users.
Demonstration Experiments of Driving Safety Support Systems Using Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communications Systems
NAKAGAWA Atsushi/ NAKANO Tsuyoshi/ OKAMOTO Yasukazu
With the aim of reducing the number of road traffic accidents, the National Police Agency is promoting demonstration experiments toward the realization of Driving Safety Support Systems (DSSS).
Toshiba has been participating in the Universal Traffic Management Society of Japan (UTMS), and has been developing a pedestrian crossing information provision system for prevention of collisions by alerting drivers to approaching pedestrians and cyclists detected by stereo cameras located at crossings. The results of demonstration experiments conducted on public roads in Hiroshima confirmed that the experimental system achieves successful performance as a practical information service.
Simulation of Traffic Flow on Hanshin Expressway Using Microscopic Traffic Simulator
UENO Hideki/ HIRATA Yosuke/ OHBA Yoshikazu
The targeted areas of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have become increasingly broad in recent years, and evaluation of their functions in experiments using real vehicles is difficult. With this as a background, traffic flow simulators have become highly important and are used in many cases.
Toshiba has developed a microscopic traffic simulator corresponding to a road network based on molecular dynamics simulation, for use in the research and development of large traffic systems. The results of simulation of traffic congestion at a junction of an actual expressway using this simulator showed that the actual traffic behavior is reproduced with sufficient accuracy.
Trends in Visible Light Communication and Application to ITS
SHIMADA Shigehito/ TAKEDA Yoko
With the aim of realizing a low-carbon society on a global scale, conventional incandescent lamps are being replaced by new devices with smaller emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The brightness of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the next-generation lighting device, has been improving in recent years, and LEDs are also expected to be applied to communication systems because of their excellent safety and security. The application of visible light communication utilizing LEDs to various areas of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) has been progressing recently accompanying efforts to promote standardization and dissemination.
Toshiba has been participating in a pilot program to demonstrate mobile telecommunications using visible LED light, and has been engaged in research and development of practical applications. Software Engineering
Educating Software Engineers to Advance Technological Innovation
HONIDEN Shinichi
Software Engineering Supporting Advanced Software Development
EGUCHI Kazutoshi
Requirements have become diversified and functions increasingly sophisticated in the fields of social infrastructure systems and digital equipment in recent years. Both the diversity of functions realized by software and the size and complexity of software have been rapidly growing as a result. At the same time, there is increasing demand for high reliability of software as the areas of application expand.
In response to these needs, Toshiba has been applying the latest accomplishments in software engineering, such as platform technology that closely aligns software development strategy with business strategy, quality improvement technologies at earlier stages of development, and organization of software development processes, to commercial software development activities.
Software-Platform Construction Technology
TAKIZAWA Osamu/ AKAISHI Fujio/ HAYASE Takeo
In recent years, the specifications of software have shown drastic increases in variation and complexity with the progress of large-scale software development. Software product line engineering methods are an effective means of improving the productivity of software development. Construction of the core assets of the software product line, which are referred to as the“ platform,” is of particular importance.
Utilizing software product line engineering methods and platforms, Toshiba has been developing software for the control and monitoring systems of power generation plants at the first stage of development and has applied it to more than 150 actual projects over the past 30 years. We are also promoting research and development for measurement of structural deterioration of platforms, making it possible to evaluate platform quality.
Software Quality Improvement at Early Design Stages Using Model Checking Techniques
IKEDA Nobuyuki/ TAKADA Satoko/ FUJIWARA Satoko
As the role of software in industrial systems and embedded systems has continued to grow in recent years, the cost of achieving safety of software has also been increasing. Model checking enables automatic exhaustive exploration of design specifications, thereby realizing fault detection at the early stages of development and reduction of revision costs. Model checking techniques have consequently become an area of increasing interest for achieving both quality improvement and cost reduction. At the same time, reduction of the cost of model checking itself and accommodation of various needs for verification are significant issues in the successful use of these techniques in real-world applications.
Toshiba has developed two techniques to address these issues: (1) automated analysis of counter-examples, and (2) real-time extension of the model checking method.
Static Source Code Analysis Technology
KOGA Kunihide/ YAMAMOTO Kazuko
The amount of source code in software is increasing so rapidly that developers with different programming skill levels have to write the source codes. As a result, there is an increasing need to enhance the level of coding skills.
In order to normalize such coding skills, Toshiba has formulated a coding standard for C language, and has also introduced a static analysis tool into 16 departments of Toshiba. In addition, we have developed a front-end tool for static analysis to simplify and automatically generate analysis configurations. Recently, we have been promoting the introduction of a new type of static analysis tool, which can detect memory-related bugs that could previously only be detected by dynamic analysis, into five departments.
Software Test Using Combination Technology
OGASAWARA Hideto/ NAKANO Takashi/ OHTANI Kazuo
With the exponential growth in the scale and complexity of systems and software in recent years, the number of combinations of software test cases has been dramatically increasing. It is substantially difficult to comprehensively cover all test cases, leading to growing demand for an effective and efficient combination test.
With this as a background, Toshiba has developed APTNaviTM (all pair testing navigation tool), a test case generation support tool, with both the orthogonal array and the all-pair method as combination technology. APTNaviTM makes it possible to generate a test case in which the rate of complete coverage between two factors with sufficient balance becomes 100%. As a result of applying this tool and process, the effect of reducing useless test items performed repeatedly was confirmed.
Quantitative Software Development Management Technologies
MORI Toshiki
Quantitative software development management is becoming essential as the scale and complexity of software products increases. The introduction of quantitative development management brings in visualization of development, early detection of problems, and rational decision making based on quantitative data. Various issues still remain, however, including the high cost of measurement activities and low reliability of measurement data.
To overcome these problems, Toshiba is promoting a practical approach that involves restructuring of the existing measurement framework and standardization of data and utilization methods, toward the optimization of quantitative software development management.
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