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Personal Eyewitness CarCam - Vehicle Accident Video Recorder

The Personal EyeWitness Vehicle Accident Video Recorder provides a robust and tamper-resistant recording of vehicle accidents. The PEW continuously records video into semi-conductor memory, overwriting old video every thirty seconds, and stopping only after an accident triggers the vehicle crash sensor.      The PEW uses Mitsubishi's Artificial Retina chip as an inexpensive image sensor, and Mitsubishi's M32R/D integrated CPU plus DRAM chip to provide data compression and storage. The entire device will be able to sell for approximately US$100 retail.

Background & Objective:  The Personal EyeWitness project goal is to produce a working prototype of a self-contained solid-state video recorder for vehicle accident data capture. The justification for this work is the large market in the US for any system that decreases liability or insurance costs for automobiles, taxicabs, trucks, and buses.

Technical Discussion:  We have constructed twelve prototype units of the CarCam using the M64283FP Artificial Retina image sensor, the M32R/D microprocessor with 2 MB of DRAM, a solid state accelerometer and 4 MB of FLASH memory. The units are each about the size of a pack of cards and are impact resistant. For demonstration purposes, the units can be attached to small radio-controlled trucks, which are then used to simulate crashes.

Contact:  William Yerazunis

Publications:
Yerazunis, W.S., Leigh, D.L., Freeman, W.T. and Bardsley, R.S, "An Inexpensive, All Solid-State Video and Data Recorder for Accident Reconstruction", SAE International Congress and Exposition, 10-1299, March 1999 (TR1999-029)

Technology Area:  Computer Vision

Modification Date:  July 7, 2008