A Human-in-the-Loop Probabilistic CNN-Fuzzy Logic Framework for Accident Prediction in Vehicular Networks

The vehicle accident prediction methods are designed to improve the vehicular safety and reduce the rescue response time in the case of an accident. The existing accident prediction methods, however, do not involve Human-in-the-Loop, i.e., do not consider the emotional state of a driver to predict the likelihood of an accident. We propose a Probabilistic Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-Fuzzy Logic framework that involves Human-in-the-Loop and takes into account the multiple input streams of sensor generated data, i.e., human emotions and traffic data. The features extracted from the CNN model are fed to our designed probabilistic graph-based inference model to determine the accident probability. The probability is then mapped with accident severity through fuzzy membership functions for accident prediction. The experiment results show the promising performance of our proposed framework, i.e., 93.1% accuracy of face expressions, 76.2% accuracy of heartbeat, and 76.9% accuracy of traffic inputs and predicts the accident likelihood with 90% accuracy. The comparison, with related works, shows that the proposed framework can predict accidents with higher probabilities.

I. Introduction

Recent advancements in sensing and actuating technology, along with the developments of innovative intelligent solutions, have realized the realm of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) [1]–[3]. ITS has a number of input streams of data coming through various sources such as traffic control systems, vehicular sensors, and driver-generated data to offer next-generation vehicular services such as maintaining traffic efficiency, offering safety and comfort to drivers and passengers, fleet management, and many others [4]. Vehicular safety against accidents is an imperative aspect that must be considered while designing any ITS service. According to World Health Organization, a large proportion of deaths and injuries all over the world are due to road accidents [5]. In many cases, the deaths are due to lack of coordination with the vehicles or lack of timely alerts generated by the coordinated systems for vehicles. Thus, there is a need for a robust accident alerting framework for improving the road safety by taking into account different streams of data.