Bosch develops smartphone app that reads traffic signs

Bosch’s technology will now actively assist drivers with indicators not to exceed speed, among other things. A new smartphone myDriveAssist app recently developed by Bosch engineers is able to read traffic signs as well as to record and process other information for new vehicle functions. The data is collected by smartphones on the road, then analysed by a central server and made available once again to the vehicle applications.

The Bosch app, available free of charge in the App Store and Google Play Store, uses the camera integrated in the smartphone to read traffic signs. With its help, the program recognises traffic signs as it is ‘driving by’ and identifies speed limits, cancellation signs and no-passing zones. In addition, the myDriveAssist app warns the driver visually and acoustically not to exceed the speed limit.

The traffic signs recognised can also be used to update the digital map stored on a central server: the traffic sign the camera identifies and its position as determined by the GPS receiver are reported anonymously to the central server. You could say that the camera ‘observes’ the surroundings ‘through the eyes of the cars’.

The information on the surroundings that users gather can be very quickly integrated into the digital map. The speed limits can then be automatically shared with and made available to other road users. This means that drivers are no longer dependent on local traffic signs alone; they can benefit from the latest information available across the entire country.