Advanced Technology Helps Make Today's Vehicles Safer

Envelope-pushing automotive engineers and suppliers continue to help vehicle manufacturers make vehicles safer by providing a complete portfolio of active and passive safety products that are being continually improved through engineering design innovation.

It's been two decades since automotive engineers tackled the challenge of converting very expensive, low-volume, military aerospace radar systems into less expensive, high-volume radar for passenger cars. This hard work is now paying off and consumers will benefit as automakers manufacture vehicles with more safety features.

Many of these sophisticated systems will be on the road soon, including a new generation of radar sensors used for smart or adaptive cruise control, pre-crash mitigation with autonomous brake assist, pedestrian detection and collision warning.

Today's newest radar sensor systems will enable better performance at a lower cost, making it possible for vehicle manufacturers to offer collision mitigation technology across a larger percentage of their fleets. This next-generation radar has a wide field of view and provides simultaneous long and medium range capabilities in a single sensor. By combining a waveform with an innovative electronic scanning transceiver, enhanced target detection is achieved while increasing reliability, and with no moving parts.

Another approach, known as sensor data fusion, combines multiple sensor technologies to achieve greater performance than available with an individual sensor. Incorporating the complementary technologies of radar and vision provides higher quality inputs into threat assessment algorithms for collision mitigation and avoidance applications. Radar is used to detect object range and range rate, while vision systems confirm the classification of identified objects, such as vehicles, traffic signs, bridges and tunnels. Fusing this data allows for a "look" at the road ahead that provides more information and enhances performance of active safety systems.

Innovative automotive suppliers are also working on a single integrated Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) camera-based system that provides multiple safety enhancements at a lower cost than independent systems. The vision system hardware and algorithms enable a single camera to provide multiple functions. In addition to enhancing performance of smart cruise control and pre-crash systems, the vision system can integrate additional features such as lane departure warning, intelligent headlamp control, rain and light sensing, active near infrared night vision, rain sensing, traffic sign recognition and pedestrian detection.

Some systems use vision algorithms with their vision processor in the development of these vision and sensor fusion systems. This unique approach provides a scalable vision architecture that allows for a simple upgrade path to more complex features using the same single camera system. In addition, a single camera also simplifies vehicle packaging - eliminating redundant cameras and other standalone products that compete for limited windshield space.

The following technologies may involve multiple functions and features on a single vehicle camera to decrease cost and increase functionality:

Lane Departure Warning - A lane tracking system that helps alert drivers when they unintentionally drift out of their intended lane. Using a camera and image processing to detect painted lane markers up to 25 meters ahead of the equipped vehicle, the system determines the vehicle's heading and lateral position in the lane to provide the appropriate warning.

Rain Sensing - With the addition of a small proprietary optical system, this safety convenience operates the rain sensing function that activates wipers when moisture is detected on the windshield,

Intelligent Headlamp Control - Another convenience system using a camera and intelligent headlamp control automatically activates the high beams according to lighting and traffic conditions and automatically dims headlights for oncoming traffic and when approaching vehicles from the rear.

Active Night Vision - Active night vision uses near infrared headlamps to illuminate the road scene ahead and displays an enhanced image in the vehicle, making high-beam visibility available without blinding oncoming traffic. The system provides more natural looking images to the driver than thermal vision systems and allows non-thermal-intense objects like trees and lane markers to be seen.

Pedestrian Detection - Again, a camera enables pedestrian detection, a system that detects and classifies pedestrians. It predicts potential pedestrian impact and activates countermeasures to mitigate injuries. Pedestrian protection technologies are gaining much attention in Europe and other countries with densely populated cities.

Road Sign Recognition - An amazing technology that will have a positive impact for all drivers. Using a camera to recognize and read road and traffic signs, the system can alert the driver to varying conditions ahead such as speed limits and no-passing zones.

A reduction in accident-related deaths coincided with the development of passive safety devices from 1995 to 2005. Similarly, as automotive engineers innovate and introduce more active safety technologies to the mass market, another positive trend in automotive safety statistics is very likely on the horizon.

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