Get to know how the Advanced Driver Assisted System operate in your Vehicle.

Hello everyone. Glad to be here again. I just concluded series on System on Chips, [Although that's not all the information about System on Chips, but to some extent, that is what I could give, because embedded system is a broad topic; so for now, let keep it at that].

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Okay let me start today post by........, alright have you ever driven in a car with Advanced Driver Assisted System before? Someone out there might even throw the question back at me whether i have also driven in such a vehicle, but my own answer is no. I would say no possibly because of the part of the globe I belongs to where we catch up with recently discovered technology possibly after 5 or 10 years of discovery from the West or even from the East.

I would love it if you can drop your own response too in the comment session.

Death and injuries related to vehicular accident can not be brushed aside as if it never happened. In 2010 alone, the World Health Organization, had a record of 1.25 million deaths globally. Most of these death are preventable if drivers had obeyed simple traffic rule. Some drivers before they get to the steering wheel are already drunk, thereby exposing themselves and other road users to serious danger.

Not that there are no traffic rule, but at times, it seem as if human sense of judgment can't be trusted. The Science world however with automobiles manufacturers have come to the rescue of humanity with technology aimed at assisting drivers such that when driver becomes helpless, Advanced Driver Assisted System planted on their vehicle sprang into action.

Okay let's get to know what Advanced Driver Assisted System (ADAS) means. Even from the name, it simply means a form of designed system ( both software and hardware) purposed to help drivers in their driving such that the assisted system embedded on the vehicle can prevent disaster on the road by quickly alerting the driver of any impeding danger either ahead or behind the driver.

By Ian Maddox - Own work,CC BY-SA 4.0,

I guessed that by now, we don't need to be told that most road crash is as a result of drivers neglecting vital road signs, or such a driver is drunk before driving.

The system was developed such that it can self operate, adapt and enable the vehicle having it to drive safely and cause no harm to other road users, and that the vehicle too will not be involved in crash. For instance, the system authomatically applied emergency brake when the safe distance parameter set for the vehicle is not recognized. This happen so that the vehicle will not collide with the perceived obstacle at the front. This safety means was put in place so as to prevent collision with the obstacle ahead. The vehicle does so by informing the driver or rather take charge over the vehicle by acting promptly.

Some of the attributes possessed by ADAS that we will discussed here are listed below.

• Automatic illumination ( lightning)
• Adaptive cruise control
• Automatic break application.
• Use of Global Positioning System (GPS) (For easy location) Or for quick traffic warning.
• Use of smartphone
• Ability to call driver attention to approaching vehicles.
• Equipped with system to warn driver when driving away from it lane.
• Automatically placing vehicle at the lane center
• Revealing what is hiding or invisible in the blind spot.

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Starting with the automatic illumination: Sometimes, when driving at night, or when the weather conditions is beyond what the vehicle ordinary head lamp can illuminate the thermographic camera in ADAS vehicle will assist the driver to see clearly into a far distance and thereby avert any form of danger.

This work with the aid of an Infrared camera embedded with the car so that the driver can see what is ordinarily would have been invisible to the driver. The Infrared camera wavelength is longer than the normal visible light which is between 400–700 nanometre, that of the Infrared is on the other hand 14,000 nm . This automatic lighting is of two types.The Active and the Passive system.

Under the Active system, the light source which is Infrared is an inbuilt one such that it lightened the road, though it does not affect human as it remain invisible.

While in the Passive system, thermographic camera is used to detect thermal radiation from the object that radiate it. It does not use Infrared camera. And highly sensitive to the thermal radiation from the emitting object.

The next I will discuss is the Adaptive cruise control Just from the name cruise control, it allows the vehicle to be automatically controlled so that it does not involve in head on collision with another vehicle ahead it. This gives the vehicle the chance to maintain an allowance of distance with the one ahead of it. This is achieved through the collection of data from the surroundings of the vehicle by a sensor placed in the vehicle. The navigation of the vehicle is automatically controlled only after the driver might have set the Adaptive Cruise Control to a desired speed and a SET button is pressed. You can be faced with several options either to move at long, medium or short distance by an option button, though this depends on the maker of different vehicle.

The sensor unit responsible for this may be placed beneath the vehicle bumper, while some uses a laser and others might employed the use of an optical system using a stereoscopic camera which works by (capturing)sensing images which is quickly presented in a 3 dimensions. This technology function any time of the day, however, it is affected when the weather is bad like when there is an heavy down pour, or when there is snow or fog. Several vehicle models support this technology,but of course am not going to advertise here for any;lol. This has helped alot to prevent an head on collision.

Let's check the next feature; Automatic break application
Most times, when driving on top speed and suddenly, need arises for emergency braking the system recognizes the speed of the vehicle and the pressure exerted on the brake pedal, the system having recognize that the driver want to stop quickly and if at this point of emergency, the brake pedal is not responding accordingly or not fully pressed, it takes over and completely applies the brake until the wheels is stop. This is a bit similar to Collision Avoidance System which operate quickly to avoid collision when it had detect a possible collision.

Collision Warning with Brake Support, CC BY 2.0,
The collision avoidance system operate automatically without imput from the driver by controlling the brake of the vehicle or taking over the steering or even both if the need call for it. When the vehicle is at low speed like speed not up to 50 km/h, the collision by avoidance will only act on the break, but if the speed is above 50 km/h, definitely the system takes over the steering wheel after it has sensed that it will not collide with any other object.

In 2016, United States Traffic Safety Administration with Insurance Institute in charge of Safety on the highway made it public that by the year 2020, 99% of sold vehicle in the United States will be made with automatic emergency braking system. If you stay in Europe, you will agree with me that similar thing had happened way back in 2012 that vehicles should possess Advance Emergency Braking System. In the 2015, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe also announced that this system should be in every heavy duty vehicle.

It's expected that with this Automatic Brake Application, collision rate will reduce and consequently reduce death on the road.

SUMMARY

Death and injuries related to vehicular accident can not be brushed aside as if it never happened.

Advanced Driver Assisted System (ADAS) means a form of designed system ( both software and hardware) purposed to help drivers in their driving such that the assisted system embedded on the vehicle can prevent disaster on the road by quickly alerting the driver of any impeding danger either ahead or behind the driver.

Automatic illumination work with the aid of an Infrared camera embedded with the car so that the driver can see what is ordinarily would have been invisible to the driver.

Adaptive cruise control allows the vehicle to be automatically controlled so that it does not involve in head on collision with another vehicle ahead it.
Automatic break application :When driving on top speed and suddenly, need arises for emergency braking the system recognizes the speed of the vehicle and the pressure exerted on the brake pedal, the system having recognize that the driver want to stop quickly and if at this point of emergency, the brake pedal is not responding accordingly or not fully pressed, it takes over and completely applies the brake until the wheels is stop.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post, in the next post,I will continue from here please don't hesitate to leave comment behind if you find this post interesting.

REFERENCES

Autonomous_emergency_braking_system_with_potential_field_risk_assessment_for_frontal_collision_mitigation

Thermographic_camera. Retrieved on 29th May 2018

Knowing-how-a-stereoscopic-camera-works

Collision_avoidance_system.Retrieved on 30th May 2018

What-is-adaptive-cruise-control-and-how-does-it-work

wikipedia.org Emergency_brake_assist . Retrieved on 30th May 2018

wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate . Retrieved on 30th May 2018