How ADAS Based Solutions Improve Driver Safety?

Summary

The Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) is a new technology that can improve road safety and eliminate mishaps before they occur. ADAS is an innovative technology that helps monitor, warn, brake, and steer tasks to avoid deaths and injuries by reducing the number of road accidents considerably.

It offers a wide range of safety features, such as rear camera-assisted parking, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot detection, speed limiter, etc. ADAS applications are generally categorized as active and passive assistance, which assist drivers in a long trip on the highway and control lighting during night driving. 

ADAS can improve the safety of the trucking industry and enhance fleet operation safety.

To err is humane (It is natural for human beings to make mistakes.) – it’s one of the most suitable expressions to define humans of the past, present, and future. But, some errors can cost you dearly – financially or otherwise.

Take in case of accidents; almost all vehicle accidents are caused by human error. In India, 3,66,138 road accidents occurred during the calendar year 2020, causing 1,31,714 deaths. 

As per 2019 data, India ranks first in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries.

It accounts for almost 11% of the accident-related deaths in the World.

Seeing it on a big scale, it is not just a problem in our country alone. It is a severe concern for every other nation as well. That’s why governments worldwide keep insisting on following all proper road safety rules and regulations – wearing seatbelts while driving a car/truck, following the traffic rules, adhering to the speed limits, etc. 

Still, all these efforts were found to be less effective. As the vehicle safety features have come a long way over the years. The most common features, such as airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones, can only provide protection when a crash happens. 

However, the new active safety assistance technologies like the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) can protect us even before a crash. 

The ADAS can improve road safety and eliminate any other mishaps in advance. 

With the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), it is now possible to mitigate the risk of road accidents and consequential damages and losses of personnel and property (TRUCKS) that results from it.

Right now, ADAS is one of the hottest innovations in the transportation sector – with new capabilities continually being launched in the market. 

If you are an owner of a truck or a fleet of trucks, having ADAS is worth considering.

So, before getting to know about the advanced features of ADAS and its benefits for your fleet management, we will get the basics right. 



red truck

What is ADAS?

ADAS – Advanced Driver Assistance System that helps monitor, warn, brake, and steer tasks to avoid deaths and injuries by reducing the number of road accidents considerably.

This technology assists drivers in both high-speed maneuvers and low-speed maneuvers. 

ADAS emerged from the research in the field of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. ADAS guides drivers in achieving safe road trip to reach the destination with a wide variety of safety features. 

Some of them are: 

  1. Rear Camera assisted parking
  2. Lane departure warning
  3. Adaptive cruise control
  4. Automatic emergency braking (AEB)
  5. Blind-spot detection
  6. Speed limiter & more.

Though ADAS is quite a new technology in adoption, it is already part of some of the passenger vehicles in India as a premium feature. 

Example: Mahindra XUV 700, MG Astor.

It’s not just passenger vehicles; the trucking industry is keener to reap the benefit of ADAS technology to enhance their fleet operation safety. 

Here is the top state of the art ADAS systems that improve the on-road safety of the driver and your vehicle:

  1. Camera and Vision Control unit 
  2. LIDAR and LIDAR ECU 
  3. Short Range Radar
  4. Long-Range Radar
  5. Multidomain controller unit for vehicle control application



ADAS Technology Applications

With a wide range of ADAS use cases, ADAS applications are generally categorized as active and passive assistance. 

Passive assistance is when the driver is alerted about the changing on-road conditions such as relative distance between your vehicle & the vehicle ahead of and other object-detecting capabilities. 

In passive assistance, the driver is in complete control over how they will react to the information gathered. The alerts can take several forms (sound, vibration, visual cues, and haptic feedback like rumbling on the steering wheel).

Active assistance is when the driver on wheels is given sufficient warning in real-time, and when he doesn’t react to the alert, the ADAS system will intervene and act to avoid a collision. 

Let’s understand the ADAS applications in detail.

1.Adaptive Cruise Control:

Though many are not aware of the term ADAS, most can recognize its features like Adaptive cruise control. 

It is an application that assists drivers in a long trip on the highway when they find it challenging to monitor the speed and other trucks and vehicles on the road over a long period. Adaptive cruise control will assist in accelerating, de-accelerate, and even stopping the car/truck, depending upon the actions of other vehicles or objects in the immediate area. 

2.Glare-free High beam light:

During night driving, the normal light of the vehicle’s front headlamp is not sufficient most of the time without street lights. In these situations, the driver turns on the high beam and controls the lighting frequently to not dazzle the other drivers approaching from the opposite side. 

High beams cause temporary blindness for a few seconds, leading to accidents. Handling the high beam with a conventional switch to turn on/off when required is quite difficult for most drivers. 

With Auto-high beam, this task is taken care of – reducing stress for the driver. 

The high-beam dips gradually as the night vision front camera detects oncoming traffic or other light sources. 

The transition from the high-beam to dipped head-light is smoother, enabling the drivers to adapt to the reducing lighting on the road. 

The most interesting feature is the high beam doesn’t cut out completely, only in a selected region which impairs the on-coming vehicle driver’s vision.

3.Smart Parking Assistance System

On increasingly busy roads, parking a vehicle can be stressful for any driver. No matter their level of driving experience. As the vehicle sizes have increased, parking spaces have failed to keep up with the requirement. It puts the driver must squeeze their vehicle into a tighter space. 

To deal with this challenge, the intelligent parking assistance system will help and reduce the potential accidental damage. 

Intelligent parking assistance is a straightforward system that will identify the parallel and reverse parking area suitable for the vehicle with the side sensors fitted in it. 

4.Navigation System:

In-display navigation is now a part of every vehicle on the road. These navigation systems provide on-screen instruction and voice assistance to help drivers navigate with ease while concentrating on the road. 

The navigation system is built with relaying live traffic data and also helps to plan an alternative route to avoid traffic jams. Currently, more vehicles are equipped with Heads Up Display to reduce driver distraction and stay focused on the road. 

5.Night Vision Lighting System:

The risk of accidents increases multiple folds during the nighttime due to the low natural lighting around us or the road being not properly lit. This makes us difficult or impossible to see things which is not the case otherwise. 

This puts the pedestrians in much danger, either we see them late while driving or not at all. 

So, a better night vision technology will significantly help to reduce these risks. An infrared camera detects and also locates the distance from the pedestrians in real-time and informs the drive in advance by directing the light beam on the individuals to focus the driver’s attention. 

Another serious risk at night on a highway is generated by animals crossing on the road. Just like pedestrians, they are often seen late and not at all. The infrared night vision camera will process the obstruction ahead of the vehicle and alert the driver with early detection. 

This system provides time for the driver to react and avoid the collision.

6.Blind Spot Monitoring

The blind-spot monitoring (BMS) system alerts drivers of vehicles in their blind spot, i.e., beyond the visual range of your rearview mirror or when you can’t detect an approaching vehicle from a rearview mirror.

The system alerts the driver about the presence of vehicles that might escape detection in side-view mirrors. It will enhance the driver’s confidence and help optimize the safe operation.

Suppose a vehicle is equipped with this feature. In that case, you will get notified if any adjacent vehicles are approaching your blind spot via chime sound alert and indicator light in the outside side-view mirror for a few seconds. 

For a truck driver, the BSM system will assist in the safe fleet operation and also maintain a safe movement of the attached long trailer without a fuss. 

7.Automatic Emergency Braking:

Late braking or applying the brake with insufficient force is one of the highest reported issues for crashes or collisions on the highway. Other than distracted driving and poor visibility, a difficult situation where the driver ahead is braking unexpectedly, the reaction time will be less under these situations. 

In order to avoid or minimize the collision and its impact, Automatic Emergency braking (AEB) system with cameras or sensors or a combination of both to monitor the view ahead of a vehicle’s path. 

If the driver doesn’t respond to the alert, the vehicle automatically applies the brake. Some of the existing AEB systems have the ability to do more than detect other vehicles. For example, they can see and prevent or mitigate the effect of collisions with pedestrians and cyclists. 

AEB and night vision systems can do wonders when you are driving in a poorly lit area. 

8.Lane Support System:

Tired and distracted driving on the highway results in vehicles straying away from a lane beyond the accepted level. If immediate course corrections weren’t made, it would result in a runoff -road crashes and even fatality.

Lane support systems like Lane Departure Warning or Lane keep Assist system can enable drivers to maintain their intended path and even shift lanes safely. 

The system can recognize lane markings with the help of cameras and sensors and alert the driver with an audio or visual warning if the vehicle is leaving the lane without indicating. With the help of the system, a driver can steer the vehicle back within the track. If the driver fails to respond, the system will automatically bring the vehicle on track. 

Even in the undivided highway tracks, the lane support system can detect the road edges and maintain the vehicle’s path within the non-marked road edges. 

9.Driver Drowsiness Detection:

You may be an exceptional driver, but if you aren’t alert on the road then chances of accidents are high. 

The significant reasons for truck accidents are mobile phone usage while driving, smoking, and drowsiness due to continuous driving for long hours without enough rest. The driver monitoring system is another way of measuring the driver’s attention. 

Facial detection internal camera can help the driver to stay alert and focused on driving by analyzing whether the driver’s eyes are on the road or closed. 

If the system detects distraction or any signs of tiredness, then the embedded alert mechanism will nudge the driver with audio and vibration alerts to bring the driver’s attention back. 

With the growing difficulty in finding truck drivers to ferry a good from one place to another, finding an alternate truck driver is quite tough. In such cases, Driver Drowsiness Detection System is beneficial in providing early warning. 

 

 

Why is ADAS important?

Human errors are a leading cause of accidents other than environmental and mechanical failures. To reduce the risk of humans traveling by road, we need a better technology-enabled solution. 

Due to the growing opportunity to reduce car accidents, the automotive ADAS system with all the features mentioned above makes it attractive. 

Other than the things mentioned earlier, Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) are the two key areas to watch.

With increasing electronic architecture in vehicles of different sizes and shapes, every aspect of the car and its movement is studied extensively. As a result, it brings greater accuracy, efficiency, and performance to the ADAS system detect and promote safe transportation. 

To wrap it up, as a fleet manager, you can see into the driver’s world and eliminate the difficulty involved in plying across the country with the ADAS system.

Though the logistics industry is slow in technology adoption, taking a positive step towards it will maximize the value of your investment in ADAS technologies.




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