Advanced Driver Assistance: Chances and Limitations on the Way to Improved Active Safety

Advanced Driver Assistance systems support the driver in his driving tasks. They can be designed to enhance the driver's performance and/or to take over unpleasant tasks from the driver. An important optimization goal is to maintain the driver's activation at a moderate level, avoiding both stress and boredom.

Functions requiring a situational interpretation based on the vehicle environment are associated with lower performance reliability than typical stability control systems. Thus, driver assistance systems are designed assuming that drivers will monitor the assistance function while maintaining full control over the vehicle, including the opportunity to override as required.

Advanced driver assistance systems have a substantial potential to increase active safety performance of the vehicle, i.e., to mitigate or avoid traffic accidents. Designers of advanced driver assistance systems need to consider both opportunities and limitations in order to achieve maximum benefit and avoid hazards; these considerations are summarized in “10 Golden Rules of Driver Assistance”.