Avoiding crashes through engineering

Sensor fusion and FlexRay adoption pose big challenges for active-safety systems developers.

Active-safety systems are at the forefront of automotive design, employing cameras, radars, and other sensors to prevent crashes. But the plethora of electronics brings many challenges for product developers, who must find efficient ways to gather data, share it quickly, and then determine when and how to alert drivers.

One challenge is cost. Most safety systems now in use have dedicated sensors and controllers, but that is considered an expensive way to go. Sensor fusion, in which a single sensor provides input to any system, is a universal goal for cost savings.