Sensing in the Ultimately Safe Vehicle

Various sensing technologies are used today for collision avoidance, blind spot detection, and other vision enhancing systems in luxury vehicles. These sensing technologies include radar, lidar, infrared, and ultrasonic sensing as well as CCD and CMOS imaging and, in most cases, require intensive and sophisticated computing capability to implement. Turning these systems and those still in the development phase into standard or optional features on mid-range vehicles will require performance enhancements and considerable cost reduction. However, affordable vehicle systems that anticipate accidents and allow the driver and/or the vehicle itself to avoid them could provide one of the most remarkable vehicle safety advances. This paper will review automotive industry goals and objectives for vision-based systems and present the electronics industries’ current and projected capability to meet these demands.