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Primitive Radar in Cars

R

RbSX

Diamond Member
I've had this idea bouncing around in my mind for a little while, amongst others, that I would like to develop.

I was thinking about a primitive radar system, that could detect cars/objects immediately in front of the vehicle.

Using basic mathematics you can determine, if the car in front of you came to a complete stop, how much space it would require for you to stop.

Using the data provided by the radar, the cars computer can govern the cars speed, relative to the car in front of it.

Basically if a car doing 100mph is closing behind a car doing 60, the computer would decellerate the car so that if the car in front had a mechanical failure, the car behind would have enough time to stop, prevening basic rear enders, to highway crashes.

Is this practical/possible?
 
Originally posted by: RyanSengara
I've had this idea bouncing around in my mind for a little while, amongst others, that I would like to develop.

I was thinking about a primitive radar system, that could detect cars/objects immediately in front of the vehicle.

Using basic mathematics you can determine, if the car in front of you came to a complete stop, how much space it would require for you to stop.

Using the data provided by the radar, the cars computer can govern the cars speed, relative to the car in front of it.

Basically if a car doing 100mph is closing behind a car doing 60, the computer would decellerate the car so that if the car in front had a mechanical failure, the car behind would have enough time to stop, prevening basic rear enders, to highway crashes.

Is this practical/possible?
Click to expand...

They've already invented/installed similar on cars, the market didn't support it. There was a brief marketing war between radar detector manufacturers regarding their ability to distinguish between police radar and anti-collision radar. Turned out to be a moot point as virtually no cars had them.
 
Well they already have a rear collision system in cars to prevent you from backing into things. I believe they also have one developed for driving that is tied to the cruise control to automatically slow you down.
 
Mercedes (spelling) has this already incorperated in their mid-high range models. Its basically a laser/radar that is turned on when the car is using cruise control. This laser/radar has the proper distance and can detect another car going much slower and can slow itself down in the best possible manner without too much disterbance. I know there are other car makers with this same feature, but I cant name any others off the top of my head.
 
There is an inherent problem any time you give control of the car's velocity to a computer: components fail. The first time it didn't slow someone down and they plowed into someone, there would be a lawsuit and the technology is gone.

I've tried to think of many ways to automate driving (after being hit a half dozen or so times) and realized that the amount of accidents is actually remarkably low when you consider the amount of driving that actually goes on. The number of human factors that would require consideration in any type of automation is simply too astronomical to compute digitally, but it's almost trivial for our brain to register, weight, and process this information as necessary. Simply put, the algorithm required to deal with all these human factors isn't practical for computer logic, at least at this time.
 
Originally posted by: Wreckage
Well they already have a rear collision system in cars to prevent you from backing into things. I believe they also have one developed for driving that is tied to the cruise control to automatically slow you down.
Click to expand...

The rear collision system might be ultrasound based, not radar. And some of the new cars from Mercedes have the "automatically slow down in need" system, and it could only work if it would be radar based (no ultrasound at high speeds could be trusted, as the noise factor could be an insurmontable problem)
 
Well, of my friends in college already implemented a similar but different technology in his own car. As a little side-project, he decided to implement an autosteering device into his car (shhh!!! don't tell the cops!). What he did was to attach a webcam to his dashboard and have an modified image processing software on his laptop to track the lines on the highway. It was even smart enough to detech highway exits and ignore them accordingly. As part of testing, he basically put his car in cruise control and went several hundred miles touching only the the brake a few times... basically with modern processing power, it's already possible to build autosteering cars (of course, commercial versions have to be more fault tolerant to avoid lawsuits)
 
The "autodriving" based on road lines was done (as a research project) in the '80s sometime, as a subproject of neural networks research - also proved in hundreds of miles of riding on highway
While what your friend did is not novell nor extraordinary - however, it isn't easy, and it can be considered a big accomplishment :thumbsup:
 
A lot of the technology discussed here is already installed in road cars today. As said before, Mercedes, BMW, Acura, and other luxury car manfacturers already have "active / adpative cruise control" installed on their cars.

examples: http://www.bmwworld.com/technology/acc.htm
http://www.bmwusa.com/Vehicles/7/760liSedan/HighlightDetail.htm?id=139


the ultrasonic sensors mentioned are known as either "parktronic" or "park distance control"

some cars even have cameras to monitor the lane markings on the highway and can warn you if you begin to drift out of lane (by audio or even by vibrating your seat)
 
Polaroid had ultrasonics back in the 80's. Anyone remember the "One Step" camera's. They also sold a developers kit that you could buy with just the ultrasonics and the electronics to drive it. I remember an article in Popular Electronics where they hooked up an LED segment to read out the distance in feet. Also, didn't Honda use this in that all-wheel steering car that can park itself? Pretty sure it was supposed to sell in Japan only.

update- thier Spectra line of cameras still have it, though they call it sonar now.
 
Auto driving systems are in testing and being slowly implemented. As mentioned, high end models are getting it first. The cars can basically drive themselves, however I'm not too sure about city driving due to light color detection and other issues like detecting pedestrians, etc...
 
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