Is your car safe enough?

As we are paving away to the next generation of mobility, the relationship between man and machine is evolving. Similar to the enhanced senses of animals in the natural world, the safety system in a vehicle uses multiple types of sensors and synchronized safety technologies to give the ability to sense and avoid accidents at an enhanced level. 

If you have a car and is concerned about your safety or maybe you are an enthusiast like me who is curious about the present technology. Here are some of the available safety technologies,

Pre-Collision Braking System

The pre-collision Braking system recognizes potential collision in advance under certain circumstances and supports your breaking action in slow and high-speed situations. One of the present safety systems present in Honda is shown below,

Credit: Honda Motors

The sensor in this system uses a multimeter wave radar to sense vehicles and objects on the road ahead. The Electronic Control Unit(ECU) will determine whether or not a collision is imminent based on the driver's response and the position and speed of the vehicle. When the sensors determine that the collision is unavoidable, the pre-collision brake assist immediately activates as soon as the driver steps on the brake pedal and increases the braking force, reducing the collision speed and in most of the time stopping before the collision. 

The Pre-Collision System with pedestrian detection can help recognize pedestrians and give breaking assistance to avoid potential accidents.

Airbag Deployment System

Just like Pre-collision Braking System, the Airbag Deployment System also recognizes potential collision in advance, but instead of allowing the breaking action, this system will deploy a bag filled with certain gas just like a balloon to avoid injury to the driver and passengers due to collision. The objective of the airbag, which is deployed when the vehicle suddenly decelerates (as in a collision), is to prevent the vehicle occupants from hitting any rigid surfaces and cushion the forces on their heads and upper or lower bodies.

Credit: Toyota Motors

 According to The Clemson University Vehicular Electronics Laboratory, airbags are typically made of nylon fabric and are hidden behind panels at various locations in the vehicle, including the steering wheel. At the time of the crash, the crash sensor (an accelerometer) sends a signal to the airbag control unit depending upon the crash sensitivity. After that, the control unit triggers the inflation device which suddenly generates the nitrogen gas by igniting a mixture of sodium azide(NaN3) and potassium nitrate (KNO3). This process happens so fast that it takes about 0.05 seconds to fully deploy the airbag after the crash. The gas expands at the speed of 200 mph which itself may cause injury in rare cases. This has given rise to adaptive airbag systems that employ multiple inflators to produce either low-level or high-level deployments. These systems can adjust the airbag pressure depending on factors such as seat position, size of passenger, crash severity and seat belt use.

Lane Departure Warning System

Credit: Mitsubishi Motors

The land departure warning system is designed to keep you safe from a crash due to imbalance and departure from your lane. It uses a camera and sensors to monitor lane position by detecting the land markers and warning you if you unintentionally cross out of your lane. This might raise the question, what about changing the land? Is it going to annoy me every time while changing the lane? Well, the good news is, it won't. The warning system won't activate when changing the lane with the signal light turned on.

Automatic High Beam System

Credit: Mitsubishi Motors

While driving at night, one of the things that bother most drivers is blind sight due to the high beams coming from the crossing vehicle. This might cause visibility problems and also accidents in a worst-case scenario. Therefore, alternating between a high beam and a low beam is an essential feature for night driving.   

The automatic high beam system automatically switches from high to low beam when a vehicle ahead is detected, then back when the road is clear. The built-in camera detects the light from the vehicle crossing by from the distance and the ECU switches the high beam to low at the optimum moment. This will avoid visibility blindness to other driver crossing by while illuminating the road for as long as possible. 

Adaptive Cruise Control System

Adaptive Cruise Control or Dynamic Radar Cruise Control system automatically senses the proximity of the car in front of you and adapts your speed to help maintain the preset distance.

Credit: Honda Motors

The camera or sensor placed on the front of the car generates the signal to the Electronic Control Unit which command the vehicle to brake when it detects the car is approaching another vehicle ahead, then accelerate when traffic allows it to. The system automatically adjusts the vehicle speed to maintain a safe distance from vehicles ahead.