Advanced Driver Assistance Systems moving to video sensors

Date: 4/3/2010

Source: ‘Visual effect’, Vision Zero International, January 2010, pg. 70-71

Early and prototype Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) often used radar and other ‘beam’ based sensors as it is easier for a computer to interpret the data that it produces.  Improvements in video cameras and faster, cheaper processing power have meant that video cameras are increasingly being used to deliver the same or better driver assistance systems such as adaptive cruise control or incident prevention systems.  Using camera technology also has the benefit that the reaction of video-based systems is more understandable and predictable to drivers as they have the same view as the human eye.  In addition, the same camera can be used by many different systems and applications, improving flexibility.

Cameras are already being used to measure the parking spaces in parking assistance systems. In the future, they will supplement/replace mirrors and classify detected objects.

Keywords: Incident, In-vehicle systems, Monitoring