Hella's Safety Innovation Roadmap Gains OEM Interest

TECHNOLOGY FOCUSHella's Safety Innovation Roadmap Gains OEM Interest PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, MI (July 25, 2006) - Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.'s suite of safety-oriented driver assistance systems (DAS) - both current and planned - offers a comprehensive solution to reducing accidents and fatalities. These new technologies are beginning to attract OEM attention too, says the company. The DAS strategy combines a number of applications, including adaptive cruise control (ACC), rear-end collision warning, lane-departure warning (LDW), rear-view cameras and sensors with advanced image-processing software. Vehicles equipped with these features can detect potential accident situations, provide warnings or even automatically engage a vehicle's brakes to reduce crash severity.

Systems like the Adaptive Cruise Control feature (automatic regulation of the safety distance) increase traffic safety and form the optimum basis for an integrative and functional extension through image sensor concepts.
(Photo: Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.)

Hella's ACC system measures the distance and relative speed of vehicles driving in front, and controls the car's speed and the safety distance. The first-generation products were designed as a supportive comfort function, allowing the driver to override the function at any time. Future ACC safety applications will focus on precrash and automatic emergency braking functions.

By employing multibeam Infrared Distance Management System (IDIS) technology, the ACC system is designed to perform even under adverse weather conditions, says Hella. IDIS uses a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensor with high lateral resolution that not only detects the distance to an object, but also the sees object's lateral (side-to-side) position and dimensions. Winfried Menge, director of marketing electronics for Hella, says the use of laser radar can reduce the cost of an ACC system by 50 percent.

Hella's radar-based rear-end collision warning system detects other vehicles that are behind or in the driver's blind spots. Using a smart algorithm, the system also detects when the driver intends to change lanes and sounds a warning signal.

The company's LDW system, scheduled for 2009 production vehicles, uses a small camera installed on the windshield to observe areas in front of the vehicle. Intelligent image-processing software analyzes the recorded data, calculating the vehicle's position in the lane and any curves in the roadway. It then sends a warning signal to the driver if a turn signal is not activated before the vehicle leaves its lane.

Other safety-focused windshield application products that Hella expects to introduce over the next five years include:

* A compact package under development that includes a forward-looking LDW camera combined with its CHARLSS (capacitive humidity and rain/light/solar sensor) system, which is scheduled for production within the next three to four years.

* Also under development is ADILIS (advanced infrared lighting system), which uses a metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera and an infrared headlamp to detect objects up to 500 feet away. Images are shown to the driver on a heads-up display.

Four In One

(Photo: Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.)Last September, Hella introduced "the world's first capacitive rain sensor for virtually invisible integration into the windshield." The concept unites the rain, light, humidity and solar sensor functions. The sensor's aerial structure, which is completely integrated into the windshield, is barely visible, allowing areas of the windshield or rear window to be used for rain detection. When paired with contra-rotating wiping systems (butterfly principle) and panorama windshields, the sensor can be optimally placed in the wiping area without any restriction of the driver's view, says Hella.

In the new sensor concept, the sensitive surface and the control unit are separated. The sensitive surface of the rain sensor consists of a capacitor, the capacity of which changes depending on the degree of wetness of the windshield.

If water drops hit the windshield, the electric oscillatory circuit containing the aerial structure is detuned. The resulting signal changes correspond to the degree of wetting of the windshield and then control the wiping intensity.

* Hella says it is working on a predevelopment project for its driver monitoring system (DMS) for an automaker; the project is targeted for implementation in 2010. DMS comprises functions such as line of sight detection, attention analysis, and facial recognition - using integrated hardware - including a camera and illumination device.

ADILIS is an additional assistance system which illuminates the long-range area up to 150 meters in front of the vehicle invisibly to the human eye.
(Photo: Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.)

Determining the right interface link between human and machine, in-line with customer requirements, is a critical factor in the design of all driver assistance systems. In this context, the demands are high: Assistance systems should be intuitively comprehensible, understandable, transparent, clear and discreet.

"Our long-term objective is to greatly reduce traffic accidents and injuries by providing safety-system devices for the broadest possible range of vehicles," Menge says. "Thirty percent of all accidents are caused by unintended lane departures, and more than 25 percent of all accidents are rear-end collisions. By helping drivers avoid such accidents, we can significantly reduce highway injuries and fatalities."

(Source: Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.)