Aspöck radar detects vulnerable road users
Vehicle equipment provider Aspöck has outlined its reasoning for shifting from ultrasonic technology to new radar-based safety systems.
Citing the imminent arrival of the Direct Vision Standard (DVS) in London, the company suggests that such schemes will likely be repeated in other major cities.
Under the terms of the DVS, “all commercial vehicles will need to conform to either a star rating or have a safety system with external sensors to assist the driver in the detection of people and objects around the vehicle,” said Aspöck.
“Currently the safety system products use ultrasonic sensors mounted at intervals on the vehicle. Typically, four or six would be needed to monitor the side of a rigid truck and this will still not provide 100 per cent coverage – plus there will be a significant amount of wiring involved.
“The ultrasonic will then alert the driver to every object they see. Of course, the vulnerable road user (VRU) will cause an alert, but also so will every lamp post, refuse bin and any other vehicle whether they are moving or not.”
Technology that constantly warns drivers of these objects could cause them to ignore or sometimes even disable the system, Aspöck contends.
“As a result, Aspöck has moved on from ultrasonic technology to introduce new systems using radar to overcome the above issues,” said the company.
“Radar is very much more sophisticated; the greater data the system produces allows for the differentiation between moving and stationary objects.
“The ability to only warn the driver when necessary creates a product which meets both the legal and drivers’ requirements.
“Additionally, each sensor can provide constant monitoring of up to 8m – vastly reducing the component complexity and installation time of the system, [with] one sensor equalling eight ultrasonic.”
The company continued: “When the vehicle is in traffic then the ultrasonic system will constantly be reporting road furniture, pedestrians in safe zones, parked cars etc. The Aspöck product, however, will be silent until a moving object enters the detection area.
“If you are parallel to a parked vehicle then there will be no alert – if however, a cyclist passes between vehicles, then the alarm will sound.”
This functionality can also be beneficial when moving at speed, says the company. During lane change the sensor will report to the driver if he is attempting to enter a lane where a vehicle is present.
As a secondary system, Aspöck can provide audible alerts outside of the vehicle to warn of proximity. Cameras are also suitable for integration.
“Finally, another issue with ultrasonic is the effect of contamination or heavy weather,” the company said.
“If the sensors are dirty, they can either make more false reports or even stop working. Heavy rain or snow will also restrict their performance. Once again, the radar is unaffected by such factors and is at home in quarry/mining applications as well as extremes of weather.”
