Dr Air Brake’s remedy for reversing accidents
Safety systems supplier Doctor Air Brake has explained how it is optimising the performance of its products through recent investment in its in-house technological capability.
“Technology moves at pace and Doctor Air Brake Ltd is always looking how it can apply new tech to enhance their range of safety braking products,” said the company.
It has used millimetre wave radar for some years now, but as electronic components become smaller and smarter, it has continually moved with the times. Now, having invested in new machinery to assist with the placement of extremely small components onto circuit boards, the company says it is able to redesign and produce new boards to harness the power of the very latest electronic components and constantly improve the performance of products.
Among the safety braking products supplied by Doctor Air Brake is the Reverse Smart system, which can automatically apply a vehicle’s brakes to prevent accidents if objects are detected in its path.
“The Reverse Smart system – which is unaffected by rain, dust, snow or ice – has sensors fitted to both front and rear of the vehicle,” said Doctor Air Brake.
“These sensors constantly build up a picture of everything within its 50m range… Any object detected by the radar is checked for distance, angle and closing speed and based on this, the system informs the driver using a display and buzzer.
“If the driver ignores the warnings as the object/person gets into its danger zone, then the brakes automatically apply. The vehicle is then held stationary, giving the driver time to check mirrors and cameras to see if it is safe to carry on reversing or exit the cab to inspect the area.”
Reverse Smart can be individually programmed for each type of body fitted, which can include road sweepers, tar sprayers, refuse collection vehicles or any special-bodied vehicle such as a fire truck.
“CAN communication is standard, so it both listens and talks to the vehicle electronics allowing Reverse Smart to operate as one with other vehicle safety systems,” added Doctor Air Brake.
“Event or error data is also output to MDVR vehicle camera recorders, so if there’s an incident, we have an onscreen marker of how the system reacted, while you’re watching actual video footage. This vital safety feedback allows operators to examine in detail any ‘near miss’ in the operating environment and provides hard evidence should it be required.”
