Skip to main content

TRW showcases driver assist systems

TRW Automotive demonstrated its driver assist systems (DAS) and outlined expected trends in sensor technologies during the company's recent bi-annual Ride and Drive event at the Hockenheimring in Germany. According to Andrew Whydell, TRW Electronics’ director of product planning, DAS has and will continue to be a focal point for the automotive industry as governments and industry bodies strive to reduce road fatalities worldwide. For example, the European New Car Assessment Program (EuroNCAP) and the Ins
June 5, 2014 Read time: 3 mins
601 TRW Automotive demonstrated its driver assist systems (DAS) and outlined expected trends in sensor technologies during the company's recent bi-annual Ride and Drive event at the Hockenheimring in Germany.

According to Andrew Whydell, TRW Electronics’ director of product planning, DAS has and will continue to be a focal point for the automotive industry as governments and industry bodies strive to reduce road fatalities worldwide. For example, the European New Car Assessment Program (EuroNCAP) and the 7120 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have this year introduced active safety criteria into their assessment programs which can be met with forward-looking radar and video camera sensors.

From 2014, 6437 Euro NCAP has introduced automatic emergency braking (AEB) and lane departure warning (LDW) into its ratings scheme, and in North America, the IIHS has made fitting of forward collision warning (FCW) or AEB a requirement to receive its Top Safety Pick + consumer safety award. Going forward, from 2016 Euro NCAP will also introduce pedestrian AEB into its assessment program and is considering additional tests for other vulnerable road users including cyclists in future updates.

Whydell continued: "TRW has broad experience in radar and video camera systems and we anticipate exponential growth in these technologies over the next decade. We are now implementing our third and fourth generation sensor systems which not only help to address the more immediate industry requirements, but also play a fundamental role in enabling semi- and automated driving.

"As we move towards cars that allow the driver to take their hands off the wheel for periods of time, we'll start to see additional sensors being fitted to monitor 360 degrees around the vehicle and also the driver's attention level. The systems will need to allow time for a distracted driver to be able to retake control of the vehicle. Radar sensors will therefore require a wider field of view at shorter range, combined with an overall longer range detection capability. Next generation video camera sensors will likely have lenses which can extend the range for detecting vehicles to 250m and beyond for highway driving, while also allowing you to see what is happening close to the vehicle when manoeuvring at low speed.

"We continue to develop a flexible and scalable family of sensors that can fully address future industry requirements and support vehicle manufacturers across all vehicle segments and in all markets."

Related Content

  • September 23, 2014
    Does ADAS create as many problems as it solves
    Victoria Banks and Neville Stanton [1] of Southampton University’s Transportation Research Group examine the real impact of creeping driver automation. Safety research suggests that 90% of accidents are thought to be a result of driver inattentiveness to unpredictable or incomplete information and the vision is that highly automated vehicles will lead to accident-free driving in the future.
  • April 29, 2015
    Foundation funds research for informed campaigning
    ITS International talks to Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the transport research and lobbying organisation, the RAC Foundation. It is through the eyes of an economist that Professor Stephen Glaister, emeritus professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London and director of the RAC Foundation, views current and future transport problems. Having spent 30 years at the London School of Economics and another 10 at Imperial, the move to the RAC Foundation was a radical departure from
  • November 28, 2013
    Roadside infrastructure key to in-vehicle deployment
    The implementation of in-vehicle systems will require multilateral cooperation, as Honda’s Sue Bai explains to Colin Sowman. Vehicle manufacturers will shape the future direction of in-vehicle ITS systems, but they can’t do it on their own. So to find out what they see on the horizon, and the obstacles they face, ITS International spoke to Sue Bai, principal engineer in the Automobile Technology Research Department with Honda R&D Americas. Not only does she play an important role in Honda’s US-based ITS
  • March 22, 2016
    Europe’s car safety framework needs ‘overhaul’
    Vehicle safety innovations are still benefitting too few road users in Europe due to an over-reliance on a voluntary testing programme rather than regulatory standards, according to a new report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). For almost twenty years, increases in levels of car safety in Europe have been driven mainly by the voluntary Euro NCAP programme which awards the safest cars with a 5-star rating. But according to new data, only around half of new vehicles sold in 2013 had been aw