Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
Driving our digital future CLEVER CARS
Clean, intelligent and connected vehicles are on the horizon
The flow towards the cities is unstoppable. By 2050, it’s been predicted that more than two-thirds of all people are expected to be living in cities. How we’ll get around is a significant challenge, considering our already creaking and overburdened transport and road systems.
Our urban vehicle future will quite likely be electric, autonomous and mostly operated by mobility service providers and fleet managers. Smart mobility will be the key and carmakers are grappling with how their products will plug into the new way of travelling. Whether, in fact, cars as we know them will have a place in our future. For now, elements of the new thinking are already in place – and we’re already well on the way to cleaner, smarter and more connected vehicles. One of the organisations leading the charge is German-based Continental, popularly known for tyres, but for some time now prominent in the area of smart transportation systems. In gearing up for the coming future mobility boom, the company has added 12 000 more staff to take its total to more than 220 000 people in 56 countries. In future, Continental will increasingly earn its money with mobility services, according to Dr Elmar Degenhart, chairman of the executive board, in announcing the company’s most recent financials. Electric mobility will be the key to this, he says, but it won’t be able to make a true breakthrough without a leap
forward in battery technology. And that breakthrough, he says, won’t happen before 2024, maybe even later. “(In recent) years, we have invested more than 1 billion Euro in electric mobility. We are currently working on orders from all of the world’s major markets.
“The automotive industry is undergoing a transformation,” Degenhart said. “The same applies to our business model. Seldom before has there been such an exciting and promising time to shape the mobility of the future.”
The company has further extended its leading position in the rapidly growing market for advanced driver assistance systems, achieving incoming orders worth more than 3 billion Euro with related sensor technology and software in 2016. “Our goal is to make road accidents a thing of the past for future generations. Advanced driver assistance systems are already helping to protect millions of road users around the world from accidents and their consequences. With the further development of key sensor technologies for better vehicle surroundings monitoring, we will take a big step towards more automation and safety in road traffic,” explained Degenhart.
In the future, vehicles will communicate more with each other and with infrastructure. But they’re already doing that, beneficially: Continental says it has used smart interconnectivity of road data and vehicle data to help truck operators worldwide save 390 million litres since 2012.
Direct communication between vehicles and their drivers will help avoid even more accidents in the future. Before the end of 2017, Continental will start production of an interior camera that will help vehicles detect whether the driver is noticing relevant information and reacting accordingly.
One of the company’s new focus areas is 3D Flash LIDAR technology, which we can expect to see in mass production within the next three years. In much the same way as echo sounding, this technology uses laser pulses to deliver a highly accurate and distortion-free map of the surroundings. For truly autonomous driving, this will be a must.
Currently, the company has several systems already in place and under development. Here are just a few.
SLOW DOWN, IT’S WET As a driver, you assess the conditions and brake, steer and accelerate accordingly. If it’s wet, you proceed more cautiously. The Road Condition Observer from Continental does that for you by classifying road
conditions with regard to tyre/road friction. The system uses sensors installed in the vehicle as standard procedure to classify whether the road surface is dry, wet, covered with snow or icy. Thanks to this classification, advanced driver assistance systems such as the triggering time of emergency brake assists can be adapted to suit potential changes in required braking distance due to bad weather conditions.
A specially developed algorithm detects the typical features for the four different road conditions: dry, wet, snow-covered and icy. Currently, detecting wet conditions is undergoing advanced testing at vehicle manufacturers.
“This knowledge allows us to adjust the functions of advanced driver assistance systems to the current road conditions. For example, to prevent an impending collision, automatic emergency braking must be initiated considerably earlier on a wet road than on a dry road,” says Bernd Hartmann, head of the Enhanced ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and Tyre Interactions project group within the Advanced Engineering department of Continental’s Chassis and Safety division.
“Automated driving also requires us to make judging the condition of the road technically possible for the system,” he adds.
All earlier attempts in this field have failed due to inadequate sensors and computing capacity that was either lacking or too expensive. Most modern cars now use electronic stability control, so in addition to ESC sensors Continental’s system uses a camera as well as data about local and regional weather data (temperature, wiper activity and cloud data) as well as the tyre behaviour. In a subsequent step, a friction coefficient can be derived from this.
During further development, the Road Condition Observer will create a comprehensive 360° environment model generated through the fusion of different information sources, including road geometry, traffic regulation recognition, model-based tracking of moving objects as well as the identification of free space.
GOODBYE, CABLE CLUTTER Mercedes-benz’s new E-class uses Continental’s Multifunctional Smart Device Terminal to banish spare batteries, power banks and cable clutter for smart devices. A key functionality: the new terminal allows drivers to wirelessly charge their smartphone and operate a range of device functions in the vehicle safely and conveniently.
The only requirement is that the smartphone uses the “Qi” standard specified by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) or that it can be upgraded to do so. This standard provides a similar charging current to a USB charging connection and therefore has similar charging times to older cable charging systems.
In the E-class, the Multifunctional Smart Device Terminal also offers automatic wireless Bluetooth pairing of the phone with support of the external antenna
and the head unit in the vehicle. The driver only needs to activate the Near Field Communication (NFC) function. In addition, the NFC technology that Continental deploys allows using the smartphone as a digital vehicle key for secure authentication. To start the engine, the driver simply places the smartphone on the Multifunctional Smart Device Terminal and presses the Start-stop button. The terminal also supports wireless antenna coupling, thus the mobile phone receives significantly better signal quality when transmitting and receiving phone calls and data.
CLEANER CAMERAS, FEWER ACCIDENTS A study by the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows just how useful the camera can be: the universal use of rear-view cameras throughout the country could not only greatly reduce the number of injuries, but also save up to 69 human lives every year. That is why all new vehicles in the USA will have to be equipped with rear-view cameras as of 2018.
Continental has developed a cleaning system for vehicles’ fish-eye cameras that uses a water jet to remove dirt on the lens. Increasing numbers of assistance functions – from collision avoidance to automated parking – are being introduced on the basis of these wide-angle cameras, with the result that they must be ready for use at all times.
Due to the positions at which they are installed in the vehicle, these cameras are exposed to the effects of the weather and dirt; for example, in the form of snow, ice and dust. They therefore need to be cleaned in order to guarantee functionality.
The camera detects the level of contamination on the lens without operator intervention and automatically triggers cleaning. The cleaning water is fed through a system of tubes from the water container to a nozzle that is mounted directly at the camera lens. The water pressure can be adjusted from 2,0 bar to 4,5 bar and can be defined individually by the vehicle manufacturer. The water jet passes across the curved surface of the lens and completely removes any dirt. Anti-freeze present in the water container prevents the water from freezing on the camera lens. Alternatively, heated cleaning systems are also available. In this case, a heating conductor is integrated in the water feed system and warms the supplied water to prevent it from freezing.