It took some time that automatic systems for guidance and control were introduced in road vehicles in distinction to the domain of aviation. There are many reasons for that. One of them is the fact that any malfunction might rather immediately lead to an accident before the driver can intervene. Another aspect is the cost relative to the total cost of the vehicle. The first and only automatic support for the driver for a long time was the automatic gear. Later, in addition to that the function of cruise control could be installed. The driver activated this rather simple control function to have it keep the actual speed of the vehicle until the driver intervenes by stepping on the gas pedal or using the brakes. Only since some years we experience that the automotive industry endeavours more and more to support the driver by a greater variety of automatic functions, built-in ones or other systems the driver can activate himself/herself in modern cars.
The built-in ones usually are for warning purposes or for automatic enhancement of the vehicle's dynamic behaviour. A typical example for a warning system is that which guides the driver's attention to a vehicle on the adjacent lane close enough that the started lane change would lead to a collision. Systems for automatic enhancement of the vehicle's dynamic behaviour are for instance the ESC (Electronic Stability Control) which combines the ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) and traction control. Systems of that kind are automatically turned on when the engine is started. The driver might even not notice them as special automatic systems in the car. The systems mentioned so far by name, are of the procedural type of control systems we are used to since long in all kinds of work domains. These are characterised by feedback loops (like ABS etc.), possibly triggered by command inputs (like cruise control). The control laws of these loops work on sensor signals for relevant physical quantities pertinent to the controlled element. The procedural knowledge involved in these conrol systems implicitly lies in the control laws. Since in the meantime computers and mass storage devices became cheaper and cheaper we have become acquainted since several years to the so-called navigation systems in our cars. Thereby, the position of the vehicle is determined by means of a GPS receiver. These systems offer a new quality.
They support the driver for the task of route planning and of correctly following the selected route, making use of explicit declarative knowledge about geographical maps in terms of data bases. These systems are of similar supporting effect than the flight management systems in airplanes. A further step forward is the kind of automation as exhibited for instance by systems like the parking aid for lateral control and the ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) system for longitudinal control. The parking aid, for instance, takes care of the lateral control during an automatic parking manoeuvre in between cars in front and ahead. Thereby, driver executes longitudinal control through gas pedal and brakes. The ACC probably is the best known system of that kind so far. It holds a set speed, as known from the former systems for cruise control, and automatically decelerates and holds a safe distance to vehicles ahead as long as they are moving at a lower speed than that which was set by the driver. By now, ACC systems work within a speed range from 0 to about 200 km/h. Thus, these also include automatic longitudinal control for stop and go in congested traffic situations.
The performance of ACC systems is steadily increasing. Besides radar sensors, infrared and camera-based sensing is introduced to ensure as much information about the relevant environment of the vehicle as possible. So far, camera-based sensors are in operational use to obtain information about the position of the own vehicle within the road lane or about passing traffic from behind. Also data bases about stationary environmental objects together with those in current navigation systems will be used for relevant information in future systems not far from now. This will be the time when we can also expect further coupling of systems, also with the navigation system, which is now stand-alone. The current featuring of the ACC system makes it pretty obvious, that it exhibits a new characteristic: It functions on the basis of explicitly built-in knowledge. This is the crucial step to introduce artificial cognition. In that sense, the advancement in automotive systems supporting the driver has already gone much further than that of the aircraft systems.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Articleinput.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
Note: This article was sent to us by: Phil Crawford at 01112010
1. Concept of operation in military high performance aircraft
All articles are property of their respective authors. Please read our Privacy Policy!
© 2009 ArticleInput.com.