Continuing just-auto’s series of interviews with tier one component suppliers, we spoke to Alfred Eckert, Head of the Advanced Engineering Department at Continental Automotive.
What are the megatrends in the automotive electronic braking system industry and how could that shape the performance of tomorrow’s brakes?
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The complexity is increasing, because we see a wider range of car concepts on the market. You have hybrid cars, you have electric cars, you have still old conventional cars, and you have those which will drive automated or autonomous, in different types of cars. All those car concepts have different requirements for the brake systems. Take, for example, highly automated driving (SAE Level 4) where the driver is allowed to temporarily get rid of the driving task. This gives new tasks to the involved components. Therefore we developed our new brake systems around the MK C1 to fulfill those needs. The MK C1 is a high-efficiency brake system that is more dynamic, lighter and has shorter braking distances than conventional brake systems. This architecture is scalable and can be further adapted in the context of future trends of partially, highly automated and autonomous driving. In this, we offer a brake extension as a solution for highly automated driving. This includes a redundant brake function for automated driving. Technically it combines the MK C1 as the primary brake system and in addition a secondary electronic brake system.
We understand that Continental has formed a joint venture with Nexteer Automotive to develop motion control systems and actuator components for automated driving. What will each partner offer and what are your aims for further collaboration?
The joint venture focuses on the advancement of motion control systems and actuator components for automated driving. It will combine Nexteer’s advanced steering and driver assistance technologies with Continental’s portfolio of Automated Driving and advanced braking technologies to accelerate advancements in vehicle motion control systems. It will furthermore capitalise on Nexteer and Continental’s history of innovation and leadership in the automotive industry and will combine global resources and expertise to improve vehicle dynamics and safety.
What does your next-generation Environment Model aim to solve/prove?
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By GlobalDataThe next generation environment model will deliver a seamless, true-to-life, 360-degree view of the entire vehicle’s surroundings. To allow automated vehicles to assume control from drivers, the vehicle must continuously acquire, process, and interpret data, while also acquiring and building up contextual knowledge. This is the only way to achieve sophisticated levels of automated driving that are able to master anything from straightforward freeway driving to the highly complex urban environment. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the vehicle’s surroundings which is as good as or better than a person’s own understanding. More range, different sensors technology with redundancy structures, and the combination of acquired data with powerful computer systems will help to sharpen the view and is the key to achieving a consistent and reliable view of our surroundings.
As drivers become increasingly reliant on ADAS – moving through the levels of autonomy – their eyes may wander from watching the road ahead. What technologies does Continental offer to help them stay safe?
Continental has different technologies to help drivers stay safe and a long history for safety technologies, for example, ABS and ESC. To bring road safety technologies into many different countries we partner the ‘Stop the Crash Campaign’ of the Global NCAP umbrella body as road safety is important for everyone in every country and region. One example of those technologies is the Emergency Brake Assist (EBA). This technology is based on a Radar, a Camera or a Lidar at the front of the vehicle. This function is designed to reduce most of the effects of accidents that happen due to the driver’s lack of awareness of a hazardous situation. The EBA detects pedestrians and cyclists and is available in different configurations. The EBA-City can prevent accidents at speed up to 25 km/h. The EBA Inter-Urban is another configuration which works at higher speeds. Another example is the Lane Departure Protection system based on a camera and a radar sensor. This system avoids accidents in regards of leaving the lane and also avoids accidents with oncoming traffic. An intervention brings the vehicle back into the lane and performs a lane alignment. The warning can be a visual, haptic or audible feedback and is followed by a limited steering intervention. An infrared camera mounted in the passenger compartment is another example. The camera detects the attentiveness of the driver and a light band alerts him when any potential hazards on the road are detected. It uses light signals adapted to the current situation to guide the driver’s eyes intuitively toward the traffic situation ahead.
What new applications will next-generation sensors enable?
Next generation sensors will, in general, improve their performance. One of those sensors is the High-Resolution 3D Flash LiDAR which we just implemented into our sensor portfolio. One significant advantage of this sensor technology is that it provides both real-time machine vision as well as environmental mapping functions. This technology will help to enable a significantly more detailed and accurate field of vision around the entire vehicle, independent of day or night time and robust in adverse weather conditions.
The Vehicle-to-X communication can be seen as another surrounding sensor which provides additional safety information to the vehicle and the driver by interpreting data from the environment. This means the communication between a vehicle and other road users, vulnerable road users and the infrastructure. Vehicle-to-X communication enables cars to look around corners. This technology is based on short-range communication which makes it possible to exchange position data in order to avoid possible collisions or significantly reduce accident severity. Examples are here the Electronic Brake Light and the Roadworks Assistant. The Electronic Brake Light contributes to forward-looking driving by informing the driver that a vehicle further ahead in traffic is braking, even if it cannot be seen yet. This information can be very valuable, in particular on winding country roads. If a vehicle is approaching roadworks, the Roadworks Assistant supplies information about their location, length and also recommends the lane the driver should choose to ensure optimum traffic flow.
Another example is the Left-turn Assist which issues an audible and visual warning to alert the driver of an impending collision due to the presence of a hidden approaching vehicle during a left-turn manoeuvre. This is a well-known hazard that occurs most frequently during left-turn manoeuvres at intersections. Automatic intervention is only triggered if the driver fails to observe the warning despite the increasing probability of an accident.
All information from the different sensors build up the environment model including road condition estimation. The vehicle which gathered this helpful information shares them via backend communication with other vehicles which use them to prevent accidents. Those are examples how sensors will help to reduce accidents for reaching our Vision Zero – the vision of accident-free driving.
As effective as cameras are, they have a few drawbacks such as limited range and performance due to rain, fog and varying light conditions. To what extent can sensor/data fusion help?
By combining different sensors we can exploit all the strengths of installed sensor technologies. The physical limitations of any single technology are less important compared to a mono-sensor concept. The combination of two or more specialised sensor technologies will make enhanced assistance functions possible in the future. Consequently, the combination of, for example, a long-range radar and a mono camera, will permit redundant object recognition and make improved, autonomous emergency braking at speeds of up to 80 km/h possible. Sensor Fusion is also a prerequisite for automated driving as a precise analysis of the traffic situation is necessary and with it the generation of a reliable environment model. Only sensor fusion makes it possible for a vehicle to drive autonomous.
We understand that there are some promising opportunities opening up in the automotive industry from correlating data on cars, drivers and their environment. What is your perspective?
For us, it is important to access the sort of data that we can use to provide attractive functions to the motorist. At the same time, we must take into account that a lot of data is generated and processed in the vehicle that bears no reference to actual people. An example would be information taken from sensor systems in the vehicle and processed in control units for functions and systems such as ESC and airbags. These systems bring safety to the vehicle, its occupants, and to traffic in general. As a manufacturer, we therefore have a justified interest in processing this kind of data as part of our co-responsibility for the safe functioning of the vehicle and our legal requirement to monitor our products. Personal data gains importance when we offer new services (such as remote diagnostics). From our perspective, drivers or owners must always be able to decide whether they want to forward their data for a service. The ability to decide also entails that drivers or owners should be reasonably notified about which data they are forwarding – and to whom – for whichever function. In many cases like connected navigation in which vehicles inform each other about traffic jams and obstructions along a route, we don’t have to know the identity of the vehicle owner or driver. Pseudonymised, verifiable information such as position, time, and event are sufficient for vehicles to inform each other about the route.
With more and more cars offering some form of connectivity, is there a question about who owns the data generated by such cars?
Our position is clear: Personal data belongs to the driver! So whenever it is a question of services requiring access to personal information, drivers or owners must always be able to decide whether their data may be forwarded for a service. However, traffic data for optimising traffic flow or road safety for example, should be made available to the world at large. For these types of services, we need standards for free, universal data exchange and overarching platforms in the cloud. All in all, there is still a great need for discussion between the various parties involved. Legislators too have to respond to these highly comply issues. In any case, it goes without saying that we comply with prevailing legislation, particularly data protection regulations.
The need for lightweight componentry is always present. What are the considerations when looking at an alternative material in vehicle manufacture?
We will meet the vehicle manufacturers’ requirements to look at alternative materials for weight reduction to reduce CO2 emissions. It is elemental that those alternative materials fulfil all the quality, capacity, and durability requirements as conventional materials do. An example for an alternative material is aluminium which can be used instead of steel. For brake boosters this could lead to weight saving. Another aspect here is the system approach which has many advantages when it comes to weight reduction and achieving installation space. This means, for example, a weight reduction by combining different components into a system like we did for the MK C1. Approaches like this will become more over the time and support reducing CO2 emissions.
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