Collision-Warning System an Option for Freightliner
By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the Sept. 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Heavy-duty truck components supplier Eaton Corp. said its Vorad VS-400 collision-warning system has become a factory-installed option on all Freightliner Cascadia, Century and Columbia Class 8 trucks.
A Freightliner spokeswoman confirmed the statement, and Freightliner distributed a brochure to its dealers informing them of the option and its features.
The Vorad VS-400 is Eaton’s latest generation of collision-warning system, the company said Sept. 2. Its 77-gigahertz radar is a forward-looking object-detection system that helps drivers identify objects up to 500 feet ahead with in-cab audio and visual alerts, the company said.
“The VS-400 can distinguish nonmoving objects in front of a truck,” Scott Adams, Eaton’s business unit manager for Vorad, told Transport Topics. “A great example is a truck driving in a heavy fog. The radar can warn the driver that a stopped vehicle is ahead of him in his lane long before he could see it.”
Unlike other systems, the Vorad applies only the engine brakes, not the foundation brakes. Other systems automatically apply the foundation brakes.
Meritor Wabco Vehicle Control Systems’ OnGuard, introduced earlier this year, is a forward-looking, radar-based adaptive cruise control system that automatically applies up to one-third of a foundation brake’s full power.
The company, a joint venture of ArvinMeritor Inc. and Wabco, Belgium, said it will have a system that brings the truck to a complete stop without driver intervention in 2010. It cannot distinguish a halted object now, but an upgrade in 2010 will, company officials said.
“We want to avoid automatic braking,” Adams said. “Some of the drivers don’t like that much interaction with the vehicle. They don’t even like the computer applying the [engine] brakes. And so our philosophy is that we want to avoid automatic stopping and instead warn the driver and keep him in full control.”
Adams said Eaton has an independent study of fleets that are using Vorad that experienced a 34% reduction in front-end collisions and a 58% reduction in fatal collisions.
Eaton Vorad has been on the market since the early 1990s and is in its fifth generation, with more than 80,000 units sold, Adams said.
Eaton also offers a side-object warning system and a blind-spot detection system with Vorad, which Freightliner also has added to its factory-installed options.
