iTECH: Transplants — Back and Forth Flow Enhances Safety, Ease of Driving

This story appears in the April/May 2013 issue of iTECH, published in the April 15 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Heavy-duty trucks, once simple utilitarian beasts of burden, are becoming safer, more economical and easier to drive, thanks in part to automated or fully automatic transmissions and cruise control, features adapted from automobiles.

Meanwhile, passenger cars are benefiting from technologies such as lane-departure warning, initially available on trucks, or anti-lock braking, which followed a more complicated path.

“A lot of stuff happens in cars first and then ends up in trucks,” said Dave Costantino, a 30-year veteran of the automotive industry and director of the commercial vehicle group of Mitchell 1, a repair consulting company based in Poway, Calif. “There are a lot of examples, but computerization is the biggest example I can think of.”

One prime example is anti-lock braking. Richard Beyer, vice president of engineering and research and development for Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems of Elyria, Ohio, said anti-lock braking systems were developed first for aircraft, before making their way to passenger cars and then to heavy-duty trucks.

Anti-lock braking had a bumpy transition to trucks on the first go-around, he added.

Beyer said, “ABS was actually mandated on trucks before it was on cars,” with the initial adoption of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 121 in the 1970s. “But those systems weren’t ready for prime time, and the standard was rescinded” — and reintroduced later, after refinements were made.

Other systems that have made the migration from passenger cars to heavy trucks include traction control, stability control and adaptive cruise control. They emerged in passenger cars, where they became “pretty much standard with electronic engine control,” Beyer said, adding that the advent of electronic engine controls on big diesel engines several years ago enabled their migration to heavy trucks.

Today, some manufacturers offer, or are working on, systems designed to provide “accident mitigation” or to help drivers avoid accidents. With variations, manufacturers described their current and developing accident mitigation systems as combining adaptive cruise control, radar-based collision warning, and camera-based lane-departure warning, as well as the ability to apply braking.

“Accident avoidance technologies are going to be a big deal for the heavy-duty truck market,” said Bill Hynes, senior controls engineer of Allison Transmission, which is based in Indianapolis. Development will require contributions from a range of system and component providers, he said.

At first glance, such technologies may seem a long stretch from Allison’s core business of transmissions. But, Hynes said, “All of us” — including engine, transmission and ABS manufacturers — “are going to be involved.”

Collaboration is the key to achieving effective accident avoidance with adaptive cruise control, in which “the transmission is cutting torque to the wheels or the engine is cutting torque or the braking system is commanding the vehicle,” Hynes said. The aim is to increase productivity as well as enhance safety, he added.

Bendix is working on a “fusion” of radar-based adaptive cruise control and a camera-based lane-departure warning “so they can communicate with each other,” Beyer said.

Bendix purchased a lane-departure warning system from Iteris Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif., which initially developed its system for Daimler Trucks’ use in Europe. Bendix now markets it as Bendix Autovue. Integration of these systems would enable better “object recognition,” Beyer said.

For example, the camera could identify whether the forward-looking radar was detecting something minor — perhaps a bag blowing across the roadway — or a vehicle, and could activate hard braking if necessary. The melding of the systems could be accomplished in one to three years’ time, said Beyer and T.J. Thomas, director of marketing and customer solutions for Bendix’s controls group.

The challenge of drowsy driving could be addressed by further refinement of these merged systems, Beyer added, with the application of brakes serving as both an alert and an intervention. It would be triggered by detection of inconsistent steering, throttle and braking behavior. For example, erratic vehicle speed that could not be attributed to traffic conditions could be interpreted as an indicator of drowsiness, Beyer said, prompting the system to apply the brakes to alert the driver.

Bendix also markets Wingman Advanced, which includes adaptive cruise control and braking and is designed to mitigate collisions, the company said. When drivers utilize the adaptive cruise control with the braking feature, the system intervenes to help them maintain safe following distance by reducing throttle; engaging the engine retarder; or, if necessary, applying the foundation brakes.

Wabco Americas, based in Piscataway, N.J., plans to introduce OnGuardPlus next year. The system will use forward-looking radar to monitor traffic ahead and is designed to reduce risk of colliding with moving vehicles and decelerating vehicles that come to a standstill. It will provide the driver with warnings, will autonomously initiate emergency braking and will be able to bring the vehicle to a complete stop. It builds on a system the company launched five years ago in the United States that provides partial braking upon detection of moving and stopping objects, said Nik Varty, company president.

Regarding migration of these and other technologies over the years, Varty said he couldn’t comment on “where the egg was hatched first,” but he noted that some had been implemented already on passenger cars — “more on luxury cars” where there was “an upfront premium” for buyers. He added, “There certainly is a significant learning and exchange that goes back and forth between these industries.”

Another system designed to enhance safety, Mobileye, is available in both passenger cars and heavy trucks.

“I’m not sure that there was a migration so much as a simultaneous penetration of both markets,” said Michael Backman, director of business development and fleet sales for Mobileye N.V., which is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and has an office in Jericho, N.Y.

Mobileye is a device that issues warnings for forward collision, lane departure and decreased following distance. The company has arrangements with automobile OEMs for installation, Backman said, while on the truck side, its system is an aftermarket product that fleets can retrofit.

Rather than a camera, Mobileye uses a digital imager that captures images 15 times per second; this imager combines with “artificial intelligence,” which measures the distance and closing speed to the pictured object — whether it is another vehicle, a pedestrian, or a stationary object — and issues audible and visual warnings, Backman said.

Mobileye also has capability to issue speeding alerts and to provide “intelligent high-beam control” — dimming a truck’s headlights for oncoming traffic and then restoring high beams after the traffic has passed.

iOnRoad, an Israeli company, is developing a smart-phone app that uses the phone’s camera and sensors to detect vehicles ahead and issue alerts. Qualcomm Inc.’s venture capital arm, Qualcomm Ventures, this year named iOnRoad the winner of its third annual Qualcomm Ventures QPrize — an international venture investment competition. As the winner of the competition, iOnRoad will receive $150,000 from Qualcomm.

iOnRoad’s VisualRadar maps objects in front of the driver in real time, calculating the user’s current speed using a smart phone’s native sensors, and sends an audiovisual warning as the vehicle approaches danger, San Diego-based Qualcomm said in a statement.

Other types of technology projects are under way in the world of intelligent transportation systems and one day could migrate to heavy trucks, where they could yield fuel savings, said Mihai Dorobantu, director, vehicle technologies and innovation for Eaton’s Vehicle Group in Southfield, Mich.

A “talking” traffic light is being researched for passenger car application. The idea is that it would broadcast wirelessly not only that it is green but also how many more seconds it is will stay green.

“That information then can be used by the vehicle [operator] to decide whether or not to try and make it through the traffic light or to slow down,” Dorobantu said, calling it a “driver-assist” technology.

The ability of vehicles to communicate with infrastructure such as traffic lights, as well as with other nearby vehicles, would be based on common hardware and software protocols.

For passenger cars, the goal is to enhance safety, Dorobantu said.

“We are seeing potential to use those technologies in commercial vehicles for fuel economy,” he said, by controlling drivetrains and enabling “platooning” of heavy trucks. This technology could provide aerodynamic advantages on highways, which would result in fuel savings, he noted.

Separately — literally where the rubber meets the road — Pressure Systems International (PSI) of San Antonio, which makes an automatic tire-inflation system for trailers, is investigating how its technology can migrate to tractors.

“We started with the trailer because we have compressed air for the air brake systems in the Class 8 vehicle,” said Tim Musgrave, PSI’s president. “We use that compressed air to inflate the tires. We are now working on systems for the drive axles, which are much more complicated than a trailer axle.”

Trailer axles are “absolutely hollow,” but the drive axles on a tractor incorporate gears, sensors and other features that complicate the task of incorporating a system for automatic tire inflation, Musgrave said.

“We have actually found some ways of doing it,” he said, “but they’re too expensive for the trucking industry, so we have to look at how to get the costs out.”