ADAS: Taking Humans Out of the Driver's Seat

On January 28, a cute, squarish bus plodded 200 meters alongside a lake in the Netherlands, carrying six passengers at 8 kph. None of those figures are particularly impressive, yet it was a historic moment-- the first successful test of an unsupervised, self-driven vehicle on public roads.

Similar projects are taking root around the globe, driven by the desire for increased road safety. One study estimates that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) can prevent 90 percent of traffic accidents. In the U.S., this would save up to US$190 billion per year and 300,000 human lives per decade.

ADAS features are common in luxury automobiles but are finally moving down the ladder to mid-range and economy cars. There are different modules, which rely on a variety of sensors and cameras to compute the vehicle's ongoing safety. Alerts will be sounded by the tire-pressure monitoring, driver drowsiness detection, blind spot object detection and lane departure warning systems. The adaptive front-lighting and night vision systems apprise the driver of the road ahead. Park assist, adaptive cruise control and collision avoidance technology can actually take over the vehicle's steering, braking and acceleration. A pact between the U.S. government and 20 major automakers will make automatic emergency braking a standard function in 99 percent of all new cars sold in America by 2022.

Work is underway on platforms that will integrate the above, progressively relieving human drivers of their duties.

汽車安全科技大躍進──ADAS 先進駕駛輔助系統

一月二十八號這天，一台可愛的方型巴士載著六名乘客，以時速八公里沿著荷蘭的一座湖邊，緩慢行進了兩百公尺。這些數字沒有一項特別令人印象深刻，但這卻是歷史性的一刻──無人監督的自駕車首次於公路上測試成功。
受更完善的道路安全這個需求所驅策，類似的計畫正在全球各地生根發芽。一項研究估計，先進駕駛輔助系統可預防九成的交通事故。在美國，此系統每年可省下高達 1,900 億美元，每十年能挽救三十萬條人命。
先進駕駛輔助系統的特色在豪華房車中很常見，但現在終於在中階和經濟型車款也看得到了。先進駕駛輔助系統有不同的組件，全都仰賴各式感應器及攝影機，以估算車輛的持續安全性。胎壓偵測系統、駕駛人疲勞偵測系統、盲點偵測系統以及偏離車道警示系統都會在需要時發出警示聲。適路性車燈系統及夜視系統通知駕駛前方道路的情況。停車輔助系統、主動車距控制巡航系統與防撞系統等技術實際上能接手車輛的方向盤、煞車與油門。美國政府與二十間汽車大廠協定，要在 2022 年前讓自動緊急煞車成為美國 99% 出廠新車的標準配備。
整合以上功能的平台還在發展中，它正一步步解除人類駕駛的行車責任。