A project taking place in Finland could help improve safety for road users driving in the kind of conditions that wreaked havoc across Britain this week.
The solution, developed through the EU-funded project called FRICTION, claims to allow cars to ‘see’ the road ahead, determine its condition, and calculate the amount of friction available for braking and steering.
‘Friction is easy enough to measure once you start slipping,’ said Pertti Peussa, the project coordinator. ‘But our aim was to have a good estimate of the maximum friction even when driving steadily on a straight road. That’s a very difficult problem.’
As part of the project, researchers designed and tested a range of smart sensors that can be integrated both within the vehicle itself and externally on its tyres. The data from these different sensors alerts the driver to dangerous conditions and automatically stabilise the car to prevent loss of control.
Sensors are already available to detect large objects ahead, however this is the first time that a system has been developed to warn the driver to adverse weather conditions such as water, snow or ice.
It is expected that FRICTION’s automotive partners, Fiat and Volvo, alongside other manufacturers, will introduce friction sensing features to their safety packages in the next few years.
This seems to be an interessting technology. However, this technology will have not much effect as long as we don’t even have the correct tires on the car. The standard tires on a car are designed for try and wet conditions and temperatures above zero degrees. They are not at all suitable for the current conditions. The profile is way to fine to find grip in snow and slush and the rubber composition get’s to hard at this low temperatures, which makes it worse. That’s why most other European countries request by law to have appropriate equipment/tires on your car. Otherwise you loose you ensurance cover.
Only the combination would bring the full benefit of such a system.
regards
JB
The main issue is that people simply cannot drive, they rely upon these systems instead of the correct driving techniques, and using them as a back up safety system. Most people are unaware of how ABS or traction control systems work, yet assume they will stop or make a vehicle go under any road conditions, this is the problem. If people could drive properly in the first instance, then understood how these systems work they could become non reliant upon them, then still have them as a safety system in the rare instances they are needed.
Whilst I agree with Simon’s comments, he is clearly a male, probably an engineer and has a healthy understanding & interest in his own level of competence to drive his car in all weather conditions – most drivers do not fit this category. For instance my mum or my wife would score nil for each of the above categories and would expect car manufacturers to ‘make the car safe in all weather conditions’. It is these people that are the majority and the reason traffic throughput is slower when we get snow & ice on the roads. Correct tyres or chains are the correct actions but inconvenient to implement at 6am on a Monday morning before heading off to work. The FRICTION project sounds interesting but I suspect will take longer than anticipated to transfer from research to vehicle development.