Types of brakign assistance technologies (part 3)
Today we’ll be concluding our quick look in to the various types of braking assistance technologies by looking at braking assistance and autonomous emergency braking.
Braking assistance
This feature is usually referred to as either brake assist – BA – or emergency brake assist – EBA – and it does pretty much what it says in the title – it provides extra braking power when the driver wants to perform an emergency stop.
It’s arguably a good thing that for most individuals, emergency stops are rare but this also has something of a downside since most individuals aren’t really trained in what to do when those times arise. Several studies have shown however, that in most test cases, drivers will not apply enough brake pressure during emergencies.
For instance, they might slam the brakes, but not hard enough to prevent a collision – even though that would possible. Similarly, they might get a bit spooked by the weird pulsing sensation through the brake pedal caused when ABS engages and as a result release the brakes, even a bit, even though more braking pressure is required.
The brake assist system works with the help of a travel sensor attached to the brake pedal – the sensor detects when an emergency stop is attempted, regardless of the amount of pressure actually applied and will apply maximum braking force until the car stops.
Autonomous emergency braking
Autonomous emergency braking starts with the idea of braking assistance and takes it a bit further by braking automatically without any driver involvement or warning the driver of a possible accident and then applying the brakes in case the driver does not respond.
Usually, autonomous emergency braking systems will only cater for rear-end collisions – since these are the easiest form of accident to reliably predict as well as very common. One third of fatal collisions in the USA are rear-enders.
That’s how they generally work, but each company has its own name and manner of operation for their autonomous emergency braking systems.
