'Distraction is a fact of life', says Volvo, 'technology should be used to help stay safe'

-

Though screens and similar technology in modern cars can be viewed as distracting, driving safety gurus at Volvo Cars say such technology is a fact of life, and should be used to support people in their daily commute, writes Brian Byrne.

According to Malin Ekholm, head of the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, 'life as a whole is distracting'. “We know people do not get distracted on purpose, but it happens. You could be late for daycare and somewhat stressed. Or you get behind the wheel after a bad day at work. All this affects you as a driver.”

In a Volvo-organised safety webcast last week, she said the reality is that people want to engage with friends, family, work and entertainment, and everyone responds differently to distraction. “So we want to meet our customers where they are, not where we want them to be. That is why our focus is on using technology in the right way, so we can use it to help you stay safe behind the wheel.”

She gave as an example the advanced voice control on Volvo Cars new Android-powered infotainment system which allows drivers to control the temperature, set a destination, play their favourite music and podcasts or call their mum on her birthday – all while keeping their hands on the wheel. The company's experts believe that distraction should also be addressed via in-car cameras and other sensors that monitor the driver.

With such technologies, if a clearly distracted (or intoxicated) driver does not respond to warning signals and risks a serious, potentially lethal accident, the car could intervene, perhaps by limiting the car’s speed, alerting the Volvo on Call assistance service and, as a last resort, actively slowing down and safely parking the car.

Volvo Cars plans to start introducing these cameras on the next generation of Volvo’s scalable SPA2 vehicle platform.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

N-Channel MOSFET High-Side Drive: When, Why and How?

-
Image
I had previously shown how to drive N-channel MOSFETs in low-side configuration. You can find the tutorial here: http://electel.blogspot.com/2016/12/low-side-mosfet-drive-circuits-and_23.html I’ve been requested to write a tutorial/article regarding high-side MOSFET drive. So, here I’ll talk about N-channel MOSFET high-side drive. Let’s first look at the common low side configuration.  Fig. 1 - N-channel MOSFET configured as low-side switch Now let’s look at a MOSFET configured as a high-side switch. Fig. 2 - N-channel MOSFET configured as high-side switch You can quite easily see the difference between the high-side configuration and the low-side configuration. In the low-side configuration, the load is connected between the drain and +V, while the source is connected to ground. Thus, the gate drive is referenced to ground. So by applying a voltage of >7V (for Power MOSFETs) or >4V (for Logic Level MOSFETs), the MOSFET can be fully turned on. Now let’s talk about the high-si...
Read more

Using the high-low side driver IR2110 - explanation and plenty of example circuits

-
Image
In many situations, we need to use MOSFETs configured as high-side switches. Many a times we need to use MOSFETs configured as high-side and low-side switches. Such as in bridge circuits. In half-bridge circuits, we have 1 high-side MOSFET and 1 low-side MOSFET. In full-bridge circuits we have 2 high-side MOSFETs and 2 low-side MOSFETs. In such situations, there is a need to use high-side drive circuitry alongside low-side drive circuitry. The most common way of driving MOSFETs in such cases is to use high-low side MOSFET drivers. Undoubtedly, the most popular such driver chip is the IR2110. And in this article/tutorial, I will talk about the IR2110. You can download the IR2110 datasheet from the IR website. Here's the download link: www.irf.com/product-info/datasheets/data/ir2110.pdf First let’s take a look at the block diagram and the pin assignments and pin definitions (also called lead assignments and lead definitions): Fig. 1 - IR2110 block diagram (click on image to enlarge)...
Read more

Using the SG3525 PWM Controller - Explanation and Example: Circuit Diagram / Schematic of Push-Pull Converter

-
Image
PWM is used in all sorts of power control and converter circuits. Some common examples include motor control, DC-DC converters, DC-AC inverters and lamp dimmers. There are numerous PWM controllers available that make the use and application of PWM quite easy. One of the most popular of such controllers is the versatile and ubiquitous SG3525 produced by multiple manufacturers – ST Microelectronics, Fairchild Semiconductors, On Semiconductors, to name a few. SG3525 is used extensively in DC-DC converters, DC-AC inverters, home UPS systems, solar inverters, power supplies, battery chargers and numerous other applications. With proper understanding, you can soon start using SG3525 yourself in such applications or any other application really that demands PWM control. Before going on to the description and application, let’s first take a look at the block diagram and the pin layout. Pins 1 (Inverting Input) and 2 (Non Inverting Input) are the inputs to the on-board error amplifier. If you a...
Read more