DVN’s Sensing & Function business unit held an event last week focusing on US-spec AEB (automatic emergency braking) to comply with the tough, disputed new FMVSS 127. As we described this past January, a third of the test scenarios are done by night, and some of them without any streetlights and just low beam headlamps. The questions at hand: can we detect pedestrians with a simple front camera and our current low beam? Should we change the low beam to avoid extra cost for the ADAS sensor kit?
At the DVN-S&F event, for the first time the lighting and ADAS communities were at the same table to exchange ideas and explain the constraints and the needs. Jody Allen from GM explained very clearly what would need to change in the low beam to improve camera performance, and how it is quite impossible with current regulations and IIHS test protocols without increasing glare, or without the use of ADB—which is not allowed in the FMVSS 127 test protocol. Magna’s Jan Erik Kallhamer explained the challenges for each sensor technology and the need for redundancy. Can we accept using only radar if the front camera cannot detect? do we need an additional sensor, like an infrared camera for safe redundancy with radar? what is the ASIL qualifications of such a function by night?
Each question seems to spawn more questions; that’s the stage things are at. What is certain is that a camera will not be adequate at night by itself. Is adding radar enough, including AI to better classify objects and pedestrians? what about in adverse weather conditions? With IR cameras or lidars, you can fulfil the regulation, and you can go beyond. Higher speed, in bad weather conditions, smoke environment, etc. IR camera cost has come down a lot, with a target price of $100 in 2029. But is the supply chain able to produce the needed quantity in only four years?
Each automaker has to answer all these questions and define their own requirements. Lighting seems not to be the solution. We’d need light where there is none today—see six examples below of low beam patterns; the vertical-rectangular box is where light is needed for a camera to be able to detect a pedestrian coming from the right. And even if it would be the solution, over 400 lamps would need to be redesigned by 2029. Impossible!
The UNECE GRE biannual meetings are next week. So in today’s in-depth article, we bring you the agenda. Central questions for DVN readership involve adoption of signaling road projections for reversing lamps and direction indicators.
Sincerely yours,
