No road deaths, no injuries, no accidents. The goal is only achieved when there are no more accidents. Continental has been pursuing the long-term “Vision Zero” strategy for many years and is making a significant contribution to greater safety in road traffic by constantly improving its systems. Since the mandatory introduction of seat belts, ESC, tire pressure monitoring systems and ABS for commercial vehicles, the number of road deaths has decreased significantly. Nevertheless, with more than 1,2 million people worldwide every year, it is still alarmingly high. We want to change that with our combined forces, emphasizes Frank Jourdan, member of the Executive Board of Continental AG and head of the Chassis & Safety division.
It's like always. The time until the agreed date is running out again. Now where to go with the big SUV that hardly fits into a parking space anyway. A friendly lackey in uniform who takes the key and everything else from you, that would be so nice. But remains an illusion. But the technology company Continental has another solution: Should the car find a parking space itself. It receives the command to do so via the smartphone of its driver, who leaves it in a transfer zone in front of the parking garage. Completely on its own, the car drives through the barrier where access is recorded for billing the parking time. With the help of the information about the location of the free parking space on the ground floor via the cloud, it then steers to the destination with the help of sensors and cameras. Overcoming up and down ramps to other parking levels is still a long way off, but crossing pedestrians or other vehicles are of course registered and slowed down accordingly. In addition, the car parks autonomously in a confined space much more precisely than the driver could ever do and there is no need to worry about bumped doors.
If you need the car again quickly, that's no problem. A push of a button on the mobile phone and the car automatically drives back to the transfer zone. The whole procedure works not only in a dry, high-contrast environment, which is ideal for the cameras, but also in rain or snowfall.
Wet and slippery road conditions are always the cause of accidents. Even experienced drivers make a mistake when it comes to predicting how well the tires will stick to the road. Continental also has a solution to this problem with the Road Condition Observer. Sensors and camera systems already present in the vehicle recognize the respective road conditions and enable the creation of an algorithm for the four different road conditions dry, wet, snowy and icy. A coefficient of friction class is determined by evaluating the camera images, comparing them with the driving dynamics data of the ESC, recording the temperature and wiper activity and the tire behavior. In this way, the function of driver assistance systems can be adapted to the actual road conditions. Automatic emergency braking, for example, must trigger much earlier on a wet road than on a dry road to prevent an impending collision.
A prerequisite for optimal braking performance is quick and precise adjustment of the brake pressure control to changing road conditions. Continental meets these requirements with the third generation of ABS (ABS3). The new generation adapts the brake pressure control even faster and more precisely to changing road conditions. In this way, the vehicle remains more maneuverable during strong braking maneuvers, and the optimal braking performance is achieved even under adverse influences. When braking on surfaces with different coefficients of friction, such as leaves, snow or gravel on the right-hand side of the road, and non-slip surfaces in the middle, the ABS must regulate the braking force on the left and right wheels completely differently in order to achieve the maximum deceleration possible taking into account the stability of the vehicle. In order to always achieve optimum braking performance and maneuverability in changing conditions, the ABS3 calculates changes faster and more robustly in the regulation of the wheel dynamics. Therefore, the driver has better control over his vehicle at the crucial moment and has a higher feeling of safety.