AutoLiv - Engaged in Making You Safer and Far More Aware

From airbags to night vision systems, a company you should know.

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Aug 16, 2010



The AutoLiv Night Vision 2 system.

Oakbrook Terrace, IL. -- At last Thursday’s meeting of the Midwest Automobile Media Association, attendees were shown a presentation like no other seen in the past. Namely a PowerPoint with video's depicting a company’s products that provide passive protection in the form of seeing far into the darkness and allowing you to take action well ahead of time in order to prevent an accident with a pedestrian, bicyclist or even animal!

Some History

September 13, 1899 in NY City, NY -- The First North American pedestrian fatality was recorded when a man was struck by an automobile. Henry Bliss, a Manhattan real estate salesman, stepped off a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West and was struck by a passing electric taxicab. The Taxi which ran him over crushed his chest and skull. He died the following morning.

The driver of the cab, an electric-powered vehicle, was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss' death was unintentional.

Between 2005 and 2008, almost 22,000 pedestrians and bicyclists lost their lives when struck by a passing automobile. This body count for lack of a better term makes up over 13% of the 164,738 total fatalities involving automobiles, motorcycles, pedestrians and bicyclists between the two periods! 13 plus percent is simply too large a number and something must be done.

Enter Night Vision – The Beginning

While our eyes are amazingly adaptable, they are not ideal for driving at night. One of the most serious problems we face at night is not being able to see objects that are beyond the range of our headlights, let alone being temporarily blinded by headlights of oncoming traffic. While only approximately one-quarter of vehicle miles are driven at night, 69 percent of vehicle related pedestrian fatalities occur at night.

With the auspicious goal of improving nighttime driving safety, Cadillac along with Raytheon and Delphi-Delco Electronics developed a night vision system consisting of a passive infrared sensor, a HUD or heads-up display, and display controls. The night vision system was offered as a production option on the 2000 Cadillac De Ville.

While an excellent solution for a first generation system, the technology costs and integration were apparently cost prohibitive. Since that time, Night Vision system advances have come at a blindingly quick pace (no pun intended ) which brings us to today.

AutoLiv

AutoLiv is a $6.5-Billion, worldwide leader in automotive safety headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. A Tier I supplier of safety equipment to the automobile OEM’s, it is also a pioneer in both seatbelt technologies and airbags. In fact, there is not a car on earth that does not have an Autoliv safety system incorporated within it in some form or fashion.

Together with its joint ventures, Autoliv has 80 facilities with approximately 41,000 employees in 29 countries. In addition, the Company has ten technical centers in nine countries around the world, with 21 test tracks, more than any other automotive safety supplier.

According to Stuart Klapper, Managing Director of Electronics Night Vision and formerly of Raytheon Night Vision, Autoliv’s corporate vision is based around the reduction of traffic accidents. With this idea in mind, they have run up against a growth problem of sorts. Namely, how many more air bags can be installed within a given automobile structure? A growth limitation was being experienced and a new growth outlet incorporating the latest electronics had to be found. Enter Night Vision.

Autoliv’s first foray into the Night Vision came about with the installation of its first generation system within the 2005 BMW 7-Series Sedan. The display itself was located within the Navigation screen with the Infrared sensor located behind BMW’s iconic Kidney Grille.

Following up on the first Night Vision systems success, Autoliv introduced a second generation of Night Vision Systems, aptly named Night Vision 2.

Autoliv's second generation Night Vision, is the world’s first advanced Pedestrian Detection System using a single infrared sensor. Night Vision 2 (NV2) uses “Far Infrared" technology to see pedestrians, animals and the road ahead out to 300 yards in total darkness while also tracking all pedestrians within a 24 degree field of view with a “Near Infrared” look when they are just 10 to 100 yards ahead of the vehicle. To provide an extra margin of safety the system will also analyze the scene content and vehicle dynamics to determine if the pedestrian is at risk of being hit by the vehicle. A visual alert occurs on the navigation display with a quick double flash and symbol (or symbol within the available heads-up display) when pedestrians are in danger of being hit with enough time for the driver to react.

NV2 was first incorporated within the confines of the 2009 BMW 7-Series and for 2010, the 5-Series including the HUD as well as the standard Navigation screen for a complete “look into the dark” display.

In 2010, Audi also came onboard and is currently incorporating NV2 systems into their A8 with its standard display showing in the Audi MMI area between the tach and the speedometer. The Infrared Camera is located within the fourth ring of the Marques standard four ring symbol on the front of the car.

As traffic conditions and pedestrian behavior varies around the world, Autoliv collected a multitude of night vision video sequences from the United States, China, South Africa, Japan and various countries in Europe. From these video sequences, more than 50 million “image patches” were used for training the highly advanced software algorithms that detects pedestrians and alerts the driver of the vehicle.

The system is designed to cope with varying driving situations, including country and city driving conditions. When driving at slower speeds in the city where higher pedestrian traffic is anticipated, the system monitors a smaller and shorter corridor of the road ahead to prevent too many warnings due to higher pedestrian concentration. In the countryside at higher speeds, the system will monitors a wider and further ahead corridor of the road.

Early Conclusions

The side by side video’s, both with and without NV2 showing were impressive. Without NV 2, there was nothing seen in your headlights until all of a sudden the “Ah oh” moment arrived. With the NV2 screen displayed, you knew pedestrians and bicyclists were ahead long before I am sure they knew you were there and you had plenty of time to reduce speed to avoid the worst kind of accident.

Probably the most impressive was the Far infrared system during a drive in the country. You could see literally fifty deer in the fields including IIRC, five that were about to cross your path well beyond the reach of your headlights. This was well before you would have reached the point of harsh accident avoidance or the worst case scenario, a collision.

Given the NV2 "OEM" cost profile, expect to see a future NV2 variant for motorcycle riders! I was only provided with a few details about Autoliv’s future systems and the motorcycle addition is one that can be best described as a true life saver. Hitting a deer in a car or truck is too bad for the deer. Hitting a deer while on a bike is too bad for both you and the deer. An NV2 like system incorporated into a riders helmet would truly make riding at night a much safer experience for every rider who has ever had to tackle the darkness.

Although this is just a short look into Autoliv’s Night Vision 2 System for the automobile, the costs charged by OEM’s are an order of magnitude higher than the equipment costs itself and thus it is only a matter of time before we see the latest NV2 and future NV3 with “short range infrared” capabilities to handle animals found possibly within the least expensive automobiles in the very near future.

Thanks Autoliv for making the road at night a safer place for all concerned.