The second generation of the Nissan Note will be launched officially at the Geneva Motor Show this week.  B-Class “supermini” vehicles are the biggest segment in the European market, and competition is tough.  Styling and technology features get a lot of attention, as well as performance and fuel economy.  Ford was the first to introduce advanced safety systems to this segment with its 2013 Focus model, offering features such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, blind spot detection, and automatic emergency braking.

One of the new options on the updated Note is the Nissan Safety Shield package, which is composed of lane departure warning, blind spot warning, and advanced moving object detection.  While Ford uses the increasingly popular forward-looking camera along with the latest low-cost radar sensors, Nissan has chosen to implement a similar suite of functions via a camera that faces to the rear.  The camera also contributes to the Around View Monitor feature that gives the driver a bird’s eye view of the car as it is being reversed, thanks to additional cameras at the front and sides.

Warning: Obstacles Ahead

What makes the Nissan system significant is that the rear-looking camera is not simply a passive sensor projecting an image on the screen for the driver to look at but an active monitor that warns the driver if something is not right.  When reversing, a warning beep will sound if an object is detected in the path of the vehicle, thanks to the rapid analysis of the images many times per second.  The same technology is used to monitor the blind spot on either side when the car is traveling forward.  The camera can also track the lane markings to alert the driver of inadvertent drift.  The camera itself has a convex lens that gives it a vision sweep of a little over 180 degrees, and because of its importance to the safety systems it has an automatic cleaning system built in.

The Note’s Around View system confirms that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are now available on mass market vehicles.  It was only a few years ago that such features were offered only on the most expensive luxury models.  It also demonstrates that camera technology and the analysis software has advanced to the point where it can replace the more expensive radar sensors in safety systems, thus accelerating the adoption of similar functionality across all vehicles in the near future.

Widespread availability of ADASs on the majority of vehicles is an important stepping stone toward intelligent transportation systems and autonomous driving.  Well-tested software and sensors are critical to more automated driving, and once individual cars are more aware of their surroundings the value of linking them via wireless communications to share data about traffic and potential incidents also goes up.  Pike Research will be taking a closer look at this technology later in 2013.

Autonomous driving has crept back into the headlines again after important announcements at CES and NAIAS:

At CES, Toyota displayed its Lexus Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle, which has similar equipment to Google’s autonomous Prius.  Toyota insists that this is a research vehicle and not destined for production but plans to use it to develop technology for what it calls “assistive autonomy.”

Also at CES, Audi demonstrated its traffic jam assistance and self-parking technology to show visitors.  In slow-moving traffic, a push of a button will get the car to follow the car in front.  Self-parking will allow the driver to get out of the car, which then parks itself in a tight space.

At NAIAS, Continental Automotive announced that it has received approval from the State of Nevada to test its semi-autonomous vehicle on public roads.

Careful to distance themselves from “driverless” cars, the automakers describe their systems as driver assistance rather than driver replacement.  There are many issues to deal with before true autonomous driving comes to the market, not the least of which are liability and insurance.  In an attempt to develop a better understanding of the whole topic, the Southwest Research Institute and TÜV Rheinland Mobility have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop functional standards for the performance of autonomous driving on public roadways.  Having participation from both Europe and North America is a good start toward global standards (which will be essential in the long term), but Asia Pacific must also be represented.

Not So Fast

Google promised in September 2012 that self-driving cars will be available for everyone within 5 years, but the automotive industry doesn’t work that fast.  While it’s technically feasible to have self-driving cars today, as Google has demonstrated, the practicalities of legislative approval, thorough testing, and acceptance by the insurance industry will take time.  Some industry insiders have suggested that 2025 might be a realistic goal.  In the meantime steady progress toward more automated driving features will continue.

One concern is driver acceptance, but the introduction of new features has always been resisted at first.  When blind spot detection (BSD) was first introduced, the majority of drivers were either baffled by the concept or insulted that their driving ability was being questioned.  A recent survey of U.S. consumers showed that BSD is now the most preferred safety feature.  Cruise control was first patented in 1945, but it took nearly 3 decades for it to gain wide acceptance.  Today it’s practically a standard feature, at least in the United States.  Gradual introduction is a practical necessity, but the high-end models compete to be first to market with the latest technology.

The next 10 years will see the broadening availability of more driver assistance features, and the role of the driver will shift from directly controlling the engine, steering, and brakes to being more like a pilot and selecting among various modes, from autonomous through semi-autonomous to manual.  It’s important to remember that driver assistance technology offers great potential for significant societal benefits from automating some aspects of driving, such as fewer crashes and better flow on congested roads.