Cognitive safety integration is the result of TRW's many years of experience across a multitude of safety technologies.  A building block approach - including advanced chassis control, radar and camera-enabled driver assist, through to environmental sensing and adaptive occupant safety systems, has uniquely positioned TRW to deliver integrated safety.  The integration roadmap continues to unfold as TRW researchers and engineers push the boundaries of advanced safety.

Here are some glimpses into the future of cognitive safety:

     Traffic jam assist

An important aspect of system integration is the opportunity to help relieve the driver in stressful or monotonous driving situations. In the near future the combination of longitudinal vehicle control (such as ACC Stop & Go) and lateral vehicle control (such as Lane Keeping/Guidance) will help drivers in heavy traffic situations at low speeds slow down to a complete vehicle standstill. Called Traffic Jam Assist, this function will enable a car to follow the vehicle in front, while keeping in its lane, up to a specific vehicle speed. The driver may overrule the function at any time.

This is a first step towards semi-autonomous driving in specific low-speed scenarios. The benefits are a high comfort level in monotonous situations and the potential to reduce accidents caused by inattentive drivers. The Human Machine Interface (HMI) will be designed to keep the driver in the loop as the 'master-controller'.

     Emergency steering assist 

A next evolutionary step in safety, cascading down from Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), is Emergency Steering Assist (ESA). ESA supports the driver in an urgent situation when an evasive steering maneuver is initiated. The function calculates, and continually updates, optimal trajectories around the target vehicle. Additional steering torque is applied via the electric power steering system to assist the driver and stabilize the vehicle during the evasive action. TRW's ESA uses the same sensor configuration as AEB - the video camera and the 24 GHz radar with sensor data fusion. An additional interface to the Electric Power Steering (EPS) is required to support the driver with the optimal evasion trajectory.

     Driver information

Cognitive safety systems analyze information to recognize a situation and act to increase occupant, vehicle or traffic safety. One important type of information is vehicle state data. This can also describe driver actions such as braking or steering and data can be analyzed to understand driver intention. Knowledge about the status of the driver extends the understanding of the driving situation still further. Driver drowsiness is an example. TRW is investigating possibilities to measure physical driver data and to use the steering wheel as a sensor carrier to measure factors such as heart beat and skin temperature. Potential applications using this information range from advanced comfort or driver assistance to warning systems.