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On what Volvo models is collision
warning with emergency brake available?
Well, as it is now becoming a legal
requirement from 1st of November 2015,
it will be available on all of our
models from FL, FE, FM, FMX, and FH, as
well as, of course,
FH16. Kevin wants to know, how wide does
the vehicle in front of the track have
to be for the system to detect it? Well,
as we are using two sensors, both the
radar and the camera, we can use the
camera to detect how wide the object in
front of us is. And therefore, it's
fairly easy to observe if it is a bus or
truck or even all the way down to a
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motorbike. Here's a real technical
question. What happens if the radar gets
covered with snow? And well, as the
radar is mounted on the front of the
truck here, we can get a snow buildup
here. What happens then is that the
driver will be alerted of this on the
dash saying that the radar is covered.
And of course, then the driver has to
take over himself. Now, another thing we
should think of here is this is just a
cover over the
radar. Remember, never paint it with
metallic paint. Don't put extra lights
or something in front of it because then
the system will definitely not be
working. And we can have a look and see
the radar behind this
cover. Here you can actually see the
radar unit
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itself. Peter M. The Fanny wonders, why
doesn't the system apply the brakes a
second earlier and leave a few extra
meters between the truck and the other
car? Well, the easy answer there is it's
not a comfort system. This is an
emergency braking system and should only
be used as the last resort because
honestly, we don't really want to apply
the brakes at all. We want to alert the
driver and make sure that the driver
does what the driver should be doing,
looking forwards in front of
it. Viko Vilak wants to know if it's
possible for a truck to drive completely
autonomous using the technique and
knowledge we have today, not taking into
account the current traffic laws. And
yes, trucks can be driven
autonomously, but in the beginning, we
will only be seeing that in restricted
areas such as mines or uh in a port
where you could do that. To see it on on
normal roads is going to take quite some
time.
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Glenn Norman is concerned with what
happens to the traffic behind the truck
when the emergency braking system is
activated.
Well, we've been thinking a lot about
this and when the system goes into a
panic braking mode and the retardation
is more than 2 and 1/2 m per square
second, which is a a fairly fierce
braking, then the brake lights are
activated. So, they start blinking. They
go from from a fixed light to a blinking
light. And then as the vehicle slows
down and the truck goes below 5 km per
hour, then we also put on the hazard
lights. Something a lot of you asked is
what happens to the load when the
emergency braking system is engaged.
Well, nothing really is the simple
answer because the load should of course
be
secured. Whether it's the driver that is
is putting on the brakes or the
emergency braking system that is doing
that, there's no difference. The load
should be secured as it always should
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be. Another common question is how
important the road condition is. What
happens to the system if it's slippery,
for example?
Well, what what we are looking into
there is that we are applying the brakes
as much as we can and as a foundation
for the whole system, we have the ESC,
electronic stability control and also of
course EBS, electronic braking system.
So, we are using the brakes as much as
possible depending on the road
conditions. But of course, if it's slick
ice, well, then it's going to be a
little more difficult to stop the
vehicle, and you're going to have a much
longer distance before the truck
stops. Andream has an idea for another
solution. He asks, "Wouldn't it be
better to just lower the speed to the
vehicle's in front speed instead of
making the truck come to a full stop?"
Well, that's exactly what we do. We
monitor the vehicle in front of us and
should the object pull away or move out
of our direction then we release the
brakes
again. Ben Carlton states that this
should be standard on all heavy vehicles
and actually a new legal
demand. Correct. That is exactly what is
happening from the 1st of November 2015.
This will be a legal requirement called
for on all heavy vehicles also together
with lanekeeping support which also will
be then a legal requirement at the same
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date. Another common question is at what
speed range does the system work? And
the easy answer there is it works from
15 kmh up to full speed.
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Is there any risk of a false alarm that
the truck's emergency brakes for no
reason? How good is the system at
detecting false dangers?
This is one one of the the the real
challenges with the system because a
false breaking is really not allowed and
therefore we are running lots of tests
uh much more tests and we need to to
fulfill the legal requirements. So,
we're trying the the system not only on
straight roads, we're testing it in in
curves, all different traffic situations
to make sure that we do not get false
detections or or false
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interactions. Ben and Method wonders how
the anti-lock system works for the
wheels.
What happens is that when the truck
breaks, we apply the brakes, the tires
will slow down. As they start to stop,
we then release the brakes again so the
wheel can start moving. And then we
reapply the brakes. And this is done
very quickly with the anti-lock system.
And this gives us maximum performance
irrespective of what the road conditions
are.
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Some of you also want to know if the
system works together with stretch
brake, which is our active safety system
that prevents the truck and trailer from
jacknifing. Well, to be honest, the two
systems aren't really connected to each
other. But if you are in a situation
where you are using the stretch brake
and an object or slow vehicle is in
front of you and you don't observe it,
well, of course, then the emergency
braking system will take over and do an
emergency
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stop. One question is how many lives
will the system actually save? And of
course that's very difficult to answer.
But as rear ending where where the
system is very active is the second most
common accident type after rollovers
where where you have fertilities. We
will definitely see a difference when
when the trucks start using this
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system. Talking about the legal
requirements of the system, there are
set standards there that you should
fulfill. Now we have done even more than
that and and one of the important things
is for instance the red light the red
flashing light that
we project on the windscreen. This is
something different and and will be very
helpful to alert the
drivers. It's also the performance in
all different types of situations not
only straightforwards but also in in uh
curves and so on.
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One question that we receive fairly
often is what happens if the driver
already has his foot on the brake pedal.
He's seen the situation. Will the system
do anything then? Well, yes, the system
will break harder if necessary. So, the
easy way to answer that is the strongest
one will win.
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