{"id":7000,"date":"2023-06-29T09:13:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T09:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.automotive.auroralabs.com\/?p=7000"},"modified":"2023-06-29T09:18:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T09:18:07","slug":"automotive-saftey-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.automotive.auroralabs.com\/de\/automotive-saftey-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Automotive Saftey (r)Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

On September 30, 1955, police, ambulance, and fire crews arrived at the scene of a horrific two-car collision at a desert intersection in Cholame, California. Medics found that the driver of the Porsche, rising star James Dean, had been thrown from the car and killed instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following an investigation into the collision, it was determined that Dean hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. If he had, he most likely would’ve survived the crash. This high-profile death raised public awareness of the importance of seatbelts and ushered in the age of automotive safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not much changed in the coming years in terms of new safety features in vehicles but more people did start to wear seatbelts. It was only when electronic control units (ECUs) started to become commonplace that manufacturers began to introduce safety features such as ABS, ESP, airbags, and more recently, lane-keeping assist, Forward Collision Warning (FCW) and other advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).<\/span><\/p>\n

History of the ECU<\/span><\/h2>\n

General Motors introduced the first electronics system into a vehicle in 1978. By 1981 all GM vehicles contained an engine control unit that helped manage fuel use and power within the vehicle. In the early 1980s, hybrid digital systems became popular with other manufacturers, too, these were able to measure and process inputs from the engine to yield preset output values. This ROM system, as it was known, was one of the first tunable systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 1991 almost all US and Japanese manufacturers has abandoned carburettors in favour of fuel-injection systems controlled by microprocessors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, all ECUs use a microprocessor that processes engine inputs in real-time. They’re much more robust than other systems, especially as an engine begins to wear. As well as lending themselves well to tuning, these systems also enable more sophisticated safety features.<\/span><\/p>\n

ECU-based safety technologies<\/span><\/h2>\n

Many vehicles now have a dedicated ADAS ECU that draws information from the vehicle’s cameras, lidar and radar systems, and inertial measurement units, as well as map data. This enables various safety features, including:<\/span><\/p>\n