|
|
Lane Departure Warning is a system used in the automotive industry to alert you if the system senses the
vehicle straying out of it's lane without indication while you're driving. Lane departure warning was designed
for highways and other roads of a similar design as it can become annoying if you were constantly alerted by the
system.
Lane departure warning assists you in remaining attentive to the road by addressing concerns such as distractions
and drowsiness.
This warning system operates using a camera situated to view the front of the vehicle. The system is able to
identify lane markings and continue to monitor these markings once lane departure warning remains activated. It also
monitors the position of your vehicle in relation to these lane markings and if it senses the vehicle straying towards
or over the markings on either side lane departure warning will do one of these three actions.
- Warn you via a sound, vibration of the steering wheel, a visual display or a combination.
- Employ some form or corrective action such as using the traction control or
stability control systems to apply the brakes
to a wheel or one side of the vehicle to maintain the desired direction.
- Both of the above.
Lane departure warning can be activated automatically when the vehicle reaches certain speeds (60km/h, 70km/h and
75km/h by various marques to cater for highway driving). It can be activated using a switch but it will only work when the
vehicle reaches the pre determined speed.
Lane departure warning will automatically deactivate if you reduce the speed of the vehicle to lower than what was
pre determined to activate the system. This is to facilitate highway driving and to not annoy you during normal driving
conditions.
Some lane departure warning systems adds some intelligence to improve the system by constantly monitoring the speed
of the vehicle once the warning is on and if necessary issues the warning and/or the corrective action earlier as the speed
of the vehicle is increased.
|
For example lets just say a particular vehicle warns you one second after the system observes the vehicle straying, if
you're driving at 60 km/hr you would be moving at approximately 16.7 metres in that second. If you doubled that speed to 120
km/hr you would cover approximately 33.3 metres every second.
Many things can happen in 33.3 metres of unattentive driving so several lane departure warning systems have increased
their intelligence.
|
|
|
|
