Volvo Trucks
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2013–2015
1:11 · 24M views · Jan 16, 2013
A one-minute Volvo Trucks demo of the Collision Warning with Emergency Brake system on a fully loaded 40-ton tractor-trailer, avoiding a rear-end collision on a test track.
Cited as a real-world example of automatic emergency braking already working on heavy trucks.
3 comments from Hacker News
My Volvo does this. Not sure if it's the same thing, but stops you if you're about to collide with something. I've never experienced it (as I've never yet needed the feature), but have heard good things. Here's a really impressive video of it in action on a semi-truck: this video Counterpoint (with the model I have, unfortunately): [LINK]
The throttle control on an early 90s, or early 2000 FORD is also a lever and rod [or braided steel cable] attached to a couple springs... Unless you had cruise control [remember when that was an _option_?]... then there's a servo or equivalent motor in-line with the cable and springs. --- Even with a digital system: there's no benefit. It's the same mechanical piece, it has to be, that's how combustion engines work: you open a throttle plate, the vacuum sucks in more air, the computer compensates w/ more fuel, compress that, spark it, you have more power. You will always have a throttle plate and some sort of lever; and since you want it to fail closed you best have a return spring somewhere. All you gain by adding a digital control system is [perhaps] clever software control and [certainly] additional complexity. Is it worth it? Perhaps... there are some _very_ cool systems developed as a result of drive-by-wire. Lane following assist, parking assist, assisted hill starts, manual transmissions with automated clutches, collision avoidance, etc.[0] I would definitely argue for more _transparency_ in this technology, but I don't know that I could argue that the technology itself is a bad thing. [0]: this video "Volvo Trucks - Emergency braking at its best!"
"There seem to be hundreds of accidents like this [1] annually where large trucks smash into cars stopped at red lights or that have slowed down during traffic jams." Isn't that solved by the automatic collision detection with emergency braking, as implemented by Volvo?[1] [1] this video