7/9/24, 12:11 PM What Is Active Safety?

What Is Active Safety?

M O B I L I T Y I N S I D E R | April 23, 2020

In the automotive industry, active safety refers to the Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) in a vehicle that
help drivers reduce the severity of accidents or avoid them entirely by managing steering, braking and propulsion.

Safety has always been of paramount concern in the automotive world. The industry has developed world-class testing
protocols related to vehicle safety, and its advances have been highly successful at reducing the number of traffic
fatalities. The rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled has decreased dramatically over the last few
decades, from 3.35 in 1975 to 1.13 in 2018.

The majority of those gains have come from “passive safety” features – that is, features that only activate when an
accident occurs and lessen any injury to the driver and passengers. These include seat belts and airbags, as well as
structural improvements such as crumple zones that absorb the energy of a crash. However, the gains from passive
safety have started to plateau. Additionally, distracted driving has emerged as an increasing issue, partially as a result
of smartphones.

To continue the trend in improving safety and reach the industry’s goal of zero vehicle-related accidents and fatalities,
vehicles have to help drivers stop hitting things. That is where active safety comes in.

By using sensors such as radar, cameras and ultrasonic sensors, a vehicle can perceive the world around it.
Processors then interpret that information, acting as a second set of eyes for the driver and taking actions if needed.

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Active safety demonstrates clear benefits

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Relatively simple warning systems such as blind spot detection or forward collision warning have the potential to save
lives on their own, but when coupled with a technology that takes action beyond a simple warning to create an active
safety system, the results are impressive.

For example, a vehicle could detect if it is approaching an object too quickly, attempt to warn the driver and then
apply the brakes automatically if the driver doesn’t respond in time. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety, forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking reduces rear-end collisions by 50%. This
technology has become much more common in recent years as rating agencies such as Euro NCAP put active safety
technologies on their testing roadmaps. In the United States, 20 automakers, representing 99% of U.S. light vehicle
sales, committed to making the technology standard by 2022.

Given that the National Highway Transportation Administration estimates that 94% of all accidents are caused by
human error, there are many other opportunities for improvement.

Examples of more advanced active safety systems include features such as automatic lane change, highway assist and
traffic jam assist. In these examples, multiple sensors around the vehicle must be integrated through sensor fusion, so
that powerful domain controllers running advanced software algorithms can process the information and make driving
decisions.

While entry-level active safety systems may take a single action, such as braking, these more advanced systems assist
the driver with multiple aspects of controlling the vehicle. For example, they typically will manage steering – to keep
the vehicle in a lane or navigate around slower vehicles – while simultaneously managing the vehicle speed to maintain
a safe distance from other vehicles and obstacles.

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