The inventions and products featured on these pages were chosen either for their
uniqueness in the RF engineering realm, or are simply awesome (or ridiculous) enough
to warrant an appearance.
For many years I have wondered why cruise
controls in vehicles did not include a braking function that would be able to maintain
speed when going downhill or being impeded by multilane traffic. Well, it appears
Bosch, TRW, Delphi, and others already thought of that and have solutions in their
Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems. This particular video is of the Bosch system.
A mm-wave radar unit measures distance and relative speed to feed data to the microprocessor
that determines when to apply the brakes or when to give it the gas. ACC is smart
enough to compensate for rapidly varying traffic speeds, as well as for lane changes
and even going around corners. An ability to monitor vehicles in multiple lanes
is incorporated into it decision making. High-end auto makers like Lexus, Audi,
Mercedes, et al, have been offering it for a few years. The low-end heaps I can
afford are still waiting for a price reduction; I will be tapping the brakes and
mashing the Resume button myself for many more years.
