The idea of incorporating radar systems into vehicles to improve road traffic safety dates back to the 1970s. Such systems are now reaching the market as recent advances in technology have allowed the signal processing requirements and the high angular resolution requirements from physically small antennas to be realised. Automotive radar systems have the potential for a number of different applications including adaptive cruise control (ACC) and anti-collision devices. This paper summarises recent developments in test methods that have been made to satisfy the compliance requirements for emissions and immunity.

Advanced vehicle navigation based on the US Global Positioning Systems (GPS) will play a major role in future vehicle control systems. Contemporary vehicle navigation systems generally consist of vehicle positioning using satellites and location and orientation of the vehicle with respect to the roadway geometry using a digitised map on a CD-ROM. The standard GPS (with Selective Availability) enables positioning with an accuracy of at least 100 m and is sufficiently accurate for most route guidance tasks. More accurate, precision navigation can be obtained by Differential GPS techniques. A new light concept called Adaptive Light Control (ALC) has been developed with the aim to improve night-time traffic safety. ALC improves the headlamp illumination by means of continuous adaptation of the headlamps according to the current driving situation and current environment. In order to ensure rapid prototyping and early testing, the step from offline to online (real-time) simulation of light distributions has been successfully completed in the driving simulator. The solutions are directly ported to real vehicles to allow further testing with natural road conditions.

Conventional cruise control systems fulfil the function of automatic speed control. A desired speed is selected by the driver, and a control system operates on the throttle to maintain this desired speed. When traffic density is moderate or high, the driver is faced with having to adjust the set speed regularly in order to maintain a comfortable distance from preceding vehicles and will frequently have to brake, disengaging the cruise control. Thus conventional cruise control can become a source of irritation when used in moderate or heavy traffic. If a distance sensor is added to a conventional cruise control system, then it is possible to add distance keeping to the basic speed control function. This forms the basis for adaptive cruise control, which can be further improved if a limited authority braking system is incorporated. Use can then be made of both throttle and brake actuators to control the distance and relative velocities between a vehicle and a preceding target vehicle.