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Ford's New Radar Technology Based On Open Source
zakkie writes "Ford is releasing new safety-enhancing radar equipment for its 2010 Taurus sedan. The radar itself is based on F22 fighter radar, but interestingly, it's claimed that the software is built from open source. What that may mean, in the vague, waffling context of the article, is unclear, but it's interesting simply because they've gone to the effort of stating it in those words. Clearly, 'open source' is being thought of outside the IT world as a good thing, and that surely is itself a good thing. The purpose of the radar device is to help 'avoid crashes by sounding an alarm and flashing red lights when the driver gets too close to another car.'"
What they can achieve with radar is constant 360 degree monitoring. The local police has gray vans that look like ordinary vans. They park them somewhere near busy intersection. The systems in the car track the movement of every car around the van, and automatically take images of the targets going too fast. Basically there are no police officers sitting inside, they just leave the car there and send you the speeding tickets a few days from the incident.
Also, radars have improved in the past years. Most of the new systems have advancements from military radars - they hop frequerencies and whisper instead of yelling. The amount of energy they put out has dropped to 100th of what they used to do. At the same time the quality of the radar systems have improved. The old ones used to have quite high margin of error whereas these new systems are accurate to centimeter/hours.
Lidar is hard to spot but in overall they suck because they can't do all the coolest tricks.
Open Source != GPL
"Brakes" ... the word you wanted is "brakes".
No sig today...
The problem with the submission is that the submitter does not realize that there is another definition of Open Source. One that is used in referring to possibly classified information or equipment. And this definition has been around much longer than the current IT realm definition.
What Open source in this context refers to isn't the IT/GPL version of Open source it means it was developed from unclassified research and publications.
So what it is saying is that Ford has not put classified technology into these cars, not that they used free "as in beer" software.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Good point: The amount of energy that needs to be dissapated is linear in mass and quadratic in velocity (KE = mv^2/2). The maximum static friction force is also linear in mass (F_fric = mu*m*g). The work (or energy) is the force times distance. Setting these equations equal to each other, you find that: d = v^2 / (2*mu*g) Stopping distance is independent of the mass of the vehicle. Speed, being quadratic, is a huge factor. And mu, which depends on the tires and the road is also important. (So is g, of course, but you stand little chance of modifying gravity.) This implies that decreasing your speed from 75mph to 65mph decreases your stopping distance by about 25%.
LIDAR requires that the officer be stationary, have their window rolled down, be parked such that they are shooting LIDAR as close to parallel with the flow of traffic as possible, and not have any weather conditions that would obstruct the laser (or make life really miserable for the officer, as the window is down). The officer has to actively aim the device at each car he wishes to clock.
On the New York State Thruway, most of the traffic enforcement still uses Ka-band radar. The radar units are permanently installed on the cars and don't require exposure to the elements. They can provide accurate readings while the car is in motion, allowing the officer to patrol while still checking speed. Many cars have dual fore-and-aft antennas so they can clock cars ahead of and behind them. They can park the car and leave the radar on, not only slowing down traffic that has radar detectors, but letting them work on other things while waiting for the radar's "too fast" alarm to go off.
I'm not surprised NYS Troopers don't use LIDAR as often -- it's much more of a hassle for them to use.
As for detecting LIDAR: If you have a dark-colored car without a lot of reflective chrome or a front license plate, and you leave your headlights on, it is possible to detect LIDAR before it locks on to you, at least some of the time. Car and Driver tested this several years ago and found that, while it's difficult to beat LIDAR, it's not impossible.
As for "instant-on" radar: Yes, it exists, but there's that convenience issue again. Rarely do I ever see officers using it on the highway. Should one wish to speed while using their radar detector, the safe thing is to only do so when there's at least a few cars visible ahead of you. That way, your detector will be set off when the officer uses their "instant-on" to clock the cars ahead of you.
Imperial or US gallons?
And, how big is that car? The Taurus is approaching the size of a Mercedes S-class, and has a 3.5 L V6.
Also, US fuel economy estimates for everything but hybrids are lower than real world fuel economy.
Do you really think tailgate asses do it because they are late?
They do it because it's what they like. I heard it's the only way they can get an erection.
Too lazy to read your own article?
That research was done with a model featuring .... pedestrians. Rarely seen those doing 120 kph.
Even better, quoting the last few alineas:
"However, there is one rule you shouldn't break, according to a new analysis of how high-volume traffic flows along a highway. Cecile Appert-Rolland, a physicist at the University of Paris-Sud, looked at the tailing distances between cars traveling on a busy two-lane expressway in the suburbs of Paris."
Her research showed that tailgating drivers were more likely than a non-tailgater to have a car in the lane next to them, so they weren't just speeding up in order to change lanes. She also found that these short time headways tended to extend across several vehicles, creating a platoon.
"We can identify at least seven or eight cars where they have time headways of half a second," she said. Considering that a driver's reaction time is about one second, these platoons are disastrous pileups waiting to happen. "If the first one brakes, the second one has to brake harder, the third one even harder, and the last wouldn't be able to brake hard enough."
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
There is a significant difference in stopping distance between "juice" brakes and air brakes. Assuming identical reaction times, air brakes take from 500ms to a full second LONGER to initiate mechanical movement. Every professional driver already knows that however, since it's part of the written test to obtain a commercial driver's license (CDL) with an air brake certification. It's why truckers who aren't dickheads leave a few extra car lengths between them and the next vehicle, especially late in their shift when their own reaction time may be a little slower than normal.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon