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Ford Engineers Test 'Predictive Logic' To Improve Cruise Control
cartechboy writes "Sometimes what we think of as 'car tech' is colored by sensational coverage of things like autonomous cars. But real engineers are working behind the scenes every day to make existing auto technologies more efficient. Take cruise control: Today, even adaptive cruise systems just throttle up when the car's speed drops and ease off when speed rises or a car gets too close. Today's cruise-control systems aren't predictive--meaning they don't plan ahead. At all. Now, engineers at Ford are adding predictive algorithms and more sophisticated powertain mapping to reduce the built-in overcompensation that ends up wasting fuel. Ford has mapped each vehicle's powertrain in much greater detail, and their prototype control systems look at grade steepness, load on the engine, and other variables every few seconds to predict what's likely coming up. Will the hill level off soon? Will the driver ask for more gas, or let up on the accelerator? Down the road, connected-vehicle and cloud-based data will build on these predictive developments--as will those autonomous vehicles you hear so much about. Think of this as a building block to the future."
Its not the cars who drive that way, its the Drivers. (And to an extent, under powered trucks who decide to occupy all lanes passing each other in precisely those locations where they obstruct everyone).
Basic Cruise Control from the 60s and 70's could handle that situation. The problem is there are too many people who won't use cruise control, and too many entry level vehicles that don't have cruise control (it cost a couple hundred bucks for after market kits, and less if you buy it included in a new car).
Modern Adaptive Cruise control will keep pace with a preceding vehicle (up to you set speed), and detect potential rear-end collisions long before the driver might.
Usually that costs much more because you need optics or radar (25ghz) to detect distance of the car in front. But it saves gas, collisions, and aggravation.
(I'll never own another car without adaptive cruise control).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It's even more complicated than that. Cruise control is all too often a safety hazard on the interstate. Safety requires space, the more the better, between vehicles. All to often cruise control is the reason cars remain in close proximity, mile after mile. Sometimes a cruise control cretin will bogart the passing lane simply because his cruise control is oh so slowly allowing his vehicle to pass an only very slightly slower one. Safe driving requires constant adjustment of velocity in order to maximize space between vehicles. Driving safely is space and energy management.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Cruise control is all too often a safety hazard on the interstate. Safety requires space, the more the better, between vehicles. All to often cruise control is the reason cars remain in close proximity, mile after mile.
Oddly enough, there are virtually no traffic statistics that back up your claim.
There is some speculation that cruse control would lull drivers to sleep, but in fact this happens no more with CC than withoug.
As for slow passing, that's mostly a fallacy, because every cruise control allows driver over-ride, and passing a slower vehicle at one mph difference in
speed is not some how more dangerous than passing at 5 or 10 mph. The same driver that will allow the CC to take them slowly around another car would pass slowly if managing their speed manually.
Constant adjustment is part of the problem. People yoyo-ing up and down the highway are the real risk inducers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
On my recent model F150 there's a very handy feature: "Tow/Haul" mode. It changes the transmission shift behavior so that touching the brakes makes it downshift and STAY downshifted (and doing it again downshifts another step on the many-gear-ratios transmission), while touching the accelerator lets it shift back up. This is GREAT for long downgrades in mountains, even if you're NOT towing.
But it doesn't interact well with the cruise control. The speed control raises the throttle setting to keep you from going under the setpoint. But when you're over it just goes down to idle and lets your speed runaway. Touch the brakes to enable engine braking and the cruise control disengages. No automatic speed control for YOU on the downgrade. When the grade starts to level out the speed drops, and even before that you're back to watching the speedometer and doing manual adjustments,
Result: On mountain roads you're constantly disengaging and re-engaging the speed control.
They should integrate the two: When tow/haul mode is engaged, the speed control should send downshift signals to the transmission to control too-fast as well as too-slow conditions.
When tow-haul is on the speed control should signal the transmission to downshift when necessary, to keep the speed from running away and requiring the driver to brake. (The speed control's acceleration when too-slow will handle the upshift correctly.)
You'll still have to touch the brakes or tap-down the speed setting for curves and other locally slow zones. But then you'd just hit "resume" or tap-up the setting. Meanwhile the automation would handle the non-exceptional condition of preventing overspeed and runaway on downgrades.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way