Turkish GP this weekend
Istanbul Otodrom
The Turkish GP is on this weekend in the Istanbul
“Otodrom”, which as the old song went, “You can’t go back to Constantinople,
‘coz it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople.”
The circuit is about 80 km east of Istanbul, and is 5.3
km long and the theoretical top speed should be around 320 kph. The race is
over 58 laps and expect lap times down around 1 minute 24. Racing is
anti-clockwise, and for much more than that you will have to watch the TV as
I do. However, don’t look for spectators, they are as thin on the ground as
in Shanghai, where they made huge sections of the vacant grandstands into
advertising hoardings.
The GP will be at 7 p.m. Thai time, but check your local
feed to confirm this. (Qualifying, by the way is at 6 p.m. on the Saturday.)
I will be watching as usual from my perch at Jameson’s Irish Pub on Soi AR
(next to Nova Park). Join me for a meal and a natter first. They might even
have “turkey” on in the toast section (or perhaps large chickens)!
Driving in “Full Auto” is almost
here
The “auto” car is (almost) here, heralding the death knell
for driving enthusiasts. The world is getting ready to hand the control of the
family car to the computer. You can no longer be trusted! (But can it?)
The technology that is now being offered, as far as
anti-collision is concerned, has actually been developed over the last 10 years,
but as the modern car becomes more electronic, it has become easier to
incorporate the anti-collision technology into the car’s electronics.
Volvo City
Safety
Take electronic cruise control for example. This works
through the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) and adapts the pre-set road speed to
the fuel/air mixture the engine receives. As speed drops, increased fuel/air is
called for and the car speeds up. And vice versa when the road speed exceeds the
pre-set level. Going downhill, the ECU can even tell the brakes to apply light
pressure to bring down and control the road speed.
So the vehicles have had the ECU ‘smarts’ for some time, and
all that is needed, is to hook an anti-collision system in with the cruise
control ECU.
The human ‘anti-collision’ model relies on visual
interpretation of the distance and previously stored knowledge of how much
distance it will need to pull up from that speed. Some of us are better than
others at this! There is also the problem that when you leave two car lengths to
the car in front, in Thailand that space is very quickly filled with two cars
and several motorcycles!
To do this anti-collision calculation electronically is done
by using a form of radar. The message comes back to the car to indicate that at
the current road speed, there is not enough distance in which to pull up without
‘rear-ending’ the car in front. The ECU can then shut down the fuel/air mixture
and instead of just getting the brakes pre-charged, can now apply the brakes
(independently from the driver) to slow the car enough to avoid the rear end
collision.
Mercedes
Distronic Plus
Toyota has been developing their concept of this system,
which is designed to not only stop rear end collisions, but to stop you running
red lights as well (it will never be accepted in Thailand where running red
lights is a national pastime).
The system detects other cars, street aids and passers-by as
you drive and then sends a signal to the driver if it thinks that you will not
be able to stop in time. The signals are received from transmitters placed in
street signs, lights, other vehicles and hand held units for pedestrians. It
could also go as far as to brake the car if it feels the driver hasn’t realized
the lights are on red.
The above system relies on signals transmitted from traffic
lights or even people, but there is another way. Bounce the signals back to the
receiver unit. This type of system has been developed by Cambridge Consultants
Ltd (CCL) in the UK. Called CCL-Softcar, the radar solves the performance and
cost issues that have stalled progress in this area - heralding a new generation
of smart anti-collision technology capable of meeting the demanding economic
goals of the automotive industry.
For those who happily talk about giga-hertz, CCL-Softcar is a
pulsed radar system working in the 5.8 GHz band, rather than the 24 or 77 GHz
frequencies of alternative approaches. Working at this lower frequency reduces
the cost of the components required to build a system, and avoids the time and
cost overhead which precision assembly of higher frequency equipment imposes.
Just four radar modules and one electronic control unit (ECU) are required to
provide 360ฐ protection - further reducing the bill of materials compared with
alternative approaches which can require two or more modules to be installed on
every side of a vehicle.
So the on-board technology can be developed to be within
financial parameters, and that brings us to Volvo, Mercedes and Honda. The Volvo
City Safety, Mercedes Distronic Plus, and Honda CMBS use radar systems to
mitigate and prevent low speed collisions - which, as a category, make up 75
percent of all motor accidents.
The Volvo City Safety uses laser radar, or LIDAR, to track
the distance and speed of the car in front of the driver. The windscreen mounted
device renews its calculations 50 times a second, pre-charging the brakes to
avoid potential collisions before drivers can even sense the danger.
The system is active at speeds of up to 30 km/h and has a
range of up to six meters in front of the car. If a driver fails to activate the
brakes before an imminent collision, the City Safety system automatically stops
the car, and even steers it out of harms way.
Like the City Safety, the Mercedes Distronic Plus uses a form
of radar to maintain safe distance from neighboring cars. However, the two
radars on the Distronic Plus are linked to the car’s cruise control, adding an
extra level of autonomy to the system. The Distronic Plus operates at speeds of
up to 200 km/h, keeping your car in sync with traffic whether it be stop-start
gridlock or long stretches of freeway.
The Honda CMBS also uses radar to calculate the distance and
speed of the vehicle in front, sending visual and audible warnings to the driver
and automatically applying the brakes if a collision is imminent.
While all three systems use radar technology to create
impressive, and effective, collision prevention systems, they are also
vulnerable to radar’s weaknesses. Weather conditions like fog and rain can
undermine its effectiveness, and dirt can obscure the sensor.
One tester who has driven a car fitted with this kind of
anti-collision technology found it initially very difficult to stop waving his
foot over the brake pedal, but eventually gained enough confidence to allow the
car to stop by itself a safe distance from the car in front in city traffic.
However, he did find a problem when there was no car stopped in front of him,
and if not checked by the human mind, could have sailed blithely through the red
light (in fine Thai style). This brings us back to the Toyota system, but the
infrastructure costs would be horrendous - and as always, who would pay?
