Adaptive Cruise Control

Mobileye is currently developing second generation Vision Only Vehicle Detection (VD2) in an Advanced Development program with a global vehicle maker for a mono-camera Vision Only Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system. ACC systems detect preceding vehicles in the lane ahead and according to the range and distance of the preceding vehicle, will alter the host vehicles speed (by means of throttle reduction or brake application) to maintain a pre-set headway (in seconds). Once the path is clear the ACC system re-applies throttle to accelerate to the set-speed.

View ACC Video

Today's commercial ACC systems generally use Radar and Laser technology. Mobileye's Advanced Development is a world's first for a mono camera Vision Only ACC system. The critical feature of a Vision Based ACC system is a significant price advantage when compared to radar solutions. In addition the core camera hardware can be used to run multiple other functions, such as LDW, IHC and TSR, which cannot be provided by a radar system. Therefore the flexibility of a camera system can deliver multiple functions at a fraction of the cost of Radar with Vision system providing the same functions.

Vision Range Estimation
VD2 running on EyeQ2 and using a VGA resolution imager is capable of detecting and tracking vehicles to well beyond 100m and this is a critical achievement enabling the use of a mono camera for an ACC function. Future use of automotive qualified high resolution imagers will allow new targets to be detected up to 200 meters. Mobileye's vision only vehicle detection has a range and relative velocity accuracy comparable to that of radar based Vehicle Detection.

Mobileye has addressed the challenge of measuring distance to obstacles, and relative velocity. The main cue for determining the range from a monocular image is perspective. Perspective is noticed in the size of the vehicle in the image and in the location of the bottom of the vehicle (i.e. the location of the vehicle on the road plane). Mobileye utilizes an adaptive combination method of several cues including position on the road, road finding, size and divergence (change of scale) to determine range, range rate, and time to contact.