A survey conducted by ABI Research on ‘Collision Warning and Mitigation Systems’, analyses world market trends, cost and technological estimates of various components, and also discusses current product announcements.
The survey also includes region-wise system, volume and cost predictions for installations, up to 2016.
Systems to warn of collisions began getting incorporated in vehicles around 2003 in some major car brands. Right now, certain collision features are being integrated in vehicles that are being produced in large volumes. Whereas earlier, the systems were designed to detect collisions at high speeds, currently they are being designed for low speed collisions as well. The Pedestrian Detection system on the new S60 from Volvo predicts collision at speeds of less than 21mph.
According to David Alexander, chief analyst at ABI, the pedestrian detecting system was available only in night vision systems. However, new low-cost technology deploys cameras and lidar sensors. To detect high speed crashes, a radar sensor is ideal. The Freescale announcement in November last year stated that its Xtrinsic chipset, which is being produced, will make automotive radar sensors more beneficial than the CMOS techniques. Costs are expected to drop with production growth. The research agency does not predict any growth in government funding for research and development of the system in the near future. However it is predicted that the global market for these sensors will grow to about $17Billion by 2016.