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Delphi Provides Advanced Collision Warning System for European Platform

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Delphi Corp. will provide its Collision Mitigation system for a near-term European platform, company officials said here today at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show.

The system includes Delphi's Forewarn® Smart Cruise Control with Stop & Go, Forward Collision Warning (with pre-crash functionality that includes autonomous braking) and Lane Departure Warning. The system also has capabilities to add IR (infrared) Active Night Vision.

"The Collision Mitigation system takes active safety to a new level on current vehicles," said Rainer Hermeling, Delphi director of European customer region. "The adoption of these technologies will help keep automakers at the top of the list when buyers look for luxury and safety."

Delphi's Forewarn Smart Cruise Control with Stop & Go measures the distance and relative speed of the vehicle ahead using a radar sensor located in the front of the vehicle. The system, when equipped with Stop & Go, has the capability to bring a vehicle to a complete stop. Drivers can also resume cruise control mode by pressing the gas pedal to get started.

When Smart Cruise Control is engaged, it uses throttle control and limited braking to adjust the vehicle speed to maintain a set time gap between itself and the vehicle in front of it (adjustable up to 2.5 seconds). This reduces the need to manually accelerate or decelerate with changes in traffic flow. If the lane ahead is empty, the vehicle maintains its cruising speed.

Delphi's Forewarn vision-based Lane Departure Warning will help alert the driver should the vehicle start to drift out of lane, helping to greatly reduce one of the largest causes of vehicle collisions. The system can be used as a standalone safety aid or integrated with other safety systems as part of Delphi's Integrated Safety System strategy. The new system uses a digital camera, mounted in the rear view mirror housing, to look up to 25 meters ahead of the vehicle. This data is supplemented by vehicle speed and yaw data (so the computer knows if the vehicle is turning) collected from other systems via the vehicle's high-speed data bus.

According to NHTSA data, the societal cost of accidents in the United States is $230 billion, or $820 per person. The data shows that 40 percent of these accidents are caused by unintentional lane/road departures.

IR active night vision uses a near-infrared-sensitive camera module with near-infrared high-beam illuminators or headlamps to help drivers who travel at night. The IR night vision system provides a more natural-looking image to the driver than thermal night vision. Because it is infrared, Delphi's system allows the driver to see non-thermal intensive objects including trees, street signs and mailboxes.

Delphi's system provides high-beam visibility without blinding oncoming drivers, because near-IR light is not visible to humans. The camera has the capability to illuminate objects more than 100 meters away and projects the forward-view image onto a display that is visible only to the driver. The system is also unaffected by increased glare caused by xenon lamps and other headlight technology.

Delphi introduced Smart Cruise Control in 1999 on the Jaguar in Europe.
For more information about Delphi and its subsidiaries, visit Delphi's media room at http://www.delphi.com/media .

Source: Delphi Corporation

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