There comes a point in a business where you need to decide to renew your operations to keep up with the times rather than go stale. I have always kept a strategy of renewing my business about every five years to make sure I have that updated look and the latest and greatest equipment. I have a lot of equipment in my attic that is antiquated within five years because the technology just keeps accelerating at a pace that sometimes becomes hard to keep up with. The introduction of Advanced Driver Assist Systems has had a major push for me to retool my entire business, so I needed more room to accommodate the amount of equipment involved in working on ADAS systems. My 2014 Jeep Wrangler on steroids was just not cutting it anymore so I needed something different to take me into my next business phase.
Shadow boxing?
The 2020 Jeep Gladiator looked very promising — a 4-door SUV and a 5-foot truck bed (Figure 1). I decided to modify the interior by taking out the back seats and use the truck bed to carry all the equipment necessary to perform ADAS calibrations on the road. A custom stainless-steel bed top is still in the works to store 3.5 x 4.5-foot target boards in the roofline. When I ordered the truck, I made sure it was a Rubicon with every option this vehicle could have including the ADAS system. I was very intrigued by the way the vehicle was able to maintain advanced cruise control and vehicle braking on its own while driving on the highway, but I was not aware of its added feature of Automatic Emergency Braking. This I found out when my Gladiator abruptly issued a warning tone and stopped while I was moving slowly in traffic on a highway without any logical reasoning. I was served an ADAS “curveball” that I was not prepared for and I needed to do some serious research to figure out what this AEB stuff was all about.
AEB systems are now in at least 50 percent of all vehicles produced in 2020 and by September 2022 it will be mandated that ALL vehicles produced will be required to have AEB equipped onboard. These systems will use both radar and camera systems on a network or integrated into one unit to interact with engine and ABS control systems to control deceleration and braking. The ABS will be the main "arbitrator" of the system and will have a final say in what actions to take. The radar and camera systems will calculate a "time-to-crash" scenario and warn the ABS of a possible crash. The ABS will first pre-fill the brake hydraulics to bring the brake pads closer to the brake rotors, issue a warning to be displayed to the instrument cluster, instruct the Body Control Module to prepare for a brake light activation and even possibly create a brake jerk to get the driver's attention. Then when a final decision is made to put the driver out of harm’s way, a full brake apply will run its course. This all happens in milliseconds of time through bus networks that allow fast interaction between onboard control modules.
The Jeep Gladiator was different than most systems I have worked on in that most vehicles use separate radar units behind the front grille and a camera up in the windshield. This vehicle had a Driver Assist System Module that incorporated both radar and front camera at the top of the windshield for a sensor fusion operation. It was also equipped with AEB that was controlled by a Soft Switch in the dash menu (Figure 2) that you could use to set the sensitivity or turn on/off operation. This system usually works at low speeds (under 15-20MPH) depending on the manufacturer. What I experienced in traffic happened twice on sunny days heading the same direction going under an overpass about 10 miles per hour. While heading North with the sun in the East a perfect shadow was cast on the highway from the overpass and the DASM thought the shadow was a vehicle in front of me and my Gladiator came to a quick halt. I was unable to move forward to prevent the vehicle behind from hitting me because the brakes were still being held. Luckily for me, the driver behind me stopped in time. What I experienced was "phantom braking" because cameras, in general, can’t comprehend shadows but rather see them as 3-dimensional objects. I have since turned the AEB off and placed it in warning mode only so I could learn more about its system strategies.
Be careful what you wish for
I was hoping that soon I would be able to work on one of these systems to learn more about it because it threw me such a curveball. This ADAS vehicle was so new with many other features such as Blind Spot Detection, Cross-Traffic Alert, and even Automatic Braking when the driver door is opened while backing up. There is a saying of “Be Careful of What You Wish For” and I think I wished a little too hard. It was about one month and 3,500 miles later that I noticed a crack in my windshield that started at the base of the glass perimeter from a stone that kicked up on the highway. I had to put an insurance claim for almost $1400 for the windshield to be replaced that included a radar/camera alignment procedure. The windshield was on backorder, so I had to wait about four weeks because the truck parts were still in production mode.
I chose to purchase a factory windshield because I did not want any post issues with my DASM System operation. Windshield glass has always been mandated to have specs of clarity and structural safety. There is a membrane between two pieces of glass to keep the glass from shattering into many tiny pieces if the vehicle is involved in an accident of any kind that could compromise the windshield and cause injury to a driver and passengers in a vehicle. With the introduction of ADAS into our automotive industry, there have been many changes to windshield specifications. They must have the proper pitch for camera mounting because 1 degree could make a difference and create a problem for the system to properly finish its calibration process after windshield replacement. There is also a need to make sure the camera view area has specified inclusions or a heated grid that does not restrict the view. A camera looking through a piece of glass that is not to specification could distort the images it was designed to see putting it into a "Kaleidoscope World".
When the windshield finally arrived, I met the glass guy at a local body shop to remove the old glass on my Gladiator (Figure 3). It was interesting to see that the DASM Unit was not mounted to the windshield but rather on a bracket mounted to the vehicle. There was a grommet surrounding the DASM and secured itself tightly against the windshield. This is critical because you don’t want pirate light to sneak past the grommet and cause issues with the camera’s view. There were also two wires to the left of the DASM unit that feed power and ground to a heater grid built into the windshield that covers the camera view area to prevent fogging near the camera lens. The manufacturer states that a radar and camera alignment must be done if the DASM or windshield is replaced, and this even includes if the vehicle is modified with a lift kit or bigger tires. This system does not use targets of any kind for a "static" alignment and is all done "dynamically" on the roadway. Before doing the roadway alignment a vertical alignment of the DASM housing is needed by checking the assembly with a Digital Inclinometer (Figure 4). Before measuring negative 1.0 degrees +/- 0.2 degrees, the vehicle must be on level ground and the suspension and tires can’t be comprised.
Dynamic calibration in Jersey?
Once the DASM housing is vertically adjusted then you can proceed to the Road Test calibration. If the vehicle has been modified, then you will have to measure the height of the vehicle from the center of the lower control arm bolt to the ground (Figure 5). The vehicle must be unloaded with nothing in the truck bed and the tires at the proper air pressures. You will need to add a value of 300-600 mm for left and right sides of the vehicle into two different windows on the displayed screens. If a value above 600 mm is entered, you will be warned that the system may NOT function properly at all as a liability awareness from the manufacturer. Once this is completed you will see the next screen (Figure 6) that will show you progress bars for both the camera and radar systems that will count from 0-100% as you drive. This is not a time-based drive but rather a condition-based drive. You must find a straight roadway with visible lines and many roadside objects such as guardrails, telephone poles, trees, signs, etc. (Figure 7). You must also keep a speed above 42 MPH with a 3-4 car length in front of you so the systems can properly learn the roadway.
I was surprised that the camera system finished quickly after just one minute and 11 seconds (Figure 8). Then after about another two minutes and fourteen seconds, the radar system was completed. The total drive with the proper conditions was under five minutes but this was on a clear sunny day with no rain or snow in the forecast. Camera systems will have issues calibrating if weather conditions are very poor and the radar system calibration will not complete if you are not traveling at the right speed keeping yourself properly distanced from cars in front of you. This is not a job you can do during major rush hour or on a roadway without lines on either side of the vehicle. You also need to think about taking another person with you on the road trip to monitor the laptop while you drive because it may be a liability issue is something should happen if you take your eyes off the roadway while giving attention to a laptop screen or keyboard function.
I hope that all you readers have enjoyed my personal experience with ADAS and the many things that affect its proper operation. I am sure as time goes on there will be many changes to fine-tune operations to make these systems are more robust. You will see many manufacturers removing radar systems out of the front fascia of vehicles and putting them into the windshields out of harm’s way to lower the cost of insurance claims. I also see a possible fusion of radar, lidar and camera systems all tucked in the upper windshield to give the ADAS system a wider spectrum of “Roadway Classification.”
