FRICTI@N

The aim of the EC-funded FRICTI@N project is to create an on-board system for estimating friction and road slipperiness to enhance the performance of integrated and cooperative safety systems like vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and driver information. Applications that can benefit from precise information on road slipperiness are driving safety control systems such as Slip Control Systems, Emergency Braking System, Electronic Stability Program, Adaptive Cruise Control and Roll-over Avoidance.

The project will not develop new sensors, but uses existing ones in a novel way. The aim is a solution for real-time estimation of the tyre-road friction using a sensor cluster in a moving vehicle. Consequently, three kinds of sensors will be used: (i) existing in-vehicle sensors for vehicle dynamics, (ii) environmental sensors, and (iii) tyre-based sensors. Today, the signals from these sensors are used separately for vehicle safety systems without combining them.

The project has two characteristics: vertical in developing a new system to enhance driver assistance, and horizontal in providing a system for different applications and for on-going projects in preventive safety and upcoming cooperative systems. Today, many ADAS applications do not function optimally due to the missing information on friction. Co-operative driving needs information on road conditions to prepare drivers for slippery road sections or hazards even beyond the field of vision. This information can be used to tune ADAS to exploit its full potential, warn drivers and provide information to other vehicles and external users like road operators.

To learn more about this project, please click here.

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