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When Collision avoidance systems go weird~

Omega Man

Omega Man

Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat
Staff member
I had a chance to confirm one of my suspicions on the increased activation of my V1 radar detector yesterday. A number of "high end" vehicles nowadays have front and rear collision avoidance systems and they are causing "alerts" with the Valentine 1. I have been watching this for some time and trying to get to a point that I can confirm that it is happening.
An Audi luxury class SUV was in the lane near me yesterday and as traffic and vehicles changed my sight-line to the Audi, I was able to watch the detectors reaction. The distance(s) were quite amazing so I have to guess there was a malfunction with this particular system on the vehicle.
Not that anything can be done about it, but it's good info to consider for those who run a "high end" detector. As we all hopefully know, there are no such thing as a "false alarm" as radar (or lidar) signals set the detector to alert mode, such alerts need to be learned and interpreted.
OM
 
OM, grab your valentine out of the vehicle, and go to their website, and enter the serial #.
There may well be an update available for your unit.

Ken
 
Ken F said:
OM, grab your valentine out of the vehicle, and go to their website, and enter the serial #.
There may well be an update available for your unit.

Ken
Click to expand...
I did this a while back and used their trade in allowance to get a new unit- (I have 2). I'll have to dig out my portable electron microscope with oblique angle lighting system to check again. :thumb

ka5ysy said:
Information on the problem from Valentine:

http://www.valentine1.com/V1Info/junk_k_fighter/

I sent my unit in for upgrade last week. You will also notice that some commercial trucks are radiating also. Not sure what that is about but could be a collision avoidance system also.
Click to expand...
Good info, I have been messing with the real-time effects as I like to prove out a theory. Should I send one in, I will have enough data to tell how good the upgrade is, was or did. :thumb
OM
 
ka5ysy said:
Information on the problem from Valentine:

http://www.valentine1.com/V1Info/junk_k_fighter/

I sent my unit in for upgrade last week. You will also notice that some commercial trucks are radiating also. Not sure what that is about but could be a collision avoidance system also.
Click to expand...

Many commercial trucks are now tracked by the company, I assume via satellite or radar... ? Also, remember that some insurance companies asked customers to install tracking devices a while back, so they could collate driving habits etc. Both would probably send signals a unit such as the V1 would pick up.
 
bmwrider88 said:
Many commercial trucks are now tracked by the company, I assume via satellite or radar... ? Also, remember that some insurance companies asked customers to install tracking devices a while back, so they could collate driving habits etc. Both would probably send signals a unit such as the V1 would pick up.
Click to expand...


Nobody uses radar to track vehicles (unless you happen to be in a fighter/bomber equipped with doppler targeting radar!!).

The trucks and commercial vehicles use a satellite based transponder system (that small white dome someplace around the cab). At set times the unit sends a position report, or the subscriber can ping the unit and receive an instant update. The insurance companies and a number of private providers use a cellphone based system that does the same thing for much less cost. The best anti-theft system for vehicles right now is probably the LoJack system which transmits on a radio (RF) carrier VHF frequency of 173.075 MHz. It is silent until someone reports a theft and then the company tells the specific unit to transmit its beacon. LoJack is great because the company gives the tracker equipment to police departments. You will occasionally notice police cars that have four or five small whip antennas positioned in a square pattern on the vehicle. This is a LoJack tracking system setup. The antennas are a fancy direction finding system, and the cruiser can get three compass bearings and zero in on the vehicle.

Those insurance company plug-in things are simply data loggers that read data from the vehicle OBD computer system, and some include accelerometers to read braking and acceleration to see if you have a lead foot or drive aggressively. The have no radio capability and are mailed back to the company involved for analysis.

The whole takeaway is that none of these systems operate in the frequency bands that the radar detectors are set for, so no interference or false alerts. If you are getting an alert it is caused by something radiating in the appropriate microwave bands.
 
Volvo ties a radar system to their trucks' cruise control:
Greater distance means greater safety.
Volvo Enhanced Cruise (VEC) with Active Braking is Volvo?s fully integrated radar-based system that helps you maintain a safe following distance in traffic, , even in adverse weather and visibility conditions. Using radar sensors behind the front bumper, VEC monitors vehicles moving in front and to the side of the Volvo truck. Up to 32 objects can be detected within 500 feet in front of the truck.
Click to expand...

I'd expect other manufacturers to do the same or similar.

 
ka5ysy said:
Nobody uses radar to track vehicles (unless you happen to be in a fighter/bomber equipped with doppler targeting radar!!).

The trucks and commercial vehicles use a satellite based transponder system (that small white dome someplace around the cab). At set times the unit sends a position report, or the subscriber can ping the unit and receive an instant update. The insurance companies and a number of private providers use a cellphone based system that does the same thing for much less cost. The best anti-theft system for vehicles right now is probably the LoJack system which transmits on a radio (RF) carrier VHF frequency of 173.075 MHz. It is silent until someone reports a theft and then the company tells the specific unit to transmit its beacon. LoJack is great because the company gives the tracker equipment to police departments. You will occasionally notice police cars that have four or five small whip antennas positioned in a square pattern on the vehicle. This is a LoJack tracking system setup. The antennas are a fancy direction finding system, and the cruiser can get three compass bearings and zero in on the vehicle.

Those insurance company plug-in things are simply data loggers that read data from the vehicle OBD computer system, and some include accelerometers to read braking and acceleration to see if you have a lead foot or drive aggressively. The have no radio capability and are mailed back to the company involved for analysis.

The whole takeaway is that none of these systems operate in the frequency bands that the radar detectors are set for, so no interference or false alerts. If you are getting an alert it is caused by something radiating in the appropriate microwave bands.
Click to expand...

Copy that, thank you.
 
I just hope that when the engineers automate all the stupidity out of any moving object, planes, trains, and automobiles.. (Boats too) I can still legally exercise my right to not be stupid at least on a bike. How dull the world would be in a zero defect society.
 
I'm old, I still believe in seat of the pants operation- at least before all the experience, in this case driving, has been taken out...of....driving. There are so many glitches/failures in embedded systems that again, IMO, an operator should know how to do without. A good example would be planes, although they have auto-pilot, I still want the pilot to know how to actually fly.
For fun, watch someone at a drive-up, ATM or mailbox :eek
OM
 
Omega Man said:
I'm old, I still believe in seat of the pants operation- at least before all the experience, in this case driving, has been taken out...of....driving. There are so many glitches/failures in embedded systems that again, IMO, an operator should know how to do without. A good example would be planes, although they have auto-pilot, I still want the pilot to know how to actually fly.
For fun, watch someone at a drive-up, ATM or mailbox :eek
OM
Click to expand...

I don't think that I would equate the level of training, professionalism and the technology in the aircraft industry with what we have in the trucking industry today. The Volvo truck in the video appears to be a Euro model that probably is running the latest in air disk braking systems which are used in more than 80% of the trucks on the road in Europe. In North America that number is under 20%. The cost of adding disk brakes to the average tractor unit is about $2000 and it reduces the stopping distances by about 30% at highway speeds (the stopping distances for a truck with disk brakes gets close to the performance of the average new car). My experience with the trucking industry on average would be that it is a race to the bottom to see how to do the absolute minimum to meet what rules are in place and to lobby for even fewer rules. In BC they used to do an annual road check blitz for unsafe trucks and most years the number of trucks that were deemed unsafe to drive was close to 50%. These were things like broken frames, broken springs, non functional brakes, bad tires, etc. not stuff like burned out clearance lights or cracked windshields. It would be nice to think that all truck drivers would be alert to every situation that happens during their 10 to 13 hour day on the road (day in and day out) but I think that I will be more that happy to take my chances with the occasional imbedded system glitch. Don't misunderstand and think that I am advocating trucks with no drivers, I just think that it is a lot safer to have a few electronic nannies making sure the driver remains the driver and hasn't just become a passenger.
 
For those interested, I recently did an upgrade to one of my V-1's. The sensitivity seems to be still there with those handy directional arrows and the best thing, as the folks at V-1 claimed, the bulk of the pesky signals for the collision avoidance systems has been filtered or programmed out.
Instead of the unit being on constantly while on the highway, it indicates in areas where you would expect to receive an alert.
The upgrade is almost the price of a new unit and I really think it's a loyalty discount- but one save and it's "free". It would seem V-1 is trying to uphold their reputation as a top of the line traffic aid by requiring the old(r) unit to be returned thus keeping out of date units off the market. :thumb
Ride/drive safe.
OM
 
lkraus said:
Volvo ties a radar system to their trucks' cruise control:


I'd expect other manufacturers to do the same or similar.
Click to expand...

My new Prius Prime does the same thing. Toyota calls it "Adaptive Cruise Control." With the cruise control on, I have an option to set the following distance I want, which of course is the maximum. The car slows to maintain that following distance, and will apply the brakes when it senses a possible collision. This feature is on all new Toyota vehicles, from what I gather from TV commercials. The radar is at the Toyota emblem on the front of the car. There is also a camera at the top of the windshield that is used in the lane-keep assist function, giving a series of beeps if the car begins to wander from the lane.

Harry
 
AKsuited said:
My new Prius Prime does the same thing. Toyota calls it "Adaptive Cruise Control." With the cruise control on, I have an option to set the following distance I want, which of course is the maximum. The car slows to maintain that following distance, and will apply the brakes when it senses a possible collision. This feature is on all new Toyota vehicles, from what I gather from TV commercials. The radar is at the Toyota emblem on the front of the car. There is also a camera at the top of the windshield that is used in the lane-keep assist function, giving a series of beeps if the car begins to wander from the lane.

Harry
Click to expand...

Last October, I was looking at a new car. I liked the Subaru Outback, but the wife insisted we test a Toyota RAV4. Both 2017. The RAV4 adaptive cruise did not go down to zero and resume when following a car in front. The Outback did, but did require a little kick to resume if stopped for more than 3 seconds. We bought the Outback.

Frankly, I absolutely love it. Use it in town and out on the expressway. Would not want it on my bike, not quite anyway. But, I figure the day is coming ...
 
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