How Transparent Trailer Technology Enables A Safer Driving Experience

Dayanand Acharya Jul 15, 2021

A recent World Health Organization Report (WHO) report states that nearly 1.3 million people lose their lives in road accidents every year across the globe. An additional 20 to 50 million people are left with injuries and permanent disabilities. In India, the number of lives lost in accidents, or people injured, is concerningly high. In the last decade, over one million people have lost their lives in accidents on Indian roads. Moreover, as per the data published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), about 20,000 people were killed in 2019 due to accidents involving larger vehicles like trucks and Buses.

Many of these accidents can be easily prevented by removing blind spot zones in a vehicle. For instance, the A-pillars and bulky hoods causing a blind spot in four-wheelers have earned a notorious reputation for being among the top accident causes across the world. Specific to commercial vehicles, the trailers are a cause of a massive blind spot. Curtailing blind spot zones in a vehicle is an absolute necessity to achieve Vision Zero - Zero Fatalities, Zero Injuries. Zero Crashes.

Eliminating Blind Spots

Technologies such as Rear-view cameras, Emergency Braking while reversing, Back-up Assist, Reverse Park Assist and Virtual A-Pillars have added to the optimism in achieving Vision Zero. With the introduction of Transparent Hood technology, we have further enhanced safety elements in large cars such as SUVs for easy maneuvering over off-road terrain or tight parking spaces. Transparent Hood enables the driver to see underneath the car (like the road condition, small objects on the path, curb, footpath, terrain, and wheel position) to support driving. To the driver, the hood and the engine compartment beneath seem transparent.

The revolutionary automotive Surround View provides the driver with a 360-degree view of the area surrounding the vehicle. In addition, The new Transparent Trailer technology is a key innovation in Trailering portfolio. This technology supports the driver in getting better visibility of the space around the vehicle and trailer. The camera(s) mounted on the rear of a trailer and one on the rear of the vehicle, merges the pictures seamlessly, correcting the angle of the trailer concerning the vehicle. The result is a seamless view behind the vehicle that makes the trailer virtually invisible.

Continental's proprietary algorithms detect the orientation of the camera on the trailer to allow for flexible mounting positions without extensive calibration. This leads to an image that instantly responds to user input, producing a real-time, seamlessly stitched visual that gives the impression of looking at a live video feed. In addition, the technology uses sensing capabilities also used for Continental's Trailer Reverse Assist to detect the angle of the trailer in haul and seamlessly adjust the image presented to the driver with no need for a target on the trailer. In many detection systems, a sticker or pattern is placed on the trailer that the camera uses to detect its angle and modify the image accordingly. This can become problematic if multiples trailers need to be hauled that don’t have a target on them. Eliminating the need for this target enables the Transparent Trailer technology to be a seamless extension of Trailer Reverse Assist.

Transparent Trailer: Enhancing the Safety Factor

The Transparent Trailer allows the driver to see the environment around, providing a clear line of view avoiding obstacles, and maneuvering safely at high and low speeds. It provides camera assistance systems for safer driving and towing experience that go beyond mere display to guide in accelerating, steering, overtaking and braking.

Although the Transparent Trailer is a crucial advancement for heavy vehicles such as trucks and trailers, on a broader scale, it is extremely useful in other automobiles such as cars. The application of the Transparent Technology extends to navigation while parking, reversing, etc. It eliminates the blind spots for the drivers in towing large objects, which would give the driver all the necessary surrounding information to make safe decisions when driving, thus making towing safer and less stressful.

Many people have multiple trailers being towed by a single vehicle. To make this common scenario simpler for end-users, if a vehicle is equipped with Transparent Trailer technology, multiple cameras can be purchased and installed on the rear of multiple trailers, as opposed to installing and uninstalling a single camera each time a different trailer needs to be used. Enabling even greater flexibility and ease, no extensive calibration between the vehicle and various cameras needs to be made with each switch. With a flexible algorithm, the Transparent Trailer camera can be installed either on the tailgate or center high-mounted stop lamp of the vehicle, allowing for true design freedom for vehicle manufacturers. The Transparent Trailer feature can be visualized on any in-vehicle display and can be combined with Surround View and all other Continental trailering functions: Trailer Merge Assist, Trailer Hitch Assist, Automated Trailer Maneuvering, Trailer Length Detection, and more.

Conclusion

Heavy Vehicles such as trucks, trailers majorly face challenges with visibility while maneuvering the vehicle or parking them in a restricted area. With the huge size of the vehicles, manual analysis of spaces, surroundings, and conditions is prone to human error, which later leads to possible road mishaps accidents, and fatalities. The state-of-the-art Transparent Trailer is an innovative solution to assist the driver in decisions on maneuverability, be it the on-road (city or highway) conditions, parking in narrow spaces or cumbersome terrains. It is interesting to note that the Transparent Trailer technology was awarded CES 2021 Innovation Honoree Awards in the Vehicle Intelligence and Transportation product category. A transparent Trailer is designed to change the way people feel about driving with a trailer. Transparent Trailer technology is a software product that can be integrated into an automated driving control unit (ADCU) or a Surround View electronic control unit (ECU), allowing the OEMs to easily integrate it into their vehicles.