ZHCU831 November 2021 AWR2944
Autonomous control of a vehicle provides quality-of-life and safety benefits in addition to making the relatively mundane act of driving safer and less difficult. The quality-of-life features include the ability of a vehicle to park itself or to determine whether a lane change is possible and provide features like automatic cruise control—where a vehicle maintains a constant distance with respect to the car ahead of it, essentially tracking the velocity of the car in front of it. Autonomous breaking and collision avoidance are safety features that prevent accidents caused by driver inattention. These features work by observing the area around (front, rear, and adjacent) a car and alerting the autonomous driving subsystems if obstacles are observed that are likely to hit the car. Implementing these technologies require a variety of sensors to detect obstacles in the environment and track their velocities and positions over time.