Source: Continental
Frankfurt am Main, Germany/Las Vegas — Technology company Continental is closing a gap in the industry’s automotive sensor portfolio through developing the new Contact Sensor System (CoSSy). This system detects low-speed contact between a vehicle and a person or an object.
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES, January 7-10, 2020) in Las Vegas, Continental will demonstrate how CoSSy can help to make future use cases like automated parking even safer.
Based on the sound signal picked up by CoSSy, a low-speed impact is detected so that the car can be brought to an immediate emergency stop. The new system provides a redundant signal path required by functional safety. It detects objects which may be located outside the short-range detection cone of other sensor types.
The scalable CoSSy solution will typically include two to twelve sensors installed at relevant locations on the vehicle. Once installed, the CoSSy sensor signals can cover many more use-cases, such as the detection of vandalism (scratching) or low-speed parking incidents, because these types of touch are each characterized by a particular sound signature.
Other supported functions are, e.g., road condition observation, an identification of the driver via voice recognition, or detecting approaching emergency vehicles. Even communication with the vehicle via touch could be enabled by CoSSy: A tap at the door by an authenticated driver would suffice to activate an automated door opening.
“Structure-born and airborne sound are signals which provide valuable information about the
immediate vehicle surrounding. CoSSy is specially developed to pick up the sound patterns of a
number of types of contact. Structure-borne sound, for instance, warns when hitting an obstacle at the low speed level of automated parking,” said Laurent Fabre, head of the Passive Safety &
Sensorics business unit within Continental. “However, once CoSSy is on board, its detection
principle can be used to add many more functions thus adding to the safety and comfort of a ride.”
