[bbv]

I am planning to go for XUV 700 AX7L and have few questions for the people who have been using ADAS often and in different conditions.

1) How does ACC copes with the speed breakers? Does the vehicle slow down detecting these bumps or the driver has to take over?
(Although not many speed-breakers are there on highways, nevertheless there still are, at least in southern states)

2) I read earlier about traffic Jam assist, what is this? The understanding I got till now was that ACC can't be activated until a certain speed is reached (e.g. 60 kmph), but in bumper-to-bumper traffic, this is obviously unachievable.

3) With Lane Keep assist, how does the car reacts on bends or turns? Does it slow down sufficiently or a driver's interaction is needed? In this context, is ACC needed to be switched ON for LKA to be functional?

[saket77]

Originally Posted by bbv

1) How does ACC copes with the speed breakers? Does the vehicle slow down detecting these bumps or the driver has to take over?
(Although not many speed-breakers are there on highways, nevertheless there still are, at least in southern states)

2) I read earlier about traffic Jam assist, what is this? The understanding I got till now was that ACC can't be activated until a certain speed is reached (e.g. 60 kmph), but in bumper-to-bumper traffic, this is obviously unachievable.

3) With Lane Keep assist, how does the car reacts on bends or turns? Does it slow down sufficiently or a driver's interaction is needed? In this context, is ACC needed to be switched ON for LKA to be functional?

1. ADAS detects only pedestrians, bicyclists & vehicles. So, speed breakers, trees, pillars etc aren't responded to; by ADAS.

2. No idea. Mahindra owners may chip in please.

3. Car will not slow down with lane keep assist. The car will turn on the curve with slight automatic steering torque. The driver must keep their hands on steering. Do not assume this to be a substitute to driver's input. It is just to reduce the effort. The driver must be fully alert.

Trust this helps 66%

[Beemer1077]

The ADAS is extremely ineffective on the roads in India, with a few exceptions -

1. Many of the roads do not have proper lane markings. This means that the lane departure warnings will not work effectively.

2. The ADAS does not take into consideration sudden entry of bikers, stray animals like cattle or dogs.

3. The ADAS is only effective on expressways and those highways where there is a maximum and minimum(if present) speed limit.

[bbv]

Originally Posted by saket77

1. ADAS detects only pedestrians, bicyclists & vehicles. So, speed breakers, trees, pillars etc aren't responded to; by ADAS.

2. No idea. Mahindra owners may chip in please.

3. Car will not slow down with lane keep assist. The car will turn on the curve with slight automatic steering torque. The driver must keep their hands on steering. Do not assume this to be a substitute to driver's input. It is just to reduce the effort. The driver must be fully alert.

Trust this helps 66%

Thanks for your response, yes it certainly helps .

So, as I understand, there needs to be a manual intervention in the following cases:
- During ACC, whenever there is an object/situation not detected by ADAS viz. animals, speed breakers.
- With LKA, whenever there is not a straight stretch of road. I wonder, how would it react, if it would still steer to keep the vehicle in lane, irrespective of whether driver slows down or not, because this could lead to roll-over? (it is another thing that it will anyways be quite dangerous even with LKA, if driver doesn't act)

Let me clarify that these questions/doubts are not to encourage sleep-driving, but just to understand the scope of ADAS better.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by bbv

Thanks for your response, yes it certainly helps :.
- With LKA, whenever there is not a straight stretch of road. I wonder, how would it react, if it would still steer to keep the vehicle in lane, irrespective of whether driver slows down or not, because this could lead to roll-over? (it is another thing that it will anyways be quite dangerous even with LKA, if driver doesn't act).

Lane keeping assist in general is designed to keep the vehicle within lane center with a slight possible deviation due to various factors. In straight roads, the system will work perfectly. In curvy roads, the system can work perfectly but there are external factors that will hinder its performance. As the curvature increases, the steering rack force needed to maintain this curvature increases. The LKA being an L2 Assist feature has limitations in terms of how much rack force it can apply to keep the vehicle centered. If this reaches the limit, the system cannot apply more force and will hold at the limit.

Why this limit? The rack force limit is meant to enable any driver to override any unwanted intervention from the system and still be able to counter the system applied force. Imagine the LKA detects fake lanes and applies a lot of rack force, the driver won’t be able to overcome it and will lead to disastrous consequences.

Rack force limit can be reached due to different reasons - One the curve being too sharp and sudden, or the vehicle already drifting away to one side due to driver action or non action or the vehicle being too fast in a corner. In these cases, most LKA systems give up or dont react. Thats the reason in most cars with LKA, it takes getting used to its behaviour and initially might feel annoying. But once we get a sense of the limits of the system, it will get predictable. Those who want to understand this system better can try keeping a light grip on the steering and letting the system do its bit and be ready to intervene if needed.

[vineet@bulbule]

Recent social media trends have showcased a disturbing phenomenon - drivers recklessly relying on Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) on highways, compromising safety and risking lives. Videos depict drivers engaging in distracting activities like eating ice cream, chatting, and even taking their hands off the wheel, trusting ADAS to handle the driving. This irresponsible behavior grossly misuses technology designed to assist, not replace, human drivers.

Relying solely on untested and imperfect ADAS can lead to catastrophic consequences, including:

- Accidents caused by system failures or limitations
- Complacency and decreased driver attention
- Inadequate response to unexpected situations
- Overreliance on technology, eroding essential driving skills
- Increased risk of fatalities and injuries

ADAS is meant to augment, not replace, human driving. It's crucial to understand the limitations and potential flaws of these systems, using them judiciously and remaining attentive and engaged while driving. Let's promote responsible driving practices and avoid perpetuating a culture of technological overreliance.

[RS01]

While ADAS features are very useful and can provide confidence to any driver in a disciplined traffic environment and well demarcated roads, I have long been wondering whether it is the right time in the Indian ecosystem for the technology.

I have driven in many European countries with and without ADAS features and can certainly vouch for ADASs’ usefulness in assisting the driver in various ways. For example, the comfort of having Adaptive Cruise Control in a high speed laned highway is a boon. It lets you drive for hours without fatigue. The vehicle reads all the signages and keeps adjusting to the guidance and signals, or at least prompting if not adjusting on its own.

However, while India has one of the longest road networks in the world, the roads / signages / demarcations / traffic etc. are far from standardized. We’ve been building great expressways recently and have come a long way from the 20th century conditions, but there is still a lot to be desired in terms of standardization of roads - be it rural, urban or the highways.

Driver behavior is another big concern with all sorts of people driving all sorts of vehicles on all sorts of roads. The mix of vehicles do have some equipped with high end ADAS features while the others still rely on human intellect and localized driving rules. The risk of getting rear-ended by a non ADAS car is very real.

While I do know of some great startups trying to adapt and localize ADAS to Indian peculiarities, it will still a while away for commercial usage.


Hence the question, Is India ready for ADAS?

And other follow up questions like:

- Should India have specific guidelines on ADAS installations in vehicles to OEMs
- Rules on ADAS usage in Indian conditions
- Should localization of the algorithms be mandated along with extensive testing


Attaching a sample of a few photographs of typical Indian road signages. I'm sure we all seen such misplaced ones and some of us even have a repository of them.

- Hidden Signboards



- Perpendicular markings on the roads


- Signs leading nowhere




Request to Mods: Please route the thread appropriately. While I could find a few threads on opinions on whether people use ADAS or not, I could not find a proper India-centric ADAS readiness thread.

[NomadSK]

I recently bought a ADAS L-1 car for my mom and was teaching her all the controls on the road while driving myself, because she will be solely driving it in my absence. Took her for a longish drive in the city.

I told her, I will deactivate all safety features related to ADAS, she was kinda adamant and wanted them to remain active. So there were all kind of beeps coming while driving, which was kind of OK to her, because she hardly monitors the instrument cluster. And was like we have paid so much for all these features, so might as well use them.

Explained her about cruise control, lane driving, AEB and thought of giving her the real demo for AEB, after seeing that there is no vehicle in the IRVM. The car in front was crawling and I was coming on it’s back at around 20kmph, as soon as I was around a metre away from the car in front, the brakes got slammed and the car came to an abrupt halt, with a huge frontal jerk. The next statement I hear, please deactivate all these ADAS settings.

Moral of the story - For common Joe it’s a useless feature in Indian condition specially in cities, maybe helpful on highways, which she never takes on.

Originally Posted by audioholic

Why this limit? The rack force limit is meant to enable any driver to override any unwanted intervention from the system and still be able to counter the system applied force. Imagine the LKA detects fake lanes and applies a lot of rack force, the driver won’t be able to overcome it and will lead to disastrous consequences.

I remember driving on autobahn with LKA activated, at many locations there were diversions for road repairs, so there were existing lane markings on the road which would go straight as well as the diversion road markings, which would have a curve. Not even once the car went straight and automatically moved towards the diversion.

And till now, I’m not able to comprehend the design principle of how the LKA monitors the lanes, specially when there are many.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by bbv

...

3) With Lane Keep assist, how does the car reacts on bends or turns? Does it slow down sufficiently or a driver's interaction is needed? In this context, is ACC needed to be switched ON for LKA to be functional?

Lane Keep Assist has its limitations. People with XUV700s can comment on its particular characteristics, but here's an extract on how the MG Astor's L2 ADAS handles lane assist features (linked post below also has demo videos):

Reference: MG Astor Review

Lane Assist System (LAS)

Offered in multiple modes (described below); all modes have two pre-requisites:
1. Lanes must be clearly marked (not always the case in India) and visible (system can recognize the most commonly used lane marking colors - white, yellow, orange, blue, etc.)
2. Only works at speeds of 60 km/h and above

Lane Departure Warning (LDW): Will alert the driver (chime + flashing red lane marker in the cluster) if the car is straying from its lane. No autonomous corrective intervention.

Lane Departure Protection (LDP): Will alert the driver if the car is straying from the lane due to sudden steering inputs (say the driver dozes off and accidentally jerks the steering in one direction). Will induce minor steering corrections to offset the inputs.

Lane Keep Assist (LKA): Will alert the driver if the car is straying from the lane. Will induce steering corrections. Will request manual override if a curve is too sharp and the lane cannot be kept with minor autonomous steering corrections. When LKA is engaged at 60 km/h, the lane guidelines in the cluster turn blue to confirm the engagement.

Safety Warning / Disclaimer: LAS is only capable of handling curves beyond a certain radius of curvature (MG says RoC larger than 250 meters), and sharper curves lead to the system alerting the driver to take manual control before disengaging LAS. Additionally, if LKA detects no hands on the wheel for 20 seconds, it disengages with a 'quit' alert and switches the steering back to full manual control.

[MyLife_MyCar]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

The car in front was crawling and I was coming on it’s back at around 20kmph, as soon as I was around a metre away from the car in front, the brakes got slammed and the car came to an abrupt halt, with a huge frontal jerk.

If the car ahead is crawling, that would be a speed of ~8kmph. 10-11kmph at max.
Approaching it at a speed of 20kmph (relatively double), with distance being 1m, would certainly result in ADAS taking over.

I’m not saying that your driving was wrong, I’m just pointing that ADAS did what it’s supposed to do.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by MyLife_MyCar

I’m just pointing that ADAS did what it’s supposed to do.

Plus ADAS gives you sharp beep sound before taking over. At least its the way, it behave in my Hycross. Regarding lane keep assist, if i can see the lane markings (regardless of time), ADAS will also be.

Many other ADAS features which are less talked about but to me, they are of immense use in daily life- rear cross traffic alert, blind spot monitoring.

[TorqueAddict007]

ADAS is of no use in our cities at all where the sheer chaoticity and randomness of our traffic, with two wheelers that materialize out of nowhere, autos that somehow follow both LHT and RHT and cabs who will tailgate or crawl for no reason make it impossible for any ADAS to be able to take the reigns within the city. So I don't think that's going to ever change here, at least not for a long, long time.

However, I feel the situation in highways is quite different. With us owning an Innova HyCross ZX(O) and having driven it for 7000 kms, almost entirely in just highway journeys, I can say that at least 40 percent of those kms have been munched on ADAS. It's not possible to enable ADAS in highways with bidirectional traffic, but I've found that as long as it's a relatively peaceful 4 lane road, ADAS is pretty good. Of course, I never really just switch it on and let go, and even though adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist are pretty good, I am still always ready to take control of the car, I take back full control when there's a pair of trucks or buses hogging both lanes. I also find the acceleration of the ACC to be far too harsh so I usually switch lanes before I reach a slower moving vehicle to avoid slowing down too much and then lurching forward with aggressive acceleration. Sometimes I also press the A pedal while ACC is on to ensure that it doesn't brake too conservatively. It's especially useful in 6 or more lane highways. Of course it's not as much of an assist as it would be in European countries but it's also a feature with a lot of usefulness. Plus, now that more and more vehicles are coming with it, it should make people better drivers hopefully, and I can attest that it has definitely made me a smoother, more cautious driver.

Even if I've covered only 40 percent of my distance using it, it still massively reduces the strain of driving. I am someone who needs a few tea breaks while driving long distances, maybe because I'm still in the process of building endurance and experience with highway drives but I also get headaches if I drive too much time without taking small tea breaks. With other cars, I used to find it a little strenuous and needed a break once in 2 hours, but with our HyCross, I can go 3, 3.5 hours without any issues. Of course, the unmatched comfort of the HyCross definitely plays a big role in that too, but I'd also attribute quite a bit of credit to ADAS for making my journeys a lot less strenuous. There was also this one time, before the Mysore Bengaluru Highway had the 100 kmph speed limit enforced, when we had to travel back on a Tuesday morning from Mysore, and I set the ACC to 115 kmph at the Mysore toll and covered the entire toll to toll journey on ADAS alone, at 115 kmph, covering the distance in just 58 minutes, owing to nearly empty roads. So it can take over completely too, only thing is roads need to be completely empty for that to happen

[MyLife_MyCar]

Originally Posted by UD17

Plus ADAS gives you sharp beep sound before taking over.

Yes, it does that. I think it would be a big safety issue if ADAS takes over without any audio and visual warnings!

Many other ADAS features which are less talked about but to me, they are of immense use in daily life- rear cross traffic alert, blind spot monitoring.

That’s true. I have seen my people feel that rear cross traffic is very intrusive, but in reality, it picks up approaching vehicle and pedestrian even before they are visible to the driver in rear camera or mirror and shows a warning.

Originally Posted by TorqueAddict007

even though adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist are pretty good, I am still always ready to take control of the car, I take back full control when there's a pair of trucks or buses hogging both lanes.

Yes, that’s how one should drive with ADAS. Always on alert and ready to take over the controls depending on the situation. ADAS is just to make you feel less tired by helping with acceleration, braking and lane follow.

I also find the acceleration of the ACC to be far too harsh so I usually switch lanes before I reach a slower moving vehicle to avoid slowing down too much and then lurching forward with aggressive acceleration.

This is how cruise control works in all the cars. I am not sure why, but it seems that it is more efficient for the engine and the fuel economy - quickly achieve the cruise speed and hold it constant. Maybe experts can clarify this.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by MyLife_MyCar

I’m not saying that your driving was wrong, I’m just pointing that ADAS did what it’s supposed to do.

Explained her about cruise control, lane driving, AEB and thought of giving her the real demo for AEB, after seeing that there is no vehicle in the IRVM.

Oh, I guess you missed the point. It was a demo to make her realise how ADAS behaves in normal Indian driving scenarios or bumper to bumper traffic and how she would be taken aback when the car would abruptly brake in such situations.

Definitely if the initial demo wasn’t given she would have been startled that what and why this happened, if at all AEB kicks in, she would have called the mechanic then and there.

Originally Posted by TorqueAddict007

ADAS is of no use in our cities at all where the sheer chaoticity and randomness of our traffic, with two wheelers that materialize out of nowhere, autos that somehow follow both LHT and RHT and cabs who will tailgate or crawl for no reason make it impossible for any ADAS to be able to take the reigns within the city. So I don't think that's going to ever change here, at least not for a long, long time.

Agreed, ADAS works on inbuilt specific logics. If any of those logics are missing, the car would behave erratically. Driving with ADAS in Indian road conditions will stress you more than without, with all the blaring beeping warning signs going off at every micro second, which human brain will start to ignore after sometime, specially when it’s constant in cities, then what’s the use. I remember using ADAS on autobahn for 300 odd Kms without any human intervention. No beeping or warning. So if one kicks in out of the blue, I would be more than prepared to take some action. Yes, then it would be stress free. Plus I didn’t see ADAS (AEB) reacting to the 2 wheeler (on Sonet) which are major hazards on our roads. Can someone confirm this ?

Like the AEB warning doesn’t go off when I was coming at the back of 2-wheeler, but if it’s a car the AEB was ready to be activated with sharp beeping.

[trakesht]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

E The car in front was crawling and I was coming on it’s back at around 20kmph, as soon as I was around a metre away from the car in front, the brakes got slammed and the car came to an abrupt halt, with a huge frontal jerk.

I hate to be that guy, but i really hope that you are misremembering your numbers. If you were at 20kph and the car ahead was doing 10kph, you would've made contact in <0.5s . After accounting for human response delays and braking time, this was the correct behavior

Most of us, me included have been driving badly/ incorrectly by learning to drive in Indian roads by not maintaining too high a speed differential and or too low a distance. It took me a while to learn this, but ADAS definitely made me a better driver