ACC in consideration of visibility with sensor fusion technology under the concept of TACS

ACC (adaptive cruise control) system maintains the distance to preceding vehicle instead of drivers. However, drivers may feel uncomfortable, especially under bad visibility conditions, because, for example, a driver tends to keep a longer distance when a large preceding truck blocks its frontal view, whereas current ACC tries to keep the same distance despite of such condition. This paper proposes a novel Visibility-ACC (V-ACC) system, which enhances current ACC system with considering such driver behavior under the concept of TACS (Three-layer Architecture for Comfort and Safety). A driver model is built from driver behavior database. A new distance control algorithm for the V-ACC system is constructed based on the driver model and a newly developed sensor fusion system. Vehicle test was performed to evaluate its advantage.