When it comes to safety on the road, any compromise made might just end up with the loss of a life – and Continental intends to fully avoid this from happening with the installation of a stereo camera in forward looking braking systems as part of their comprehensive ContiGuard safety system. This is meant to prevent – or at the very least, reduce the seriousness of the frequent accidents that more or less involve pedestrians or with vehicles at intersections. After all, statistics do show that accidents like these tend to make up nearly 50% of traffic accidents in Germany which ends up with someone suffering from major personal injury.
As the stereo camera boasts of a couple of ‘eyes’, it is capable of analyzing the difference in images within on camera shot so that it can detect all sorts of obstacles, ranging from loads that have fallen onto the road to pedestrians and even animals – simply be determining their size and the distance to them. Needless to say, a mono camera is unable to achieve all of that, so stereo cameras are used to obtain the spatial position (3-D) of any object which it detects.
Not only that, six-dimensional (6-D) identification more or less makes it absolutely clear as to whether an object is moving and in which direction. When you merge that with object classification that are based on common characteristics, this is one smart stereo camera that might save more than just a single life if implemented. Passive and active safety systems still does not mean that you, as a driver, can start to relax and be complacent.
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