As Traffic management vehicle specialists, Acklea has partnered with automatic emergency braking experts Moshon Data to become the sole distributor of the Moshon RadViz in the UK.
Crash prevention device RadViz is a radar reflector that helps to make non-standard vehicles, such as traffic management units, more visible to Automatic Emergency Braking Systems (AEBS). These systems became compulsory on most HGVs from November 2015 and are rapidly becoming standardised on other vehicles to meet the NCAP 5-star safety rating.
Radar-based AEBS are developed to recognise standardised vehicle formats. However, they often fail to recognise adapted or unusual vehicle silhouettes, common in traffic management.
The RadViz reflector helps prevent AEBS-equipped vehicles from hitting highway maintenance units, thereby improving safety for drivers and road workers whilst reducing accident downtime and costs for traffic management organisations.
Acklea will offer RadViz to all customers, as well as adapting the technology to recognise trucks with deployed crash cushions from a number of manufacturers. Fitting two RadViz reflectors, in specific locations, significantly increases the radar signature of these vehicles and therefore drastically reduces the probability of impact by an AEBS-equipped vehicle.
Moshon Data worked closely with the Dutch Highways Agency to investigate why HGVs were colliding with highway maintenance vehicles working on roads, even after AEBS were made compulsory in 2015. The research established that unusually shaped vehicles were not detected by AEBS. However, fitting small RadViz radar reflectors to these vehicles significantly improves the AEBS radar sensor’s detection capability, resulting in fewer collisions.
The innovative aspect of this technology first derived from its current use of defining dummy targets by making the targets appear real to a vehicle, therefore making them visible to radar systems. That is why all automotive manufacturers worldwide use a similar radar reflector to test their AEBS.
Building upon this, Moshon Data modified the existing principle of the reflector that is used in dummy targets and developed a standalone reflector that can be affixed to the back of a vehicle. This initiative allows all vehicles fitted with radar AEBS to improve vehicle detection of unusual objects, thus making it a familiar object to AEBS.
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