Cruise Control System

Introduction

                                                        

Cruise control is a system used in automobiles to control the speed of the vehicle.It actually takes over the throttle of the vehicle. It was used for the first time in the year 1900. It was used to maintain the speed of the car whether it went uphill or downhill. It is quite helpful for all-day long drives as it helps you to keep your feet free on long, empty highways. Not only cars but cruiser /touring bikes also offer cruise control.Now-a-days more advanced cruise control systems called as adaptive cruise control systems are used in some expensive vehicles. The adaptive cruise control system can be of:

• Automatic Braking Type: the automatic braking type use either a single or combination of sensors (radar, lidar, and camera) to allow the vehicle to keep pace with the car it is following, slow when closing in on the vehicle in front and accelerating again to the preset speed when traffic allows.
• Dynamic Set Speed Type: The dynamic set speed uses the GPS position of speed limit signs, from a database. Some are modifiable by the driver.
• Dynamic radar cruise control: uses a camera and millimeter-wave radar to maintain a set point distance from vehicles in front of the car; the system will automatically slow down or speed up based on the vehicles in front.

How does it work?

Cruise control  engages the throttle valve by a cable connected to an actuator, rather than by pressing a pedal. The throttle valve controls the power and speed of the engine by limiting how much air it takes in (since it’s an internal combustion engine).

The driver can set the cruise control with the cruise switches, which usually consist of ON, OFF, RESUME/Accelerate, SET/Decelerate and CANCEL. These are commonly located on the steering wheel or on the windshield wiper or turn signal stalk. The RES/ACCEL knob sets the speed of the car. One tap will accelerate it by 1 kmph, two by 2 kmph and so on.You can also keep it pressed to continuously increase the speed. The same is with SET/Decelerate Tapping the knob in the opposite direction will decelerate the vehicle. As a safety feature, the cruise control system will disengage as soon as you hit the brake pedal.

As you can see in the video, the cruise control can be enabled after 40kmph and as soon as the brake pedal is pressed/tapped, the cruise control gets cancelled.

Cruise controlled cars are also said to have 1st level of Automation. However, with increase in traffic over highways, the use of cruise control somewhere gets limited. In order to tackle this, the demand of adaptive cruise control system has increased and hopefully, in near future, more and more cars/bikes will be equipped with it.

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