Author: Tuantuan

More and more new players in the automotive industry are constantly promoting their intelligent driving systems. “Hardware meets L4+, software will be opened later” has become the current trend. However, with the continuous development of intelligent vehicles, “accidents” in assisted driving have also occurred frequently in recent years.

Therefore, compared to the new players in the industry who seem to have taken a more extreme route, traditional automakers seem to be working harder on “how to become safer and easier to use”.

Cadillac has been steadily moving forward on this path.

As early as 2017, the Super Cruise system was first launched in North America. By 2018, it was mounted on the Cadillac CT6, a high-end model that was officially launched in the Chinese market for the first time.

Today, four years later, we welcome the new generation of Super Cruise, which is first mounted on the Cadillac CT5 Platinum Super Cruise version that I test drove a month ago.

As a luxurious B-class sedan from an American sports car maker, the addition of the new Super Cruise system makes the CT5’s already powerful performance even more comprehensive. It not only satisfies the driving passion but also takes into account daily commuting, even providing a more relaxed experience for long-distance travel.

As for the experience of the new system, check out this video:

Compared to the previous generation, the new Super Cruise has more sensitive and comprehensive perceptual hardware, with stronger driver monitoring system performance, and is supported by centimeter-level high-precision maps and lane-level high-precision GPS positioning system. It achieves functions such as command lane change assistance and automatic lane change assistance.# Let’s delve into the new generation Super Cruise advanced driving assistance system on the Cadillac CT5, exploring its safety and reliability

Perception and localization lay the foundation for safety

To enable effective environmental perception, the Cadillac CT5 Platinum Super Cruise edition is equipped with:

• 1 frontal camera, used for identifying lane lines and detecting objects such as vehicles and pedestrians;
• 1 long-distance radar and 5 short-distance radars for detecting the relative position and movement status of objects in front of the vehicle;
• 4 surround-view cameras for enhancing the driver’s visibility in low-speed or parking situations;
• 12 ultrasonic radars for detecting surrounding obstacles in low-speed or parking situations.

With the installation of 23 sensors, the new generation Super Cruise system achieves a full-angle coverage of environmental perception in front of, behind, and around the vehicle, ensuring safety during driving and lane-changing.

Furthermore, the Super Cruise system enables a “hands-off” driving experience on highways and expressways with high-precision maps, high accuracy lane-level GPS positioning, and driver monitoring to ensure safety.

The high-precision centimeter-level map plays a crucial role in the system, and for its Chinese market landing, General Motors selected Amap as its partner to provide the high-precision map. It is interesting to note that Super Cruise is the first commercial order project for high-precision vehicle maps in China.

Letting go means confidence

The Super Cruise system offers a worry-free driving experience, allowing the driver to take their hands off the steering wheel on highways and expressways with its advanced driving assistance features.The premise for Super Cruise, the hands-free assistive driving system, to free the driver’s hands is that the driver always observe the road ahead and maintain concentration. Therefore, when Super Cruise is enabled, the system will monitor the driver’s gaze constantly.

In the new generation of Super Cruise, the driver monitoring system has also upgraded with eye tracking function.

Through the high-performance infrared camera equipped in the car with infrared lights, the system can continuously track the driver’s head position and gaze direction even under low-light conditions at night, or even when the driver is wearing sunglasses, to ensure that the driver always focuses on driving.

At the same time, Super Cruise has also put a lot of effort into how to gain the trust of users. A distinctive feature is the steering wheel.

You may think, what’s so special about the steering wheel? Which car doesn’t have a steering wheel?

The CT5 Platinum Super Cruise edition has a light strip on the steering wheel, which has become the primary way for Super Cruise and the driver to communicate, for example:

When the system is enabled, the steering wheel light strip will display green, indicating that Super Cruise can be used normally.

If the driver does not look ahead for a long time, the steering wheel light strip will flash from green to red, alerting the driver to maintain concentration.

During the process of the driver taking over the steering wheel, the light strip will turn blue, and when the driver is no longer controlling the direction, it will return to green.In addition to the steering wheel light strip reminder, the system also provides warnings to the driver through sound prompts, seat vibration prompts, and buzzers, allowing the driver to always be aware of the system’s working status, thus giving the user a strong sense of trust.

The new generation of the Super Cruise advanced driving assistance system, which comes with this DMS high-performance driver monitoring system, provides a smarter, safer, and more reliable intelligent driving experience.

Indispensable Localization Verification

The new generation of Super Cruise advanced driving assistance system entering the Chinese market requires localization verification, testing, and evaluation for the country’s roads and typical driving habits, thus proving to be an indispensable road to becoming a reliable advanced driving assistance system.

Different countries have different traffic regulations, road conditions, and driving environments. Some phenomena often occur on Chinese roads, such as lane change without signaling, forcing lane change, slow lane change, speed limit by lane, and inconsistent road signs. Most foreigners are uncomfortable driving on Chinese roads for the first time. In order to achieve better localization, the new generation of Super Cruise advanced driving assistance system has been optimized for Chinese driving scenes and habits.

For example, in the complex situation of speed limit by lane, in addition to the centimeter-level high-precision map playing a role, Super Cruise has also optimized and adjusted the software algorithm to ensure that the system runs in compliance with traffic regulations. For complex road conditions such as heavy traffic flow and frequent entrances and exits, it is also necessary to check in advance and adjust the system and scene adaptively.

Another example is the common “slow lane change” situation on actual road scenes. By adjusting the back-end software, the radar can detect the lane-changing vehicle earlier, and the signal of slow lane change is incorporated, allowing the system to make judgments in a timely manner and take corresponding measures as soon as possible to ensure driving safety.

Currently, high-precision maps cover more than 320,000 kilometers in China, and almost all expressways and urban expressways (closed roads) can be used. This makes it very easy and effortless for long-distance travel and commuting during the morning and evening rush hours in cities. In the future, through OTA functions, road condition information can be constantly updated, and more roads and usage scenarios can be expanded.Not only that, the driver monitoring system of the new generation Super Cruise ADAS system has been localized. A series of verification work was carried out in China, inviting drivers of different ages, different heights/ body proportions, and genders to make it more suitable and reassuring for Chinese users.

Finally

Therefore, I believe that a sufficiently safe ADAS system should:

• Have strong environmental perception capabilities;

• Have sufficiently strong hardware and software collaborative capabilities;

• Customize according to the road conditions in different countries;

• Provide users with sufficient sense of security and trust.

Regarding the frequent ADAS accidents in the past two years, many consumers have expressed doubt about the ADAS system. However, I believe that users’ impression of the ADAS system should be “safe and worry-free”, not the current “panic and anxiety”.

After all, since the birth of the automobile, the word “safety” should be deeply engraved on every automobile brand like a stamp. Before new technology is introduced to users, it should undergo “safety” verification. Especially for technology related to driving safety such as ADAS systems, it should be verified, tested, and evaluated in every possible way.

Through the new generation Super Cruise ADAS system, we can see that Cadillac has designated safety, reliability, and stability as its top priority. On this basis, it can bring more innovative and flexible functions and experiences to consumers.

Therefore, for ADAS, making travel “safer” is indeed a very important promise.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.