The Transportation Department projects the new rule could save 360 lives a year and prevent 24,000 injuries.
The Biden administration plans to require that all new cars and trucks come with pedestrian-collision avoidance systems that include automatic emergency braking technology by the end of the decade.
In an interview, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the requirement is designed to reduce pedestrian deaths, which have been on the rise in the post-Covid 19 era.
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The new standards will require all cars to avoid contact at up to 62 mph and mandate that they must be able to detect pedestrians in the dark. They will also require braking at up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected.
The Transportation Department projects the rule could save 360 lives a year and prevent 24,000 injuries.
Cameras are (generally) passive systems. They do not send out light and analyze the returns. They just absorb light and reconstruct a scene.
Radar systems are active. They send out pulses or continuous waves of EM energy at different frequencies than light (much lower) and analyze the returns. They do not need existing light to do their jobs because they’re sending out and receiving their own specific emissions. Because they run at lower frequencies than light, they are able to “see” through certain weather phenomena like fog and are relatively unfazed by darkness.
That all being said, you can measure things passively and actively. Radar is pretty damn good at measuring distances, as that’s the entire reason behind its invention. I’d say its much more reliable and accurate compared to optical systems.