Cadillac‘s 2013 XTS will get new safety features starting this fall that make it GM’s most technically advanced production car to date.
Known as sensor fusion, GM’s latest safety system uses a complex mix of tools to alert drivers of potential hazards. Essentially, it combines GM’s list of safety technologies and as the name would suggest, fuses them to provide a greater level of information to the driver than was available on past GM vehicles.
“We believe sensor fusion will enable future active safety systems to handle a greater number of inputs to provide 360 degrees of crash risk detection and enhanced driver assist features,” said Bakhtiar Litkouhi, GM Research and Development lab group manager for perception and vehicle control systems.
While the alerts XTS drivers will enjoy aren’t new, the way GM is integrating them into one system is.
“A system that combines the strengths of multiple sensing technologies and expertly manages those inputs can provide advisory, warning, and control interventions to help drivers avoid collisions and save lives,” Litkouhi said.
Looking into the future, GM says sensor fusion is a step toward autonomous driving, something we’ve already seen
Volvo and
BMW working on.
Beyond that, the company is using their sensor technology to help develop other systems like LIDAR, a light detecting and ranging technology that uses laser pulses to measure an upcoming vehicle’s proximity to the driver.
