If you don't like adaptive cruise control systems and their occasionally jerky operating techniques, but you're also worried that machines will one day take over the world, Honda's latest development is bound to leave you feeling conflicted. It's called Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control (i-ACC) and it's coming to top-spec European CR-V models later this year.
Honda's i-ACC is capable of foreseeing and automatically reacting to other vehicles moving into its lane, thanks to the use of a camera and radar. It can sense the position of other vehicles on the road, applying an algorithm to their driving patterns to determine if the other car is likely to move into the Honda's lane. It therefore differs from current ACC systems, which need to 'see' the whole rear end of a car in front before they slow down, sometimes leading to really quite severe braking episodes that make the driver within look like they can't read the road ahead.
Honda says i-ACC is commensurately quicker to react to other road users and is therefore smoother in applying the brakes to bring the CR-V down to the relevant speed of the other vehicle; indeed, i-ACC is claimed to be able to compute the likelihood of someone drifting into your lane up to five seconds before the act actually occurs.
i-ACC can also determine left-hand drive and right-hand drive roads, 'detecting which neighbouring vehicle is the most critical to be aware of at any given moment'. It's a very clever system, which should once again move cruise control closer to the smoothness of a competent human driver. Although jointly developed between Honda Europe and Honda Japan, i-ACC has been specifically designed for European roads.
Anything else?
Honda calls i-ACC a 'predictive safety' system, going a step beyond passive and active safety technology.