My vehicle does not have radar cruise control that adapts speed based on distance to vehicle ahead but has electronic cruise with braking, meaning I can use the cruise switch to brake fairly fast. Rather than installing all the hardware changes for radar cruise, I want to know if using Arduino "robotic thumb" to control the cruise control lever based on the calculated distance and speed from OpenPilot is feasible. If OpenPilot can accurately determine the speed I should drive to keep a safe distance in real time, having Arduino adjust the lever instead of sending FlexRay commands to the car directly would mean i still have total control to cancel the cruise if something goes wrong.
My car cruise speed can be manually activated at 6 mph so if traffic ahead slows from 35 mph to 0 mph, Arduino would lower the cruise speed to 6 mph at a safe distance then cancel out at near idle speed where i would press the Auto Hold brake. When traffic moves I go to 6 mph and resume the cruise and increase the speed the same method until i reach the previous set speed.
The Arduino does not directly handle the gas and brake, so I can disable the feature at any time by braking (if the lever adjust the speed too high) or accelerating (if too low) or cancel/resume buttons. To test this theory, im wondering what commercial product can accurately calculate the distance and speed of the car in front and output to a small display in my car so i can verify it works.
Con:
A giant mechnical switch is sticking out on the steering wheel, not sure if it will interfere with airbag deployment
Just drop the idea. No way any amateur Arduino stuff would be approved for real traffic. No country would allow that.
I would certainly not want to meet You on the road, or have You driving behind me.
I actually built a single board computer based on a 4 MHz Z80 that replaced the faulty speed indicator for some time, somewhere 1990. Illegal to use of course....
At the inspection, in low speed, the original speed indicator did show some life... Getting home, parked the car in the garage, the indicator was pointing at 60 kmph....
Later I found out that the repair costs were not as bad as the SAAB mechanics had said and I sent the original indicator for repair.
I once drove into Poland, with my black box on the dashboard. "Radar?" the border officer asked. Njet.... RPM, kmph were shown to him....
Those were the days....
I dropped the idea of actually controlling, but I'm still for the idea of a radar showing me the real time distance between my vehicle. And using that distance, somehow calculate the speed differential of the object in front to how fast im going and display that as well.
QUESTION What would be feasible tool and display in this case?
Nothing will be connected to the car in any way. Only a distance sensor mounted on the front but it only connects to a display that would show only 1. Object detected icon or 2. Speed difference of object to my speed