Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems has announced a new generation of both its Wingman Fusion safety system and its BlindSpotter technology.
According to Bendix, the upgrades to Wingman Fusion consist of software upgrades, not a hardware change, so fleets using the current generation of Wingman Fusion will be able to upgrade some of the features to the next generation. The upgraded system is available now and will be offered by several major truck OEMs—Peterbilt, Kenworth, Volvo, Mack and International, specifically—in 2019.
Features of the newly upgraded Wingman Fusion include the following:
- With the new multi-lane automatic emergency braking feature, if Fusion is applying the brakes due to a vehicle in the lane ahead and the truck driver switches to an adjacent lane, the system will continue applying the brakes if it detects another car ahead in the new lane—helping the driver avoid both the first and potentially second situation, something that can occur when multiple lanes of traffic are blocked on a highway, the company noted.
- Fusion’s new highway departure braking capability builds on the system’s existing lane departure warning technology to alert the driver and, if necessary, apply the brakes to slow and further alert the driver if the system determines the vehicle has left the road.
- Adaptive Cruise Braking (ACB) Stop & Driver Go is a low-speed approach to adaptive cruise control for traffic situations. It allows the driver to resume cruise control after braking to a stop without the need to push the resume switch.
- The ACB Auto-Resume functionality reengages cruise control after Fusion brakes the vehicle above a certain speed threshold. Today, if the system brakes, the cruise control disengages. With ACB Auto-Resume, a driver won’t have to resume cruise if the system brakes and certain parameters are met.
According to Bendix, the next-generation enhancements enable Fusion to now provide full braking power on the tractor, compared with the two-thirds power previously possible, along with pulsing air back to the trailer to provide trailer braking, whether or not the trailer has an ABS/TRSP unit. Combined with improved sensor and data analysis, this means that in many emergency situations, the system can reduce a vehicle’s speed by as much as 50 MPH.
Bendix also announced upgrades to its BlindSpotter technology, which now has the ability to integrate with Wingman Fusion.
BlindSpotter uses a new side-mounted radar unit—typically installed on the passenger side of the vehicle but also available for driver-side mounting—to alert drivers to vehicles or objects in adjacent lanes. When connected to the vehicle’s J1939 CAN (controller area network), its new radar operates over a significantly wider field of view than the previous version, allowing it to “see” farther toward both the front and back of a combination or single-unit vehicle—up to 2.5 times farther in each direction compared to the previous generation of BlindSpotter, as seen in Bendix’s graphic above. Bendix noted that the new BlindSpotter maintains the look, size, position, and mounting hardware of its radar and in-cab display units, making it easy to upgrade from the current version or retrofit the entire kit.
Bendix also teased its forthcoming Intellipark system, which was announced last year and is now in the stage of installing on fleets for the final stages of testing for a 2019 launch.
