The automotive industry has gone along way in terms of developments made in the design and performance of automobiles. Year after year, different car makers introduce more and more feature on their cars not only to appease their customers but also to provide good performance and enhanced safety.
Currently, more and more electronic control systems are being employed in the production of automobiles. In the production of the said advanced features, sensors play key roles.
The most common areas of a vehicle which is equipped with the electronic control systems are the safety and driver convenience features. For these to function properly, the presence of sensors is vital. These sensors act as switches for other electronically controlled feature of a system in an automobile.
As a result of the increasing demand for advanced safety and driver convenience features, the demand for sensors also increases. These sensors are commonly used to detect position, displacement, rotary position, linear position, timing, and angles. Navigation and safety features like the anti-lock braking system are also where these magnetic sensors are widely used.
In a typical anti-lock braking system, a central electronic circuit and four speed sensors are needed. These sensors play a key role in keeping a car’s occupants safe in emergency braking. The sensor, tells the central electronic unit how fast the wheels, are going while braking. It is the job of the central electronic unit to monitor and keep all the four wheels of a vehicle running in almost uniform speed.
The sensors, four of them, one for each wheel, tells the central electronic unit which wheel is slowing down at a faster rate than the others, the unit will then ease the brake on that particular wheel. This technology allows a vehicle to slow down easily without locking the wheels. Locking the wheels means the driver will loose control over the car. This will then translate to heightened risk of being involved in an accident.
With more and more car buyers looking for safety features on vehicles, car manufacturers continually improve the safety of their vehicle. To improve the safety of a car, certain features are added to it like electronic stability control. The system is designed to aid a driver on situations where there is a possibility of one losing control of the steering system.
The ESC as it is called helps the driver by controlling oversteer and understeer and also controlling the amount of pressure exerted on the brakes. With this technology, drivers face less risk of oversteering or understeering their car. In this technology, sensors also play a major role since they are the components which tells the main electronic control whether the driver is steering properly or putting excessive force on the steering wheel as well as the brakes.
