Levels of ADAS: All You Need to Know

Over the decades, the automobile industry has undergone evolutionary and revolutionary changes in terms of comfort, convenience and safety. One of the revolutionary changes in automotive safety is ADAS.

ADAS stands for Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems. This offering increases car and road safety. This system works in tandem with sensors, cameras, and even radars to detect pedestrians, drive errors, and nearby obstacles. It can also enable various levels of autonomous driving. 

That said, there are six levels of ADAS, based on the amount of automation and scale, provided by The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). 

Let’s read about each ADAS level and its function. 

- No Automation (Level 0):

It’s tacit that this is the base level, which requires a full human intervention. Everything is manually controlled by the driver, be it the steering wheel, acceleration, braking, and lane keeping, to name a few. The majority of vehicles on the road today are manually controlled. 

At this level, the new-age vehicles are, however, loaded with basic modern safety features like a 360-degree camera, front and rear parking sensors, etc.   

- Driver Assistance (Level 1): 

As the level suggests, this is the lowest level of automation. A vehicle with this ADAS level has a single automation function, which can either control the steering wheel or acceleration (widely called, adaptive cruise control). In adaptive cruise control, the vehicle automatically maintains a distance behind the front car or between both front and rear cars, while the driver monitors the steering, braking, and so on. 

- Partial Driving Automation (Level 2): 

This is where automation starts coming into play. The vehicles equipped with ADAS Level-2 can take care of steering, speed and braking. Most modern vehicles are equipped with this ADAS level. 

The car will automatically take care of the surroundings, be it city or highway driving. The features included in this ADAS level are lane-keep assist, lane change warning, forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, traffic sign recognition, adaptive high-beam assist, and so on.

Cars in India with ADAS Level-2 include Mahindra XUV700, Kia Sonet, Toyota Innova HyCross, Tata Safari/Harrier, Honda City facelift (petrol and hybrid), MG Hector/Astor, etc.

- Conditional Driving Automation (Level 3): 

At this level of ADAS, things become more serious. It has the same technology as the previous level but is more defined and safer, as it is equipped with a LiDAR scanner, fused with advanced ultrasonic sensors, artificial intelligence, radar units, and processing power. 

This ADAS is also equipped with an AI system for advanced navigation and driving assistance. 

The ADAS Level-3 is still in the developing stage. Not many cars have this system, as it requires thorough research and testing so that it can work in different countries with 95% precision if not 100%. 

- High Driving Automation (Level 4): 

The noteworthy difference between ADAS Level-3 and Level-4 is the intervention of the vehicle, if things go out of place. Vehicles at this stage don’t require any human intervention most of the time. However, humans still have the option to take over the control of the vehicle with the Level-4 ADAS. 

To make this road legal, the infrastructure and legislation should be evolved, which is why vehicles with ADAS Level-4 can only be used in a limited area. Currently, vehicles with this system have only made a foray into the ridesharing (cab) market. 

Following are the companies that use the Level-4-equipped vehicle:

1) Alphabet-owned Waymo is a self-driving taxi vehicle, which doesn’t include any driver or safety driver in the car, and they have been testing the car without a driver and offering cab services for a few years. 

2) NAVYA, a French-based automotive manufacturer is already producing and selling electric shuttles and cabs that are equipped with Level-4 ADAS. They can only reach a top speed of 55mph (88.51km/h). 

3) Magna, a Canadian automotive supplier, has developed the Level-4 technology, called MAX4, that can function in both urban and highway environments. 

4) Recently, Volvo and Baidu announced their collaboration to jointly develop the ADAS Level-4-equipped electric vehicles that will serve the ‘robotaxi’ market in China. 

- Fully Automation (Level 5): 

Vehicles with this ADAS level have zero human intervention. These vehicles don’t even require a steering wheel or pedals for accelerating/braking. Additionally, they will be free from geofencing, plus they will be as capable as experienced drivers. 

Automobile manufacturers are still researching and testing the Level-5 ADAS technology, but none are available to the general public.