Bendix announces integrated safety technologies

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC has introduced its next-generation of the Bendix family of integrated advanced safety technologies and is addressing the path to highly automated commercial vehicles. The next-gen products include the Wingman Fusion, BlindSpotter and Intellipark electronic parking brake, according to an announcement.

Wingman Fusion

The newest generation of Bendix Wingman Fusion adds highway departure braking, ACB (active cruise with braking) Stop & Driver Go, ACB Auto-Resume and multi-lane emergency braking to its features, along with even more enhanced collision mitigation and braking capabilities.

“Fusion continues to build on the combination of proven technologies paving the way toward an increasingly automated future of safer vehicles and roadways,” says Fred Andersky, Bendix director of customer solutions, controls. “Brake sensors, cameras and radar units all provide different, valuable types of information, all of which are combined and cross-checked to create a detailed and accurate data picture.”

A number of the new features of Wingman Fusion are the result of software advancements, so current system users will be able to upgrade and unlock the new capabilities without having to purchase new hardware. In the future, the new generation of Bendix BlindSpotter will see integration into the Wingman Fusion system, as with other sensors and safety technologies, such as steering and park brake control.

The 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 miles per hour.

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.