Detective Road Weather Intelligence

AHEAD: Expand the safety of mobility with real-time detection and estimation of road weather condition and friction estimation.
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Replacing reactive systems with proactive systems

AHEAD is the result of 10 years of research and development, starting with the quest to find a way to detect black ice in front of a moving vehicle.  During the past decade, Klimator’s engineering team has continuously worked to advance our capability to do so, combining existing sensors with advanced software and vast amounts of collected data.

Today AHEAD provides reliable, robust and scalable insights directly to the system, for improved operability during complex weather situations.

 

AHEAD BEV Detection 1 - square

AHEAD patented sensor fusion technology for elevated safety

AHEAD allows the vehicle to react on what it’s in front of it, rather than what it has passed, providing current, correct, and relevant data at the right time. 

  • 50 m in front of a vehicle​ or system

  • Provides a high-resolution grid map with 10cm x 10cm grids for the entire FOV and range 
frame0

Real-time estimation in front of system

Estimation of road conditions in full area:

  • Dry
  • Wet
  • Slush
  • Snow
  • Ice
  • Friction estimation


Aggregated hazard level is visible for full road area.

 

Ten years of development produces massive amounts of data enabling Klimator to deliver an unparalleled solution for increased operability and system safety.

9

Number of OEM projects
performed and ongoing

11

Number of vehicle with an AHEAD system  
collecting data continuously

3

Number of continents we are
collecting data on 

 

AHEAD

Advanced Sensor Fusion Technology

 

Software

The AHEAD software consists of multiple combined software modules, each responsible for solving a task. Together they produce the high-resolution and real-time output of the system.

  • AHEAD Laser Algorithm​

  • Odometry

    • Estimate vehicle ego motion through 2D space

    • Relies on precise extrinsic camera calibration

  • Image analysis

 

Input data:

  • Image sequence

  • GPS (+accelerometer)

  • CAN data: Speed, steering angle (if available)

Hardware

For production applications, the AHEAD software will be embedded and utilize the available vehicle sensors, thus being hardware agnostic. To demonstrate the real-time detection and estimation capabilities of our software in proof of concepts a set of sensors, cables and computational units are combined and provided.

The AHEAD demonstration kit consits of:

NIR Laser

  • Three NIR laser diodes with wavrelengths 980, 1310 and 1550 nm and a detector
     
  • Measures intensity of diffusely back-scattered light (surface reflectivity)

  • Estimates road condistion and friction (presence and state of water on the road)

RGB Camera

  • 23 FPS frame rate​

  • 5 MP resolution​

(Only applicable for development kits and research programs. In series production an integration with the OEM camera system is employed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Development Kit

Test and evaluate our AHEAD technology today. Purchase a development kit and gain full insight in capabilities, accuracy and usability. 

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AHEAD

Recoding of demonstration of the AHEAD technology in Gothenburg area during winter 


Most frequently asked questions

 

Klimator is foremost a software company. However, for testing and after-market applications we provide a hardware setup, which may be seen below. In automotive serial production applications, customers acquire sensors on their own according to our specifications.

NIR laser and RGB camera

Yes, in theory. But practically it is not advised, as recalibration needs to be performed as well as reinstallation, resulting in higher costs and ineffective project execution. 

Installation and calibration (predefined calibration routine). 

The road is seldom homogenous, as the wheel tracks usually have different road weather conditions that the rest of the road surface. Hence, we need two laser points to cover the two areas of interest, in the wheel track as well as in between. This provides us with a good data set that represents the prevailing condition of the road surface AHEAD of the vehicle.

Depends on the conditions. But in good conditions, we have a range of approximately 50 m. 

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