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#287553 - 01/02/18 10:35 AM Car gets help by itself in an accident?
Bingley Offline
Veteran

Registered: 02/27/08
Posts: 1576
I just came across an advertisement for this product called Hum, and I thought that it has an interesting potential in an emergency:

https://www.hum.com

It appears to be able to detect an accident, and then it can summon help for you. It's not clear to me whether it always requires your verbal approval.

I have driven through places like Wyoming where there is just nothing for miles and miles, and there is also little traffic. If you get into a bad accident and, say, lose the ability to summon for help (perhaps because you are unconscious), this item seems like it may be useful. I am guessing Hum is based on cell phone technology, and so if you don't have reception, you still may be up the proverbial creek.

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#287554 - 01/02/18 10:46 AM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Bingley]
Phaedrus Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 04/28/10
Posts: 3148
Loc: Big Sky Country
Definitely shows a lot of potential.
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#287555 - 01/02/18 02:42 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Bingley]
M_a_x Offline
Veteran

Registered: 08/16/02
Posts: 1203
Loc: Germany
An automatic emergency call system is mandatory for new cars in the EU by march 2018. The call works via cell phone technology and is depended on reception the position is determined via GPS. If the system is triggered the car is called by the coordination center for assessing the situation. If the user does not cancel, a response team is sent. The system will usually also have a manual switch for the emergency call.
This may also be useful when people start to help at the scene of the accident and forget to call emergency response.
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#287556 - 01/02/18 03:05 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Bingley]
chaosmagnet Offline
Sheriff
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 12/03/09
Posts: 3819
Loc: USA
I bought a new minivan for my wife and it has a setting (enabled by default) that automatically calls for help if a phone is connected (via Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay or Android Auto) and a crash is detected.

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#287557 - 01/02/18 05:10 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Bingley]
dougwalkabout Offline
Crazy Canuck
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 02/03/07
Posts: 3217
Loc: Alberta, Canada
As I recall, the OnStar service that GM had years ago would "phone home" if a vehicle's airbags deployed, and the call centre would direct 911 to the location.

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#287558 - 01/02/18 05:38 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: dougwalkabout]
Doug_Ritter Offline

Pooh-Bah

Registered: 01/28/01
Posts: 2197
Originally Posted By: dougwalkabout
As I recall, the OnStar service that GM had years ago would "phone home" if a vehicle's airbags deployed, and the call centre would direct 911 to the location.


GM vehicles still come with OnStar. A friend's son's life was likely saved when he got into an accident in a remote part of Minnesota and OnStar summoned help immediately when he didn't respond to their call after the air bags deployed.
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#287565 - 01/03/18 08:32 AM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: M_a_x]
Tjin Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 04/08/02
Posts: 1821
Originally Posted By: M_a_x
An automatic emergency call system is mandatory for new cars in the EU by march 2018. The call works via cell phone technology and is depended on reception the position is determined via GPS. If the system is triggered the car is called by the coordination center for assessing the situation. If the user does not cancel, a response team is sent. The system will usually also have a manual switch for the emergency call.
This may also be useful when people start to help at the scene of the accident and forget to call emergency response.


Hope most new systems will be free of use (emergency call are free, so that should be possible); I have seen subscription-based systems with emergency calls as an option.
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#287574 - 01/03/18 03:07 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Tjin]
hikermor Offline
Geezer in Chief
Geezer

Registered: 08/26/06
Posts: 7705
Loc: southern Cal
Any chance these systems can be retrofitted to older rigs? Might be worthwhile....
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#287575 - 01/03/18 03:39 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: hikermor]
M_a_x Offline
Veteran

Registered: 08/16/02
Posts: 1203
Loc: Germany
These systems are intgrated into the car system. They use car sensors (and probably computing power as well) for detecting and evaluating a crash. Hence they would require firmware updates for the older rig. With good luck an existing eletric interface may be useable. If your rig does not feature updateable firmware, you might be out of luck.
_________________________
If it isn´t broken, it doesn´t have enough features yet.

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#287582 - 01/03/18 08:47 PM Re: Car gets help by itself in an accident? [Re: Bingley]
chaosmagnet Offline
Sheriff
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 12/03/09
Posts: 3819
Loc: USA
Note that I am not a real engineer and so I'm speaking as a semi-informed amateur.

Modern cars all have a Controller Area Network Bus (CAN Bus) or something very much like it, where events are sent from sensors and commands are sent from controller modules. There may (or may not be) also a Local Interconnect Network Bus (LIN Bus) for non-critical systems such as climate control and "infotainment" systems.

The CAN Bus architecture is remarkably similar to Ethernet.

There are sensors within the car, typically accelerometers built into microchips. I believe that those sensors are wired directly into the ECUs for the various airbags rather than sending events over the CAN Bus. Once the sensors send events, the ECU for the airbag(s) the sensor is wired to evaluates the signals and compares them to stored values for "this is a crash the indicates this specific airbag should be inflated." Once that ECU fires the airbag inflator, it sends events indicating the inflation over the CAN Bus to OnStar or the competing system, which then initiates contact with the call center. Seatbelt pretensioners will also fire, with (I believe) the airbag ECU instructing the seatbelt ECU to do so (rather than being the same ECU).

Integrating these devices, systems and programming correctly into a car that doesn't have them from the manufacturer would almost certainly be more expensive than buying the new car. The programming effort alone would be pretty epic.

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