Honda, as we know, is offering ADAS features in its cars that are sold in India. The company calls it Honda SENSING, and it is slightly different from the Level 2 ADAS that we have seen in most cars sold in our market. Instead of a radar, Honda uses a front-wide-view camera and sensors to scan the road, warn drivers of hazards, and actively intervene with steering or braking. Recently, Honda made an important change to its ADAS and decided to post an explainer video about the same, featuring its most famous engineer.
The video has been shared by Honda R&D on its official website. The video explains how Honda redesigned the “Hands-On” steering wheel sensor, which is a critical component of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). The video explains how they worked on this new system to make it significantly cheaper, more durable, and far more accurate in everyday driving conditions.
Honda’s engineer Shotaro Odate is seen in the video, and he is the lead engineer at Honda. He is the mastermind behind the Honda Sensing 360+ ADAS Level 2 safety suite. The video explains that ADAS features like lane centring and adaptive cruise control legally require the car to verify that the driver is actively holding the steering wheel.
In order to verify this, the carmaker used delicate touch sensors wrapped around the entire outer rim of the steering wheel. These full-rim sensors were expensive to manufacture and prone to wear and tear over years of sun exposure and hand friction. Honda decided to tackle this issue by coming up with a hardware and software solution.
Instead of wrapping expensive sensors around the whole steering wheel rim, Honda integrated a compact indirect capacitive touch sensor directly into the steering wheel switch/spoke assembly. This solution was much cheaper and lasts much longer because it is sheltered inside the switch housing. Things were not that simple, though. When Honda shifted the sensor inside the switch housing, it faced a real-world challenge. Temperature fluctuations in the cabin often triggered false grip readings and glitches.
In order to rectify this, Honda recalculated the baseline readings every 49 milliseconds using a weighted moving average, instantly cancelling out changes in heat and moisture. They also used a derivative algorithm that monitors sudden changes in the signal. By doing this, Honda was able to eliminate ghost alerts and unnecessary warnings while improving long-term reliability at an affordable cost.
Shotaro Odate is actually an extremely popular engineer from Honda. He is known for his distinct appearance, especially his hairstyle. Shotaro Odate is said to be 84 years old and has been seen with a spiked hairstyle for decades now. We assume he fell in love with the hairstyle when he was young and decided to continue it.
The reason why we feel Shotaro Odate was seen explaining the changes in the ADAS system is because he was the brain behind the Honda Sensing 360+ ADAS Level 2 safety suite. Apart from his distinct hairstyle and physique, he also holds over 250 patents, which is extremely impressive. His patents include steering sensors, advanced braking systems, seatbelt intelligence systems, and driver behavioural monitoring.
On top of these, Odate has also published nine peer-reviewed papers in the field of automotive safety. His focus is on the integration of artificial intelligence and sensor fusion into real-world vehicle behaviour prediction.