Cause and Effect Relationship between the Dynamics of Accelerator and Brake Pedals during Emergency Braking

Abstract

We explore a feasibility of reducing the time lag between the instant when a driver decides to apply brakes and the instant the car reaches its maximum deceleration in emergency braking situations. The former event is manifested by the energetic lifting of the accelerator pedal, while the latter – by pressing the brake pedal to its maximum position. The time lag between these two events is a personal trait, and, in most cases, it is about few hundreds milliseconds. Depending on the speed, the considered time lag corresponds to several meters of distance traveled by car. By reducing this time lag, we intend to reduce the overall braking distance of the car in emergency braking. As the first step in our research towards the reduction of the time lag we consider investigating the cause and effect relationship (if any) between the event of energetic lifting the accelerator pedal and pressing the brake pedal to its maximum position. Presence of such a relationship would indicate that, in principle, the imminent braking could be predicted from the movement of the accelerator pedal, and consequently – an automated proactive braking could be applied well before the driver would have been able to apply the brakes.