Takata LDW system includes Freescale chips

Freescale Semiconductor said it’s providing the processing intelligence behind a next-generation lane departure warning (LDW) system introduced by Takata Corporation for use in heavy trucks.

Takata’s SafeTraK 3 LDW system uses monocular vision technology to help reduce highway accidents related to driver error, fatigue and inattention. A monocular camera mounted on the truck’s windshield monitors lane markings and also includes a “drowsy driver” warning system designed to detect erratic or degraded driving based on weaving behavior associated with driver drowsiness. The system alerts the driver with an audible warning if the vehicle is veering into another lane or upon any degraded or erratic driving behavior within the lane.

The single-box system incorporates Freescale’s 16-bit S12 microcontroller (MCU) and an MCZ33810 analog output driver IC. The MCZ33810EKR2 is an 8-channel output driver IC that consists of four integrated low-side drivers and four low-side gate pre-drivers. The low-side drivers are suitable for driving fuel injectors, solenoids, lamps and relays. The four gate pre-drivers can function either as ignition IGBT gate pre-drivers or as general-purpose MOSFET gate pre-drivers. The MCZ33810 is designed to operate over the range of 4.5 V ≤ VPWR ≤ 36 V and interfaces directly to the MCU using 3.3 V/5V SPI protocol.