Available Systems
Mitsubishi was the first automaker to offer a laser-based ACC system in 1995 on the Japanese Mitsubishi Diamante. Marketed as "Preview Distance Control", this early system did not apply the brakes and only controlled speed through throttle control and downshifting.
In August 1997, Toyota began to offer a "radar cruise control" system on the Celsior. Toyota further refined their system by adding "brake control" in 2000 and "low-speed tracking mode" in 2004. The low-speed speed tracking mode was a second mode that would warn the driver if the car ahead stopped and provide braking; it could stop the car but then deactivated. In 2006 Toyota introduced its "all-speed tracking function" for the Lexus LS 460. This system maintains continuous control from speeds of 0 km/h to 100 km/h and is designed to work under repeated starting and stopping situations such as highway traffic congestion. The Lexus division was the first to bring adaptive cruise control to the US market in 2000 with the LS 430's Dynamic Laser Cruise Control system.
Mercedes introduced Distronic in late 1998 on the S-class. For 2006, Mercedes-Benz refined the Distronic system to completely halt the car if necessary (now called "Distronic Plus" and offered on their E-Class and S-Class range of luxury sedans), a feature now also offered by Bosch as "ACC plus" and available in the Audi Q7, the Audi Q5, 2009 Audi A6 and the new 2010 Audi A8. The Audi A4 is available with an older version of the ACC that does not stop the car completely. In an episode of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson demonstrated the effectiveness of the cruise control system in the S-class by coming to a complete halt from motorway speeds to a round-about and getting out, without touching the pedals.
Jaguar began offering a system in 1999; BMW's Active Cruise Control system went on sale in 2000 on the 7-series and later in 2007, added a system called Stop-and-Go system to the 5-series. Volkswagen and Audi introduced their own systems in 2002 through the radar manufacturer Autocruise.
In the United States, Acura first introduced Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) integrated with a Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS) in the late calendar year 2005 in the model year 2006 Acura RL as an optional feature. ACC and CMBS also became available as optional features in the model year the 2010 Acura MDX Mid Model Change (MMC) and the newly introduced model year 2010 Acura ZDX.
Read more about this topic: Autonomous Cruise Control System
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