More than two eyes

In future, these systems will ensure greater safety on the roads and will focus above all on protecting vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Christian Sauter works in Liebherrʼs Technical Trial Department, where he is responsible for the application of driver assistance systems. Alongside his colleagues from the Technical Office and Product Management, he plays a key role in the roll-out of new driver assistance systems and explains everything we need to know about this technology.

With its Regulation 2019/2144, the EU has set itself the goal of achieving an enormous increase in safety for all road users. The number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads must be reduced. State-of-the-art safety technology will become standard equipment on all vehicles and will take particular account of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. All new vehicles must therefore be equipped with specific safety features. The required measures are defined across various vehicle classes.

As a manufacturer of mobile cranes, safety is an important issue for us. For example, we began offering a camera system for rear-area monitoring on all our mobile cranes long ago, as this area is difficult or impossible for the crane driver to see. With additional assistance systems for our mobile cranes, we can now contribute to greater safety on the road.

However, it was not possible to simply adopt existing systems from the lorry industry, as there are major design-related differences. Together with an external supplier, the TÜV and our technical design department, we have therefore developed our own system that meets the specific requirements of mobile cranes. It takes into account, for example, the boom projecting over the driverʼs cab and the hook block, which restrict visibility in front of the front windshield. Two important Liebherr assistant systems are described below in more detail.

The Blind Spot Information System (BSIS) is also known as Blind Spot Assist or Turn Assist. Even with large mirrors, the crane driver canʼt see the entire area next to the crane – there are always blind spots. The crane driver also needs to concentrate on numerous factors both when in traffic and while navigating the surrounding infrastructure.

As standard, the Blind Spot Assist is operated by means of a so-called “camera wing”, which features two integrated digital cameras. If the system detects cyclists or pedestrians, it warns the crane driver visually and acoustically via an LED traffic light system in the cab, which lights up yellow or red, and also emits an additional acoustic warning tone.

If there is a person in front of the crane, the “Moving Off Information System” (MOIS) comes into play. Due to their height, children in particular are almost invisible when directly in front of the cab. Despite the specially installed mirrors, visibility is restricted, partly because the hook block is located in front of the driverʼs cab.

Two digital cameras on the left and right of the front windshield scan the area and warn the crane driver both visually and acoustically. In LICCON2 machines, the warning appears via a separate LED traffic light, while in LICCON3 vehicles it appears directly on the digital cockpit display.

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 02 | 2024.