ADAS is an acronym for Advanced Driver Assist Systems. This includes everything from the not so advanced seat belt reminder chime, to a processor receiving thousands of data points from multple cameras, active radar, and LIDAR sensors in you vehicle. In its most advanced applications, it is the architecture that autonomous driving is built around.

 

LIDAR, since you asked,, is like RADAR but it uses the shorter wavelength and higher frequency of light waves (laser, in this case).

 

You are likely familiar with functions like:

• Lane Departure Warning: Alerts the driver if the vehicle begins to drift out of its lane without signaling.

   

• Adaptive Cruise Control: Automatically adjusts the vehicle's speed to maintain a safe distance from the car in front.

   

• Automatic Emergency Braking: Engages the brakes if a potential collision is detected.

   

• Blind Spot Monitoring: Warns the driver of vehicles in their blind spots.

   

Driving today is safer that it has ever been. We have fewer accidents, and fewer fatalities from those accidents. Are we all just better drivers? Probably not. ADAS helps us avoid accidents and gives us more information about our surroundings to enable better decision-making.

 

Suspicion of technology is trending in late 2025 - but  we promise you, ADAS is on the side of the angels.

 

But How Does It Work?

 

ADAS relies on a combination of hardware and software to function effectively. The hardware typically includes:

 

• Cameras: These capture images of the vehicle's surroundings, allowing the system to detect obstacles, lane markings, and other vehicles.

   

• Radar Sensors: These measure the distance and speed of nearby objects, helping the system assess potential hazards.

   

• Lidar: This technology uses laser mapping to create a 3D map of the environment, providing detailed information about the surroundings. Light waves (lasers) instead of radar waves. RADAR can tell us roughly how big something in fornt of us is, the direction it is moving and at what speed. LIDAR can tell us what it is. It draws a digital picture.

   

Those are the instruments. The music happens on a Tuesday evening as a tired driver heads into right hand turn in a residential neighorhood. Tuesday is trash day and some of the cans are still out. Azaleas, a brick mailbox, and several green trash cans block the line sight.

 

The lidar sees the boy first, just coming off the the sidewalk, radar and the camera pick up the motion of the basketball he's chasing and there's the sensation of braking and a slight pull to the left, and a half hour later everyone is having dinner because it was just another Tuesday, and the only tragedy was that there weren't enough taco shells.

 

How do you even pronounce "ADAS". We stand firm that it is "A-DASS". Rhymes with "A bass" (the fish, not the guitar).

On the West Coast it seems more commonly pronounced "A-DOSS" rhymes with "a-loss". But that's California. They don't know the difference between grits and cream of wheat.