If you find yourself fascinated by advanced cruise control and self-driving technology, but dislike the way those systems tend to behave when they're in control, there may be hope thanks to a new machine-learning system from Hyundai, which does its best to imitate your driving habits.
Called Machine Learning based Smart Cruise Control, or SCC-ML for short, this cruise control system monitors your behavior behind the wheel in an effort to replicate it when left to its own devices. Hyundai will further develop this new machine-learning A.I. to help overcome the objections of customers who are not comfortable with the driving behavior of existing adaptive cruise control and potentially upcoming self-driving technology.
Most systems require the driver to manually set certain options within an adaptive cruise control system, such as following distance and acceleration speed—which is usually an option reserved for higher-end systems—in order to reach something resembling their normal comfort zone. Hyundai's system eliminates that fine-tuning entirely, relying instead on observing human drivers to determine their comfort level.
Not only does this eliminate the guesswork on behalf of the driver, but it can result in a far more more versatile and fine-tuned experience. Where a typical mainstream adaptive system may offer only three or four options for following distance, Hyundai's SCC-ML offers more than 10,000 unique driving patterns.
Hyundai said this new technology can dramatically improve both the performance of its cruise control systems and drivers' confidence when using them. It will introduce it in future Hyundai cars, as well as those from Kia and Genesis, but the timeline for implementation isn't clear.