Drivers detect road conditions and they learn how to estimate maximum tyre-road friction. However, most of today's vehicle systems don't—until the vehicle begins to slip.

Friction has a crucial role in driving, since all forces acting on a vehicle are put into action via the friction forces between the tyre and the road, except for aerodynamic forces and gravity. Unfortunately drivers often fail to estimate friction correctly and try unrealistic manoeuvres. The consequence is loss of vehicle control. For London women, the percentage of speed-related accidents was 31 %, of which misjudgement caused 64 % [5]. Along with driver behaviour and alertness, friction is one of the remaining key unknowns in the algorithms of future ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) that calculate the risk of collision, or safe speed. For example, if a Collision Mitigation System assumes high friction, it will have poor performance on snow, since it will brake too late.

Project FRICTI@N focused on developing, demonstrating and verifying a system that provides continuous sense of friction for vehicle applications. The goal was to offer new information for the vehicle systems to enable them to operate more accurately especially in unusual road conditions. The main attention was on the friction conditions of paved roads like asphalt or concrete. Studied surface conditions were dry, wet, snowy and icy. The project is a continuation to the previous APOLLO project, which focused only on tyre sensor development for friction estimation.