Looking for a car with cruise control? Here's everything you need to know

Modern cars are more than just clingy and moving hardware parts on wheels. Instead, modern cars are more about sophisticated technologies and features driven by software. In the last few years, the safety of cars has found increased momentum as car manufacturers are introducing a wide range of safety features amid rising consumer awareness about vehicular safety. The word ADAS has been finding an increasing number of mentions in the automotive world as the concern about vehicular safety is growing.

ADAS stands for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and it is increasingly becoming a popular and widely available feature in many modern cars, even in the mass-market models. The most intensely competitive segment of the Indian passenger vehicle market, compact SUVs too have witnessed the introduction of ADAS. While the Mahindra XUV 3XO comes with Level 2 ADAS, other models in this category come with Level 1 ADAS in their respective top-end variants.

The ADAS is essentially a bundle of safety features, which function in collaboration with a host of hardware and software. The hardware for ADAS includes sensors, radar, cameras etc. The safety features that come bundled under ADAS include critical features like cruise control, cross traffic alert, park assist, rear collision warning, surround view, pedestrian detection system, lane departure warning, traffic sign recognition, automatic emergency braking, blind spot detection etc. Cruise control among these features is increasingly becoming popular and widely available for many cars, even in the mass-market segment.

Here is an explainer about the cruise control.

Cruise control: What is it

Cruise control is a feature under the ADAS suite, which allows the driver to set a particular speed for the car. The name itself is self-explanatory as it allows the vehicle to cruise at a certain speed. With the cruise control engaged, the driver doesn't need to press the accelerator to keep the vehicle going at the set speed. The technology-enabled feature controls and brings a certain amount of automation in driving the vehicle at the preset speed.

There is an advanced form of cruise control, which is christened as adaptive cruise control. It comes as a step up from the regular cruise control and adds more sophistication to the advanced automated technology. In the case of adaptive cruise control, once the speed is set, the car continues to move at a certain speed but continuously adjusts the speed according to the surrounding traffic's speed in an attempt to keep a safe distance from other vehicles around it. Additionally, it works in unison with automatic braking technology to slow down or stop the car as and when required.

How it works?

The cruise control technology uses an actuator to control the throttle input and maintain the pre-set speed. Cruise control works in a similar way as the driver continues to drive at a certain speed. The adaptive cruise control also uses the same mechanism but comes laced with automatic emergency braking, which is another bundled feature under the ADAS suite. It mimics the way a driver accelerates and decelerates in traffic and coasts on a highway.

Usually, the cruise control feature can be activated and deactivated through a single button. The button is usually located on the steering wheel or in some cases at the centre console as well. The cruise control buttons come with +/- buttons, which are used for setting the speed up or down.