Seconds that matter: The technology behind evasive steering assist

From a driver's point of view, there are functions that make you think: "Oh, that's nice". And then there are functions where you immediately feel: This is groundbreaking!

"Our Evasive Steering Assist has great potential to prevent accidents and protect lives. It shows its strength when a collision is imminent, and the driver does not react in time. Then the vehicle provides the best possible support in avoiding the collision," explains Dr. Lukas Stark, development engineer at CARIAD. "The Evasive Steering Assist is only active when it is certain that it can avoid the accident without causing a conflict with other road users."

It's not a secret: drivers aren’t always attentive enough. Conversations with the passenger, to-do lists and especially a quick look at the mobile phone can lead to distraction. In 2024, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) registered a total of 380,292 violations of administrative offenses in connection with the "recording and use of mobile devices by motorists". Dr. Lukas Stark: "A moment of carelessness can lead to an accident. Avoiding collision protects those involved from injury — and at the same time saves the customer a lot of costs and trouble."

Dynamic steering maneuvers for maximum safety

A typical scenario: A car is parked on the right-hand side of the road, protruding significantly into the driving lane. Some driving in the right lane unintentionally drifts too far to the right due to momentary inattention, approaching the lane boundary and creating a risk of collision with the parked vehicle. The system recognizes the situation and prevents a crash by initiating a controlled evasive maneuver to the left.

Even though this is “only” a controlled evasive maneuver, the potentially life‑saving action requires high computing power and intelligent algorithms. Data from the front camera, the front radar, and the two front corner radars are continuously processed. Every 20 milliseconds – 50 times per second – this data is used to generate an environment model, which is then evaluated. Obstacles are identified, the course of the road is calculated, and the lane markings are analyzed. The latter are particularly important because Evasive Steering Assist is subject to many conditions and the vehicle is not allowed to leave its lane for legal reasons.

The driver always retains ultimate control

This distinguishes the Evasive Steering Assist, for example, from other evasive assistance functions. In situations with an acute risk of collision, this supports the driver in an evasive maneuver that he or she actively initiates himself – consequently also when swerving beyond the center line. Dr. Lukas Stark: "These two systems work together to create a well‑rounded Evasive Assistance package that helps customers avoid collisions. One of CARIAD’s key challenges was to define the maximum acceptable steering dynamics. Although evasive steering assist reacts much faster than any human, the driver always retains ultimate control. Any active steering input immediately overrides the assistance system – even if this results in an accident.”

Because of this, the team devoted significant efforts to fine‑tuning the system. Alongside extensive developer testing and in real traffic across numerous countries, driving studies with test subjects played an important role in shaping the Evasive Steering Assist behavior.

The result: Evasive Steering Assist is more than just a technical innovation. In critical situations, the system can prevent accidents – an important contribution to road safety.

Evasive Steering Assist is available in the Audi models A5, Q5, A6, A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron.