Toyota is giving its vehicles eyes and a brain to make motoring safer. It will need these human characteristics to bring together systems such as anti-lock brakes, stability control, braking assistance, satellite navigation, radar as well as seat belts and airbags to work as a safety-conscious co-pilot.
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Seigo Kuzumaki, project general manager at Toyota’s vehicle engineering division, said the company was looking to integrate various technologies to make cars and roads a safer place.
The ‘eyes’ of the system, he said, were the various sensors already found in modern cars.
He added: “The information from the eyes is collected in the ‘brain’, the Driver Support System computer which makes judgements at every stage about what would be the best advice or support to give the driver.
“The orders given by the brain go to the ‘muscles’, the various actuators, alerting the driver to possible danger and by assisting with driving manoeuvres.”
In the future, Kuzumaki said, Toyota wants to achieve an even higher level of safety where vehicle systems are also connected to the surrounding infrastructure and other vehicles.
Currently pre-crash sensors and avoidance systems are under development and still very expensive but Toyota said its Driver Support System will be introduced over the next few years.
Kuzumali said: “The car will not take over completely. No matter how advanced vehicle safety technology or the traffic environment becomes, the awareness of drivers will always be the key to traffic safety.
“As assistance technology becomes more sophisticated then the system judgement may exceed the human. Then maybe we can trust its judgement but that point is some considerable time away…”
Toyota is, however, also testing traffic technologies including Automatic Drive – a rail-less system where vehicles follow each other at a safe distance without any input from the driver.
The evolution of safety technology will not eliminate driver responsibility, however.
