Toyota Shows Off Steering Assist to Reduce Pedestrian Accidents

Jul 21, 2011
Bob Yirka

Car Safety Features Getting Better - mzacha

At a recent demo in Japan, Toyota demonstrated several new hi-tech safety features it's been working on.

Recently in a demonstration for reporters, Toyota showed off a new pre-collision technology aimed at reducing the number of pedestrian fatalities due to being run over by cars and trucks.

New Toyota Technology Uses Sophisticated Radar

At the demo, according to PhyOrg, Toyota explained that its new pre-collision technology uses something it calls "millimeter-wave" radar, which it claims is sensitive to distances as short as a millimeter, meaning the computer that it is attached to can gauge how far away a pedestrian is, and then make lightning speed calculations as to whether the car it's attached to is going to strike the person walking, and if so, to take evasive action by forcing the wheels to be turned to avoid hitting them, independent of driver action.

A spokesman for Toyota said that overall accidents have been reduced by new technology over the past several years, but so far, none of that has done anything to lower the numbers of pedestrians struck by vehicles, which he says, is simply unacceptable.

Adding to Automatic Car Safety Features

The new system Toyota is testing is just another in a long line of collision avoidance technologies currently being added to cars to make them safer to drive. Anti-lock brakes were one of the earliest; others have been sensors to detect if a driver is falling asleep (by watching for head nodding), automatic braking systems (or decelerators) that engage if a radar system detects an imminent collision, and automatic parking.

This new latest feature from Toyota uses both ultra-sensitive radar and cameras connected to a small computer tucked away under the hood to provide the calculations and to issue instructions to the steering mechanism should they be necessary.

At the same demo, Toyota also unveiled what it calls a pop-up hood that rises slightly when the car runs into something, lessening the impact of the vehicle on a pedestrian should the pre-collision steering system fail to do its job correctly. If that wasn't enough it also showed off a new type of headlight it's working on that would look like high-beams to a driver, but low-beams to an oncoming vehicle, a move that would help make two-way driving safer.

Finally, the company also demoed a new monitor embedded in the steering wheel that monitor's a driver's heart beat and stops the car if the heart beat stops, meaning the drive has suffered a heart attack.