Toyota's new pre-crash technology directs steering - Polidicks

[QUOTE]SUSONO, Japan – Toyota is developing a safety technology that takes control of the steering so the vehicle can veer away when it isn't able to stop before impact.Toyota Motor Corp. showed some of its up and coming safety innovations in a demonstration to reporters Thursday at its facility in this town, west of Tokyo, near Mount Fuji. All the world's automakers are working on special safety technology in an effort to woo customers, as competition intensifies among manufacturers already neck-and-neck in delivering the regular features for their products. Cars that stop or slow down automatically before an object or person in anticipation of a possible crash are not new. But Toyota's latest pre-collision system adds a steering-control feature. In the new system, Toyota uses cameras and a super sensitive radar called "millimeter-wave," both installed in the front of the vehicle, to detect possible crashes such as a pedestrian crossing the road. The vehicle calculates how braking and steering must be applied to avoid a crash, said chief safety technology officer Moritaka Yoshida. "We must learn from accidents and keep making improvements in safety features," he said. The Japanese automaker declined to say when the feature may be offered on a commercial model, or in which markets, but officials hinted it was ready to be offered soon. Toyota said it was aiming for zero fatalities and injuries, although it did not say when that goal would be achieved. Fatalities have been declining in auto accidents, because of better safety features, but deaths among pedestrians in traffic accidents have not gone down in Japan. Protecting pedestrians is increasingly key, according to Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models. Toyota showed what is called a pop-up hood, which rises slightly in a crash, to mitigate the impact of a pedestrian getting hit by a car, similar to features offered by European makers. It also showed how parts of the rays from high-beam headlights could be blocked so that drivers could still see clearly what was ahead while headlights would appear to be on low beam to the driver in a car coming from the other direction. Toyota also showed a steering wheel in development that measures the heartbeat of the driver to prevent crashes that can happen when drivers suffer heart attacks.[/QUOTE] Source: [URL]http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110721/ap_on_hi_te/as_japan_toyota[/URL]

Wow, fuck that. I very easily see the car flying off the road after attempting to dodge a kangaroo at 110 an hour. Also, that's funny - "millimeter wave" aka microwave. Terrible translation, there guys.

[QUOTE=Contag;31409924]Wow, fuck that. I very easily see the car flying off the road after attempting to dodge a kangaroo at 110 an hour. Also, that's funny - "millimeter wave" aka microwave. Terrible translation, there guys.[/QUOTE] With the safety laws today in the western world i can't really see this happening. The car will probably be tested of it's ass before going on sale.

How does it detect it's about to hit something? And these would be useless in a demo-derby.

What happens if you're about to crash, and use their steering system and end up steering into oncoming traffic?

[QUOTE=CrispexOps;31418650]What happens if you're about to crash, and use their steering system and end up steering into oncoming traffic?[/QUOTE] If your job is about designing cars, I'm pretty sure you'd know that there's going to be traffic going the other way on the roads so I'm fairly certain they'd have taken that into account. You've given them literally no credit, I'm fairly certain they realise other cars exist as I doubt they're all retarded.

[quote]You've given them literally no credit[/quote] Thousands recalled after brake failure, I give them credit for that.

[QUOTE=CrispexOps;31418650]What happens if you're about to crash, and use their steering system and end up steering into oncoming traffic?[/QUOTE] Then the steering system ends up steering you off the freeway, of course.

What if it turns to avoid crashing and crashes into a wafflehouse?

Thank you very much I will rather kill myself on my own.

[QUOTE=CrispexOps;31418838]Thousands recalled after brake failure, I give them credit for that.[/QUOTE] Actually unintended acceleration defects, which after 10 months of investigation by NASA and NHTSA showed that it only was of mechanical nature, aka, the driver moves around the mat, that happens to jam into the gas pedal. Out of 58 incidents that were blamed on Toyota only 1 was legit (pedal entrapment) The same thing can be said about the Audi unintended acceleration problems in the 80s, which also was found to be due to driver errors and not the cars themselves. Also what's funny is that the problems only seemed to occur in USA and nowhere else in the world. It's a shame that the US had to create a mass hysteria that caused Toyoto to lose countless of millions of dollars, when the problem probably only existed on that specific car.

Well, let's just hope it works better than Volvo's system [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpg[/media]

But I don't even like things like servo steering :saddowns:. ABS and basic electronic fuel injection is understandable though. I'm kinda oldschool that way. [QUOTE=Swebonny;31420092]Actually unintended acceleration defects, which after 10 months of investigation by NASA and NHTSA showed that it only was of mechanical nature, aka, the driver moves around the mat, that happens to jam into the gas pedal. Out of 58 incidents that were blamed on Toyota only 1 was legit (pedal entrapment) The same thing can be said about the Audi unintended acceleration problems in the 80s, which also was found to be due to driver errors and not the cars themselves. Also what's funny is that the problems only seemed to occur in USA and nowhere else in the world.[/QUOTE] Also all the cars were outfitted with Automatic transmissions. No clutch to press down to disengage the engine.

In any case, it might always give the driver false security, and cause more accidents.

What if the driver tries to veer in a direction and the system tries to veer in the other direction?

[QUOTE=Maxx;31426895]What if the driver tries to veer in a direction and the system tries to veer in the other direction?[/QUOTE] I'd assume direct input took priority unless it'd lead to an impact.