Called Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian-Avoidance Steer Assist, it’s a development of current car braking safety system. At the moment these are unable to avoid an accident entirely if the car is travelling too rapidly or the pedestrian enters its path at the very last moment. and research shows this is the case in 40 per cent of all collisions between cars and pedestrian.
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We evaluated a prototype of the new technology on a Toyota Prius. While travelling at 40mph a dummy was wheeled out infront of our car. An onboard forward-looking laser radar scanning the road ahead detected the pending collision while a computer worked out the required evasive action based on the pedestrians expect course.
At four seconds to potential impact the car issued a cautioning by flashing a light on the dash. With less than two seconds to impact it took evasive action by both automatically braking and steering the car, without us even touching the controls, avoiding a collision. had we wanted to, we could have overridden the system by holding the steering wheel firmly or forcefully steering at the dummy.
In its current form the pedestrian avoidance system can only steer the car up to 70cm off its course and never out of the lane it’s travelling in. However, the introduction of other sensors could enable it to be developed to survey the car’s entire surroundings so it can automatically steered the into any totally free space if it is safe to do so.
Toyota says Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian-Avoidance Steer assist could be available on cars within three years.