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Coming soon: cars that stop erratic behaviour
The next generation of road vehicles will include cars with the built-in ability to take evasive action - if their drivers behave erratically or fail to notice an imminent danger.
A variety of technical approaches are being tested to achieve various levels of intervention, but next year Japan's Nissan is hoping to be the first with such technology when its new Infiniti FX goes into production for the North American market.
Meanwhile Volvo and Ford have announced they are carrying out joint tests on an intervention system, while at the same time in Germany there are at least two major projects supported by the European Union designed to perfect such systems.
One of the German projects involves the development of a system that "senses" and "intervenes" if a driver shows signs of being dangerously tired.
The other German project led by DaimlerChrysler under the EU's so-called Information Society Technologies (IST) research initiative, hopes to turn a computer program originally developed for the new Airbus A380, into a sophisticated "all purpose" intervention system able to correct almost every mistake a driver might make.
Nissan's Infinity FX:
Nissan's system is not strictly designed to identify tiredness but it will take action if the driver crosses lane markings without indicating. The driver's reason for the bad manoeuvre could be tiredness - or poor concentration and inattention. Whatever the cause, a miniature video sensor monitoring the lane markings will detect the digression and alert the driver. Valeo, the company that made the system for Nissan, says that US research had shown 30% of road crashes in America involved an element of "inattention". At the same time, safety authorities in a number of countries had been expressing concern about the growing number of drivers who were not indicating when changing lanes.
Volvo and Ford:
Volvo is also intending to fit its new generation of vehicles with technology that will alert a drowsy driver to lane drift but as yet the company has only indicated that the technology will be installed "sometime this decade." But tests Volvo has conducted with the assistance of Ford's VIRTTEX (VIRtual Test Track Experiment simulator) (See TransScan Dec 2001 p1 and p17) have produced some interesting pointers for future research into driver fatigue. The tests involved 32 drivers - 12 men and 20 women aged between 24 and 69. According to Ford, although the tests were not designed to look at age differences they did reveal a clear difference between age groups. Before any of the drivers were allowed into the VIRTTEX, they had been kept awake for 24 hours. Inside the VIRTTEX they were required to drive through darkened "virtual" streets for a further three hours. "Its interesting to note that the youngest drivers did the worst in the tests," said Moses Fridman, a Ford engineer. "The two youngest test subjects, 24 and 26 year-old men, actually fell asleep and ran off the road. It was the middle age women between 45 and 60 years of age who did the best - having the least problems and fewer episodes of dozing behind the wheel."
Germany's Fraunhofer Institute:
In Germany, volunteers are being recruited for another series of laboratory simulation trials this time to identify what "sleep alert system" works best. According to a media statement from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering a cocktail of alarms is being tried including warning tones, vibrating seat belts, a red triangle that blinks in the rear-view mirror - and a computerised voice. The voice announces: "Drowsiness warning! Please stop at the next possibility for your own safety and take a rest!" The research is part of AWAKE - a European Union research project to combat driver fatigue.
DaimlerChrysler:
According to IST, the DaimlerChrysler project is designed to bring "fly-by-wire" technologies used in aircraft into road vehicles. In fact the systems being developed aim to create a "virtual assistant driver" to automatically correct the mistakes of the real driver. If the system works, it will have the potential to cut deep into the 98% of vehicle accidents caused by driver error. In fact Ansgar Maisch, the project leader, believes it could cut road accidents by half. The system being developed is an in-vehicle electronic control unit capable of taking control of the vehicle if ever its various sensors indicate a dangerous situation. The unit is able to monitor and control all elements of the vehicle normally handled by the driver - including the engine, gearbox, brakes and steering. Ultimately the aim is not just to have a system that reacts to driver error - but one that predicts problems before they occur. For example, the developers intend to have a system that will take account of weather conditions so that the way the vehicle is driven is adjusted before there is a skid.
