4 future automotive safety technologies

MANILA, Philippines - Cars that communicate with each other and the road

Car manufacturers are seriously looking into and researching two technologies that would enable future cars to communicate with each other and with objects around them.

Imagine approaching an intersection as another car runs a red light. You don’t see them at first, but your car gets a signal from the other car that it’s directly in your path and warns you of the potential collision—or even hits the brakes automatically to avoid an accident.

A technology called Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication, or V2V, is being tested by automotive manufacturers like Ford as a way to help reduce the number of accidents on the road. V2V works by using wireless signals to send information back and forth between cars about their location, speed, and direction.

Self-driving cars

In California and Nevada, Google engineers have already tested self-driving cars on more than 200,000 miles of public roads. Google’s cars not only record images of the road, but their computerized maps view road signs, find alternative routes, and see traffic lights before they’re even visible to a person. By using lasers, radars, and cameras, the cars can analyze and process information about their surroundings faster than a human can.

Augmented Reality dashboards

GPS and other in-car displays are great for getting us from point A to point B, and some high-end vehicles even have displays on the windshield. In the near future, cars will be able to identify external objects in front of the driver and display information about them on the windshield.

Think of The Terminator or many other science fiction stories where a robot looks at a person or an object and automatically brings up information about them and can identify who or what they are. Augmented Reality dashboards will function in a similar way for drivers. BMW has already implemented a windshield display in some of their vehicles that show basic information, but they’re also developing AR dashboards that will be able to identify objects in front a vehicle and tell the driver how far they are away from the object. The display will overlay information on top of what a driver is seeing in real life.

So if you’re approaching a car too quickly, a red box may appear on the car you’re approaching and arrows will appear showing you how to maneuver into the next lane before you collide with the other car. An AR-enabled GPS system could highlight the actual lane you need to be in and show you where you need to turn without you ever having to take your eyes off the road.

Airbags that help stop cars

Ever since airbags were added to vehicles, they’ve continued to make their way around the inside of our vehicles. We now have curtain airbags, side airbags, knee airbags, seat belts airbags, and even ones that deploy under us. Now, Mercedes-Benz is working on a new way to use airbags that move them away from a passive safety measure and makes it part of an active safety system.

Mercedes is experimenting with airbags that deploy from underneath the car that will help stop a vehicle before a crash. The airbags are part of the overall active safety system and deploy when sensors determine that at impact is inevitable. The bags have a friction coating that helps slow the car down and can double the stopping power of the vehicle. The bags also lift the vehicle up to eight centimeters, which counters the car’s dipping motion during hard braking, improves bumper-to-bumper contact, and helps prevent passengers from sliding under seatbelts during a collision.