A Peek At Future of Automotive Safety Research

TOYOTA ADVANCED SAFETY SEMINAR 2014
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel.com
Michigan Bureau

Ann Arbor Michigan September 6, 2014; Chuck Gulash, director of Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center, addressed a room full of journalists and company dignitaries assembled in a Southeast Michigan convention center this week to talk about the myriad projects he and his teams are working on related to future safety systems. His big news was that Toyota announced the commitment of another $35 million, in addition to the $50 million that originally funded the center in 2011. Judging from the projects he and his people showed us this week it appears to be money will be well spent.

That total of $85 million is certainly substantial but seems a drop in the bucket compared to Toyota’s overall R&D budget. But what we’ve learned here is that the budget is leveraged both within the company and in partnerships throughout academia. While the center’s funding all comes from Toyota, staff time and other resources come from more than a dozen universities and other entities. The CSRC serves as a facilitator and resource center for a wide variety of projects.

Some of the projects they showed us include:

Driver Awareness Research Vehicle 1.5 that uses Microsoft-developed sensors and software to analyze a driver’s “workload,” focused on managing the stimuli and decision making in order to improve safety.

The industry’s first articulated Pedestrian Pre-Collision mannequins, both adult and child-size, used to develop testing procedures that can measure a vehicle’s effectiveness at mitigating crash injuries.

A high-resolution LIDAR environment mapping system compact enough to be mounted inside the car, potentially replacing the bulky systems mounted on car roofs now.

A cool 3D heads-up display that can read road signs, visually display cross traffic and pedestrians, see well down the road and provide navigation information, all without special 3D glasses.

An integrated system of cameras and sensors that can evaluate and record driver behavior in relation to surroundings that include lane tracking and full analysis.

An animal pre-collision warning system that will be able to recognize a variety of animals as learned by the system. Right now they are working on deer. Bear, moose and raccoons may be next.

Finite body elements of a child to be used when designing safety systems for little ones.

The results of a comprehensive seat belt study to show whether people are wearing the belts in the best possible position - “Belts on Bones,” they say. The result is that a surprising number are not.

The result of a partnership with MIT to demonstrate the effects of “distracted walking.”

A study of cognitive distraction, showing we need some stimulation beyond just the process of driving to remain alert.

An advanced driving simulator that measures ability to do other tasks as we drive.

Then, after we spent time trying to understand all these advanced safety sciences indoors, we went out on the roads around downtown Detroit in a specially equipped Lexus GS450h for a practical demonstration of the next generation of active driving enhancement tools like lane keeping, driver monitoring, advanced mapping, advanced adaptive cruise control, collision avoidance and mitigation. Most of this technology is leading in the direction of self-driving cars. It appears we are closer than most of us think to that being possible under some circumstances, particularly on well designed and well maintained limited access highways.

From the Ann Arbor, MI-based CSRC dozens of safety systems are being studied and advanced in cooperation with partners. The results are shared freely with the auto design and engineering communities with none of it becoming proprietary within Toyota.

Could this be a wisp of altruism in the ultra-competitive automobile business?

Stay tuned.