Volvo’s future safety tech

Volvo has long been recognized as one of the leaders in automotive safety technology, and this is a reputation its likely to keep thanks to a raft of new technologies the carmaker will be rolling out in coming years. Collision warning with automatic braking for pedestrians, collision avoidance by automatic steering, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication are three concepts currently in development by Volvo.

The collision warning with automatic braking system uses radar technology with a wide-angle search area to detect objects in front of and around the car and brake if it predicts an accident will occur. Before the system allows a computer to take control, it will alert the driver using a warning signal and sound.

Collision avoidance by automatic steering uses a camera to monitor the car’s position between lane markers. If a car wanders across any of the lane markers without using the indicator, the driver is warned by an audible signal. The system also detects if the car has moved into the oncoming lane and can automatically steer itself back to a safe position in the original lane.

The final system is the vehicle-to-vehicle communication set-up, which can receive information on other cars further up the road or around blind corners.

Sadly, the trend of carmakers installing systems that take control away from drivers is on the rise and it’s only a matter of time until one of those controls will limit the speed at which a car can travel or the rate of acceleration it can move at.