Toyota announces plans to launch anti-collision system and semi-autonomous cars by 2015

Close to 1.3 million people are killed around the world every year due to road mishaps. Despite different deterrents and road safety measures put into place by the authorities, the number is only swelling each year. Many automakers are spending billions of dollars into development of fully autonomous crash-less cars which promise to dramatically improve road safety. In a quick succession, quite a few companies demonstrated their technology and future plans including Nissan, Ford and Tesla. Though we are still a couple of years away from getting fully autonomous cars, but thanks to the impressive efforts by automakers, we might have semi-autonomous cars with advanced driver aid technology pretty soon.

Toyota recently unveiled its new pre-collision system with pedestrian-avoidance steering assist technology. The system has sensors that track cars, pedestrians and other possible obstacles in the path of the car, and on sensing a possible collision, it warns the driver with visual and aural alerts. If the driver fails to react it automatically slams the break, and if the car still fails to avert the danger, it can self-steer itself to safety. Toyota plans to commercially use the technology by 2015 in Japan.

The Japanese automaker also announced that it’s working on a next-generation advanced driving support system known as Automated Highway Driving Assist (AHDA). To reduce driver workload and make vehicular movement more efficient, the system is capable of vehicle-to-vehicle interaction to track its speed, acceleration, deceleration and other vital stats. It removes the need of radars which are prone to fail. By avoiding unnecessary acceleration and braking it not only makes the system as a whole more efficient but will also help decongest traffic. Toyota hopes to roll-out the AHDA system by mid of this decade.

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