Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and its Lexus Division have unveiled its advanced active safety research vehicle at the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Los Angeles which demonstrates ongoing efforts around automated vehicle safety technologies and outlines Toyota’s approach to reducing global traffic fatalities and injuries. The advanced active safety research vehicle is based on a Lexus LS and seeks to advance the industry towards a new era of integrated safety management technologies.

??Toyota works towards improving safety

Toyota’s guiding strategy is called the Integrated Safety Management Concept and incorporates a holistic vision which includes people, vehicles and the driving environment. The strategy is carried through the following five phases of operation.

Initial time the driver and car begin a journey from a parked positionActive safety systems designed to avoid a crashPre-crash aimed at preparing for a collisionPassive safety to help survive a crashRescue and response after a crash has occurred

Although the key components of this research could lead to a fully autonomous vehicle in the future, Toyota and Lexus envision technologies that enhance the skills of the driver, which is based on the belief that a more skillful driver is a safer driver.

“In our pursuit of developing more advanced automated technologies, we believe the driver must be fully engaged,” said Mark Templin, Toyota group vice president and general manger of the Lexus Division.”For Toyota and Lexus, a driverless car is just a part of the story. Our vision is a car equipped with an intelligent, always-attentive co-pilot whose skills contribute to safer driving.”

Advanced Active Safety Vehicle

The Lexus advanced active safety vehicle is fitted with an array of sensors and automated control systems used to observe, process and respond to the driving environment. Some of the technologies used includes GPS, stereo cameras, radar, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) laser tracking.

This technology is able to scan movements of objects, identify traffic light colours and can measure the trajectory of the vehicle on the road. The 360-degree LIDAR laser detects objects around the vehicle up to 70 metres away. Three colour cameras can detect objects more than 150 metres away. Radars are used to determine the location and speed of objects at intersections while a distance measurement indicator measures the travel distance and speed of the vehicle. An inertial measurements unit measures acceleration and angle changes to monitor vehicle behaviour and GPS antenna’s estimate angle and orientation even before the vehicle is in motion.

The advanced active safety vehicle serves as a platform for developing systems that will help enhance the driver’s perception of the driving environment as well in assisting in the decision making process while improving driving skills.

This initiative forms part of Toyota’s new research toward an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) which integrates the car with the driving environment. Toyota began operation at its 8.6 acre ITS proving ground in Japan in November 2012, which is modelled after a typical urban driving environment and incorporates the use of other vehicles, pedestrians and control devices.

“The real value of research projects like this is reinforcing our focus on what a few years ago seemed an impossible dream and is now becoming more plausible,” Templin said. “We, at TMC and Lexus, consider the elimination of traffic fatalities and injuries the ultimate goal of a society that values mobility.”