Volvo gives truck drivers all-around visibility

Volvo Trucks has developed new technology specifically to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The technology, developed in a research project called Non-Hit Car and Truck in cooperation with Volvo Cars. Volvo Trucks’ research shows that limited visibility is one of the main causes of heavy truck accidents with vulnerable road users in Europe. It claims its new technology enables a vehicle to do a 360 degree scan of everything that happens around it, receiving information via sensors, radars and cameras
October 8, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
5874 Volvo Trucks has developed new technology specifically to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The technology, developed in a research project called Non-Hit Car and Truck in cooperation with 7192 Volvo Cars.

Volvo Trucks’ research shows that limited visibility is one of the main causes of heavy truck accidents with vulnerable road users in Europe.

It claims its new technology enables a vehicle to do a 360 degree scan of everything that happens around it, receiving information via sensors, radars and cameras placed around the vehicle. This enables the vehicle to interpret its environment and feed information to the driver on how to avoid accidents. If the driver does not respond to the suggested actions, the steering or braking system can be activated autonomously.

“Today’s Volvo trucks are designed to eliminate any vehicle blind spots. But in situations with heavy traffic it is easy for a driver to miss something important such as an approaching cyclist on the vehicle’s passenger side. Now we can solve this issue and help the driver see and understand everything that is happening around the vehicle”, says Carl Johan Almqvist, Volvo Trucks’ Traffic and Product Safety director.

More testing is required, but Volvo hopes to make it a reality in five to ten years.

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • TRA 2018: Vienna conference highlights
    June 5, 2018
    Digitalisation of transport systems, the regulation of new technologies and more charging points for electric vehicles in cities were among the talking points at this year’s Transport Research Arena conference. Alan Dron sifts through the highlights in Vienna. More than 3,000 transport sector specialists converged on TRA 2018, where the four-day event’s agenda included scores of topics covering regulation, technology and the effect of the digitalisation of road transport systems. Who should control those
    Read More
  • Vulnerable road users face safety problems
    May 18, 2012
    Concern is growing in Europe over the safety standards for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and powered two wheeler riders. A total of 169,000 pedestrians, cyclists and users of powered two-wheeled vehicles (PTW) have been killed on European roads since 2001; 15,300 of them in 2009. The figures have been published in the new Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) report and reveal a decrease in the number of deaths by 34% for pedestrians and cyclists, and just 18% for PTW riders compared to
    Read More
  • Autonomous vehicles – saviour and threat, says report
    November 1, 2016
    A new report from IDTechEx Research notes that autonomous vehicles need no pilot, not even one in reserve. Many truly autonomous vehicles are unmanned mobile robots prowling everywhere from the ocean depths to nuclear power stations, the upper atmosphere and outer space. They create billion dollar businesses such as aircraft and airships aloft for five to ten years on sunshine alone carrying out surveillance or beaming the internet to the 4.5 billion people who lack it. Independence of energy and electri
    Read More
  • Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    January 31, 2012
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.
    Read More

Highlighted Content