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

  • Major European project for safer cycling
    November 8, 2016
    A major EU project is studying ways of facilitating the interaction between cyclists and motorists with the help of technical aids in order to reduce the risk of accidents. Project Xcycle, which involves researchers from six European countries, aims to find ways of achieving greater equality for cyclists in traffic, encouraging more cycling, and making travel by bicycle safer. The Swedish Road and National Transport Research Institute (VTI) is a major player in the project and are responsible for evaluating
    Read More
  • Data handling important for autonomous vehicles
    December 8, 2016
    Data handling is becoming an ever-greater part of transportation and never more so than with autonomous vehicles, as Andrew Bardin Williams hears from some big names.
    Read More
  • User based insurance is helping good drivers and identifying the bad ones
    November 28, 2013
    Thomas Hallauer gives an overview of Usage Based Insurance (UBI), an industry that is putting telematic devices into more vehicles than fleet management ever did. The insurance market is going through a transformation phase never seen before. Insurers have not only started to track individual cars for Usage Based Insurance (UBI), they are also using the technology to enhance consumer services as more drivers join up to these schemes. Progressive Insurance in the US has 1.4 million customers signed up to
    Read More
  • Is DSRC progressive enough for future connected mobility?
    February 3, 2012
    Dedicated Short Range Communications technology, says Cisco's Paul Brubaker, is not by itself progressive enough to sustain long-term innovation in the connected mobility environment - and yet IPv6 and other developments remain largely ignored by policy-makers
    Read More

Highlighted Content