Automotive industry seeking electronic solutions to four main issues～From "Damage Reduction" to "Collision Avoidance" Qualitative evolution seen in automotive safety technology～

　A qualitative evolution has begun to take place in automotive safety technology. Thus far, safety technology has centered on "damage reduction," or lessening the damage in the event of a collision. But now "collision avoidance," or preventing collisions from occurring in the first place, will be taking center stage.

　"Collision avoidance" was until now considered the ultimate safety measure in some ways and was thus a longtime dream for automotive industry insiders. Examples of such measures include "Pre-Crash Safety" (PCS) systems that automatically control the brakes and steering in order to avoid a collision, and "Driver Assistance Systems" (DAS) that warn the driver of impending danger. And yet, there were concerns that if such systems were made to work too effectively, drivers would rely too heavily on the systems, or the systems would interfere with the maneuvers of skilled drivers. Consequently, efforts were focused solely on "post-crash safety," which is designed to minimize the impact to the driver by optimizing the vehicle's deformation and the scattering of parts in a collision, along with pre-crash safety that was limited to reducing damage in a collision.

Installation gradually underway in commercial vehicles and some luxury cars

　In light of this situation, the government is pushing forward with policies and measures that further the commercial application of Pre-Crash Safety systems, Driver Assistance Systems, and the like as a way to reduce the growing number of accidents. In Japan, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism amended the technical guidelines concerning automatic brakes in 2005, moving up the timing for the activation of automatic brakes from the previous 0.8 seconds before a collision to 1.4 seconds before one.

　Automotive manufacturers, too, have begun to speed up moves toward equipping vehicles with Pre-Crash Safety systems, Driver Assistance Systems, and the like, while taking care to avoid the danger of drivers relying too heavily on the systems or the systems interfering with the maneuvers of skilled drivers. Systems such as these can generally be classified into two types.

　One type provides driver assistance and pre-crash safety by equipping vehicles with multiple sensors, such as cameras that use CMOS or CCD image sensors. Specific examples of systems in this category include those that combine millimeter-wave radars with CMOS/CCD cameras to detect obstacles with great precision, and then issue a warning (a sound or vibration) and/or automatically control the brakes. Other systems employ an image recognition system that detects if the vehicle is about to cross outside of its lane, and then issues a warning and/or automatically controls the steering. Still others use a CMOS/CCD camera installed inside the vehicle to detect which way the driver's face is turned, and then issue a warning if he or she is looking away. Installation of autonomous systems like these is already beginning to take place, particularly in trucks and other commercial vehicles, where the demand for reducing accidents is high, and in certain luxury cars that can accommodate the cost increase associated with installing the systems.

　The other type of systems provides driver assistance and pre-crash safety based on information obtained from data communication with traffic infrastructure systems and between vehicles. Specifically, this includes systems that,?by way of a car navigation system, receive information from a traffic infrastructure system about traffic signals and regulations such as red lights and stop signs and issue a warning and/or automatically control the brakes, for example. There are also systems that use data communication between vehicles to detect the distance between vehicles or the vehicle's speed, and then issue a warning and/or automatically control the brakes. Verification experiments are underway on vehicle-infrastructure cooperation systems, and investigations are being made into a communication frequency band that is suitable for inter-vehicle communication systems to use.

Cooperation between automotive and electronics industries essential

　Cooperation among the automotive industry and the electronics and IT industries will likely be essential to bring about the practical application and widespread use of these types of systems. That is because under the present circumstances, many challenges exist in the aspects of cost, performance, and reliability, and resolving them will require harnessing and integrating the wisdom of both the automotive and electronics industries.

　For example, autonomous systems require equipping the vehicle with a large number of sensors, microcomputers, and actuators and enabling the communication of data signals among them. Some challenges that this presents include lowering the cost and optimizing the performance of these parts to the level desired by automotive manufacturers, as well as developing a commercially viable automotive LAN (CAN) that can handle the sharp increase in data signal communications.

　Looking forward, to achieve the full-scale spread of vehicle-infrastructure cooperation systems, a dedicated wireless broadband communication infrastructure for automobiles is likely to be necessary. And electronics manufacturers with experience in constructing large-scale communication networks and computer networks are likely to play a major role in such an infrastructure's development. Furthermore, when it comes to providing infrastructure and services related to automotive safety, the fact that human lives are at stake means that 100% reliability is demanded even under the harshest of conditions. Meanwhile, the demand for lowering costs is also extremely high due to the fact that automobiles are a consumer product. In order to overcome these kinds of high hurdles, cooperation between automotive manufacturers and electronics manufacturers is becoming indispensable.