In 2020 Humans Shouldn’t Drive

IBM has just completed a report entitle “Automotive 2020: Clarity beyond the chaos.” The report details the widespread changes the automotive industry is expected to go through during the next twelve years, and how automakers can position themselves for success. Along with the sophistication of the consumer and the need to reach for expertise outside the industry, the report also goes into the progress of the intelligent vehicle:

The vehicle of 2020 will be a communications wonder. As another node on the Internet, it will connect with other vehicles (V2V connectivity), the transportation infrastructure (V2I) and to homes, businesses and other sources (V2x).

Road detection, self-repair, speech recognition, traffic regulation, age-focused assistance, autonomous parking, route optimization and more are explored as the researchers focus on safety, driver assistance, and service. They estimate that by 2020 all vehicles will have some level of connectivity, however the rate of progress depends a lot on the adoption of industry-wide standards. They ultimately predict that although we will not see a fully autonomous vehicle by 2020, we will be well on our way to achieving that vision.

Nissans Shouldn’t Collide

From right-to-left, how the Side Collision Prevention system works.

Nissan has unveiled two new technologies to help drivers avoid collisions and details them in the “NISSAN PREVIEWS ALL-AROUND ‘COLLISION FREE’ PROTOTYPE” press release. The two new systems are Side Collision Prevention (SCP) and Back-up Collision Prevention (BCP) which incorporate the Distance Control Assist (DCA) and Lane Departure Prevention (LDP) systems when a driver attempts to change lanes or back out of a parking space. Both use sensors and drive-by-wire to prevent acccidents. Here’s a description of how the Back-up Collision Prevention will work:

During a reversing maneuver, rear and side-mounted sensors detect objects in the path of the vehicle. If an object is detected an alarm sounds followed by the activation of the brakes, to help avoid a collision in situations such as when a vehicle is backing out of a parking space.

The press release gives no information about when these technologies will be available or what cars will have them, but hopefully they will be helping make our roads safer soon.