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Oh deer, watch out! – Volvo developing system to avoid collision with wild animals

June 10, 2011 at 5:35 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, International News, Technology, Volvo

More news on the collision avoidance assistance front, but this time, it has to do with animals – Volvo is developing a system that alerts and automatically brakes for animals on the road.

With thousands of motorists across the globe killed in accidents caused by collisions with wild animals each year, the aim of the project is to develop a safety system that reduces the risk of collisions with said wild animals. The new system is based on technologies from Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake and will be launched on the market in a few years’ time, Volvo says.

The system consists of two parts – a radar sensor and an infra-red camera that can register the traffic situation. The camera monitors the road ahead and if an animal is within range the system alerts the driver with an audible signal. If the driver doesn’t react, the brakes are automatically applied.

As the majority of accidents with animals occur at dusk or after nightfall, it’s essential for the system to function in the dark. The goal, of course, is for the system to function at the normal rural highway speeds, as opposed to the current pedestrian detection system which operates at low speeds, specifically for city usage.

The challenge being faced by the engineers is how to ‘teach’ the system to recognise different animals. A development team from Volvo spent time at a safari park digitally logging film sequences of animals and their various behavioral patterns, focusing on moose, red deer and fallow deer. By driving very slowly along a trail where fodder had been laid out to attract the animals, data was recorded and this will be used to evaluate and develop the sensor system.

In the first stage, the system will respond to large animals that risk injuring the driver or passengers in an impact, such as moose, deer and reindeer. There’s good reason for going with the trio – in Sweden alone, more than 47,000 accidents involving wild animals took place in 2010, 7,000 of them with moose.

The company says that the greatest danger is from collisions with a moose, or Eurasian elk, if you prefer. In an impact with an Alces alces, there’s a relatively high risk of personal injury, since it’s common for the animal to end up on or roll across the front of the car and its windscreen.

The project has been under way for just over a year, though a lot of work still remains to be done. Various technologies are currently being evaluated and software is being developed. And while the system “learns” to recognise various animals, development is also under way on the necessary decision-making mechanisms, which is how and when the protective system is activated to respond.

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Ford seeking globally harmonised communications standards for advanced wireless systems

June 10, 2011 at 5:08 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, Ford, International News, Technology

Ford is working with automakers and safety leaders globally on a standardised platform for advanced wireless systems that can allow vehicles to “talk” to each other – based on a common communication standard – to reduce crashes and congestion.

Intelligent vehicles potentially could help in preventing 81% of all police-reported light-vehicle target crashes involving unimpaired drivers, according to a US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report.

The company says that global vehicle manufacturers need harmonised standards while the technology is being researched and developed, or the industry could end up with a variety of standards and vehicles that cannot talk to each other from region to region. It adds that failure to develop these globally harmonised standards would delay deployment, decrease reliability and unnecessarily increase costs.

Ford’s researchers are already developing advanced crash avoidance systems that use GPS technologies and advanced Wi-Fi signals, or dedicated short-range communications, on a secured channel allocated by the Federal Communications Commission. The essence is to create intelligent vehicles that communicate with each other in traffic and help drivers avoid or mitigate crashes.

In Germany, the company is collaborating on a wireless research project with other automakers and the government in an effort to address congestion-related traffic safety issues. The Safe and Intelligent Mobility-Test Field Germany research project, which runs through 2012, is a 400-vehicle field test to evaluate feasibility and scalability of wireless systems in the real world.

The Wi-Fi-based radio system allows full-range, 360-degree detection of potentially dangerous situations, such as when a driver’s vision is obstructed. For example, drivers could be alerted if their vehicle is on path to collide with another vehicle at an intersection, when a vehicle ahead stops or slows suddenly or when a traffic pattern changes on a busy highway. The systems could also warn drivers if there is a risk of collision when changing lanes, approaching a stationary or parked vehicle, or if another driver loses control.

Over in the US, meanwhile, it’s contributing two prototype Ford Taurus sedans for a series of clinics slated for later this year. The research will be conducted by a coalition of automakers organised by the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP), a joint research group founded by Ford and General Motors which is working to develop inter-operability standards in advance of completing the research phase in 2013.

By reducing crashes, intelligent vehicles could ease traffic delays, which would save drivers both time and fuel costs. Congestion also could be avoided through a network of intelligent vehicles and infrastructure that would process real-time traffic and road information and allow drivers to choose less congested routes.

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In the future, cars to be a power source for the home?

June 8, 2011 at 12:51 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under Hybrids and Alternative Fuel, International News, Technology

Over in Japan, automakers are looking at turning electric and hybrid vehicles into external power sources for the home, aiming to turn them into a type of rolling battery, the Nikkei reports. The push has been strengthened by such assistance provided by these green cars, which helped supply emergency power in areas during the March earthquake that hit Japan, the report says.

Nissan says that electric vehicles can be used as storage batteries and supplementary power sources, and the company is working to equip its Leaf EV with the ability to feed power into homes. The car can for example be used as an emergency power source during a power outage, utilising the electricity stored in its battery overnight to be used in the house during the day. Fully charged, the Leaf’s 24 kwh lithium-ion battery can power the average house for about two days.

Mitsubishi Motors, meanwhile, plans to market an optional device that will enable its EVs to supply electricity to rice cookers and other home appliances. It plans to make the device compatible with all its eco-friendly vehicles, including the i-MiEV and eight new EV and plug-in hybrids it is planning to introduce over the next five years.

And Toyota is mulling over the inclusion of a power supply function on its future eco cars, including the Prius hybrid and the upcoming plug-in hybrid it is launching next year. Conversely, there’s already a home battery system – the Smart Energy Veus – that can be used to power a Prius, with some conversion work.

Elsewhere, Honda and the city of Saitama have embarked on the E-KIZUNA Project, and as part of this will construct a house to test its Honda Smart Home System, which will feature electricity generated from solar panels, storing the power in an EV and using it in combination with electricity supplied off the grid. It will also explore the system’s potential to independently produce electricity for the household in the event of a disaster.

There’s still a fair way to go before such practice becomes the norm – utilising electricity from EVs and hybrids to power homes will require utilities to modify their power lines, and new legislation concerning electrical equipment will also be required.

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Volvo Flywheel KERS system – significant performance gains, with up to 20% less fuel consumption

June 1, 2011 at 2:09 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, International News, Technology, Volvo


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Volvo is set to test a new system called Flywheel KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which it claims will make a four-cylinder engine feel like a six-cylinder and at the same time reduce fuel consumption by up to 20%. The company has received a 6.57 million Swedish kronor grant from the Swedish Energy Agency for development, in a joint project together with Volvo Powertrain and SKF.

The Flywheel KERS is fitted to the rear axle – during retardation, the braking energy causes the flywheel to spin at up to 60,000 revs per minute, and when the car starts moving off again, the flywheel’s rotation is transferred to the rear wheels via a specially designed transmission.

The combustion engine that drives the front wheels is switched off as soon as the braking begins – the energy in the flywheel can be used to accelerate the vehicle or to power the vehicle once it reaches cruising speed.

The flywheel’s stored energy is sufficient to power the car for short periods. How it will have a major impact on fuel consumption is this: based on calculations, the combustion engine will be able to be turned off about half the time when driving in a New European Driving Cycle mode.

Since the flywheel is activated by braking, and the duration of the energy storage (the length of time the flywheel spins) is limited, the technology is at its most effective during driving featuring repeated stops and starts, which means busy urban traffic.

Combining the flywheel’s energy with the combustion engine’s full capacity promises a significant boost in horsepower, and with swift torque build-up in attendance, this translates into rapid acceleration.

The flywheel – which spins in a vacuum to minimise frictional losses – that Volvo will use in its test car is made of carbon fibre, and weighs about 6 kg with a diameter of 20 cm. It’s not the first time flywheel propulsion assistance has been tested by the company – a Volvo 240 also did so back in the 1980s, but the heavy steel-based flywheel wasn’t very efficient.

Volvo also isn’t the first manufacturer to test flywheel technology, but it is in applying it to the rear axle of a car fitted with a combustion engine driving the front wheels. If the tests and technical development go as planned, expect cars with flywheel technology to reach the showrooms within a few years, the company says.

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Ford develops heart rate monitoring car seat

May 26, 2011 at 12:17 am By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, Ford, International News, Technology

Ford has come up with a prototype vehicle seat that can monitor a driver’s heart activity, a device that could one day reduce the number of accidents and fatalities that occur as a result of motorists having heart attacks behind the wheel.

A joint development between Ford’s European Research Centre in Aachen, Germany, and Aachen University’s Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule, which developed the contactless ECG technology, the prototype seat utilises ECG (electrocardiograph) technology that monitors the heart’s electrical impulses and detects signs of irregularity, working very much like an early warning system.

Whereas a normal ECG machine in a clinic requires metal electrodes to be attached to the skin at various points on the body, the Ford ECG seat has six built-in sensors that can detect heart activity through the driver’s clothing. Specially designed capacitive electrodes feed the body’s electrical heart impulses through complicated electronics to make the heart monitoring possible.

The system will be able to detect if someone is having a cardiovascular issue, for example a heart attack, and could also be used to detect the symptoms of other conditions such as high blood pressure or electrolyte imbalances.

In early tests, the Ford heart monitoring seat has recorded accurate readings during 98% of driving time for 95% of drivers. Ford’s research engineers are continuing to study how sensors can be made to record signals through a greater number of materials, including those that interrupt readings with their own electrical activity.

The company is also testing the prototype seat to understand how it could work with other advanced systems within Ford vehicles to warn a driver to pull over and seek medical attention, or possibly even send out an alert to emergency medical workers, if necessary.


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The mobile phone could play a key role as an interface for any future application of the technology. Connected to a system such as Ford SYNC with MyFord Touch, the Ford heart rate monitoring seat potentially could use the driver’s mobile phone to send a message to medical centres, alerting doctors to irregular heart activity. The seat could also be linked to SYNC’s Emergency Assistance function to inform emergency response teams of the driver’s heart condition before, during and after an accident.

Ford is exploring how advanced safety technologies such as Lane Departure Warning with Lane Keeping Aid, Active City Stop and Speed Limiter could work together with the heart rate monitoring seat to help protect drivers in cases where they experience heart problems.

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Toyota Friend – an in-car private social network

May 26, 2011 at 12:09 am By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, International News, Technology, Toyota

Toyota has announced that it will be introducing Toyota Friend, a private social network for Toyota customers and their cars. Essentially, the in-car system will offer Toyota users the means to connect with their cars, their dealership, and with Toyota itself, through Salesforce Chatter, a private social network thus far used by businesses.

The service, which is jointly developed by Toyota and San Francisco-based cloud computing provider Salesforce, will first be offered in Japan, initially with the company’s range of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles – which includes the new Prius PHV – due out next year. At some point in the future, the company will consider deploying the system in other global markets.

Aside from being a private social network, where customers can choose to extend their communication to family, friends, and others through public social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the onboard telematics system will be able to provide a variety of product and vehicle maintenance-related information.

For example, if an EV or PHV is running low on battery power, Toyota Friend will be able to notify the driver to recharge the vehicle in the form of a “tweet”-like instant message alert. The service can also help plan suitable off-peak vehicle charging times to ease demands on the electricity grid, with users able to carry out the recharging remotely via phone or PC, the company added.

Likewise for vehicle maintenance – the system can send automatic messages from the car to the driver to alert on possible problems or anomalies, and the driver can schedule a service appointment remotely via a link to the service centre. Users will be able to access the real-time service via smart phones, tablet PCs and other advanced mobile gadgets.

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Shell develops 0W-10 viscosity concept lubricant

May 25, 2011 at 4:43 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under International News, Technology

Some developments on the lubrication front. It isn’t due out in the market anytime soon, but it does show how going thin can achieve better fuel consumption.

It’s a 0W-10 ultra low viscosity concept engine lubricant developed by Shell, in collaboration with Gordon Murray Design, and in field use has shown up to a 6.5% improvement in fuel efficiency, a very tangible step up from the usual 2.5% gained in typical fuel economy lubricant development programmes.

GMD’s T.25 city car provided the test bed for the concept oil, which obtained the 6.5% urban cycle figure based on repeated testing with NEDC-based parameters at an independent laboratory in a series of chassis dynamometer tests – in a combined cycle, testing yielded a 4.6% improvement. The concept lubricant was pitted against a a typical European midtier product, a 10W-30 weight oil.

In field use, the T.25 – utilising the 0W-10 oil – won the award for the most economic small, passenger internal-combustion engine vehicle in the RAC Future Car Challenge last year, achieving 96 mpg in the process.

Not that it’s all just all to do with passenger cars, the being more efficient bit. In the area of commercial transportation, the benefits from better lube are evident too. In a field test very recently, nine identical trucks were monitored over 55,000 km, with four using Shell Rimula R6 LME and five, a 10W-40 reference.

The company says that the trucks running on its Rimula R6 LME obtained a 2% reduction in fuel consumption, which works out to an equivalent of over 1,000 litres of fuel per truck per year.

With changes in legislation and new emission standards afoot, improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions isn’t just something to be left just to automakers. Granted, a 0W-10 viscosity oil isn’t likely be for every vehicle when it arrives, and arguably not here what with our climate conditions, but it does showcase how you can lean out things and squeeze out more, as would be the case.

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TRW develops roof-mounted airbag – to be seen in offerings by a major European automaker

May 25, 2011 at 11:07 am By Anthony Lim Filed Under International News, Technology

TRW Automotive has unveiled a new ‘bag in roof’ airbag system, which it says can replace dashboard-mounted airbags rather effectively. While continuing to afford high levels of protection to passengers, the roof-mounted system frees up deployment space in the dash, allowing for automotive interior designers to offer improved interior design aesthetics and better ergonomics.

The US-based automotive supplier says that the new design concept enhances development efficiency – by eliminating the need to package a passenger airbag in the instrument panel, its ‘bag in roof’ design can significantly reduce the development costs of the dashboard, since there’s no need to develop a specific ‘door’ which opens with the airbag deployment.

Functionally compatible with a wide range of vehicle architectures, the airbag unit comprises a cushion and a gas generator, which supplies the gas to the cushion in the event of an impact. TRW says the product offers easy assembly, with opportunities for standardisation, since some of the components are common to all applications.

The system has been worked on for several years, and in close collaboration in the last two with a major European automaker, which has now awarded a significant production contract to TRW for the system. Wonder which company that might be?

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SafetyRec iPhone app – helping drivers drive better

May 24, 2011 at 12:49 pm By Anthony Lim Filed Under International News, Technology

In Japan, the Nikkei reports that Datatec Co, a company that develops delivery truck driving-log recorders, is starting a new Internet-based service in July called SafetyRec, which scores a person’s driving skills based on data collected from an application running via an iPhone.

The application is downloaded – for a small sum of 600 yen – to the driver’s iPhone, which will then need to be positioned in much the same manner as a GPS unit, located somewhere along the dashboard or on the windscreen.

The application draws on the phone’s camera, accelerometer and GPS features to collect data 10 times a second. Five areas – acceleration, braking, stopping, turning and swerving – each have a 20 point scoring system, adding up to a total scale of 100.

The scores are displayed on the device, but can also be uploaded to a special website where they can be recorded, which will allow drivers to see how their scores change over time.

Additionally, photos taken every minute can be recorded to the website, providing a log of each driver’s activities. In the event of an accident, a video record of the two to 10 seconds surrounding the event can be stored for investigation purposes later. The web-based service can also be used by companies to encourage workers to hone their safe-driving and fuel-saving techniques.

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International Engine of the Year awards – Fiat bags top prize

May 20, 2011 at 11:49 am By Anthony Lim Filed Under Cars, International News, Technology

The recently concluded 2011 edition of the International Engine of the Year awards saw Fiat bagging the overall engine of the year gong with its 875cc TwinAir two-cylinder turbocharged engine.

The international jury of 76 motoring journalists from 36 countries placed the Fiat mill ahead of the Volkswagen 1.4 litre TSI Twincharger, and finishing a distance behind in third was Ferrari’s 4.5 litre V8 block as seen in the 458 Italia.

The 85 hp/150 Nm TwinAir also took the honours in the sub-1.0 litre category, ending Toyota’s four-year dominance in this area, and it also picked up the Best New Engine of the Year and Green Engine of the Year titles to make it four award wins. With a normally-aspirated 65 hp and a tuned-up 105 hp derivative to follow shortly, you can expect it’s not the last time you’ll see the Fiat block winning things.

VW did however pick up the gong in the 1.0 to 1.4 litre category with the 1.4 TSI Twincharger, which took the title for best engine in the category for the sixth consecutive year.

In the 1.4 to 1.8 litre segment, BMW’s 1.6 litre turbocharged engine – a further intepretation of the Prince engine, with fully variable valve management incorporated – finished top of the heap, and in the 1.8 to 2.0 litre class, it was another BMW mill, the 204 hp 2.0 litre TwinPower Turbo diesel, that took the top prize.

Audi’s 2.5 litre five-cylinder turbo, as seen in the likes of the RS3 and TT RS, walked away with the 2.0 to 2.5 litre title in hugely convincing fashion, while BMW did so in the same manner in the 2.5 litre to 3.0 litre category, with its 3.0 litre DI twin-turbo unit finishing well ahead of the competition.

Making it four class wins for BMW was its 4.0 litre V8, the unit in the M3, which has been the title holder in the 3.0 litre to 4.0 litre category since 2008, and rounding off the winners was Ferrari’s 4.5 litre V8, which the 458 Italia wears, in the above 4.0 litre segment. It finished ahead of last year’s winner, the Mercedes-AMG 6.2 litre V8.

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