Volvo’s New Safety Technology Gives Truck Drivers 360 Degree Visibility

Volvo Trucks, subsidiary of AB Volvo, is developing a new technology specifically to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The automaker is working on a system which helps drivers to avoid wrecks, aiming to combat low visibility as one of the primary causes of fatal accidents.

Dubbed Non-Hit Car and Truck, this research project employs a suite of advanced active safety features. Volvo Trucks Traffic and Product Safety director Carl Johan Almqvist explains: “Our vision for traffic safety is to have no accidents involving Volvo trucks. This unique technology has taken us yet another step towards our vision and will hopefully save many lives in the future.”

Unprotected road users such as pedestrians and cyclists are especially vulnerable in urban areas where a lot of large vehicles move around. This project has resulted in a new technology which made it possible to enable a vehicle to see its complete surroundings and feed information to the driver on how to avoid accidents.

Smattering of sensors, radar and cameras are placed around the truck to boost safety. Once the data is collected, the system interprets the details to communicate warnings, and it can even take control of steering and braking if the driving doesn’t respond in time.

“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.” said Johan.

The Non-Hit Car and Truck research project of Volvo Trucks will also trickle to the passenger car division and represents one of the final steps toward realising Volvo’s vision that by 2020 no one should be killed or seriously injured in or by a new Volvo car.