Maybe we’re a little obsessed with the relentless pursuit of accident-free driving, but our engineers have introduced a host of in-vehicle intelligent active safety technologies that aim to help drivers avoid accidents.

Globally, we’ve expanded our efforts from developing "passive" vehicle safety systems (seat belts, airbags and crumple zones), which look to minimize post-crash driver and passenger injury, to include "active" vehicle safety systems that focus on pre-collision accident avoidance.

Blind-spot Safety

Despite large glass surfaces and effective door mirrors, a car's blind spot continues to present a challenge when changing lanes and overtaking. Volvo’s Blind Spot Information System has digital cameras in each of the door mirrors that take a continuous series of pictures while an onboard computer uses these images to determine if another vehicles is alongside. The system then illuminates orange warning lamps positioned near the front-door windshield pillars, providing a subtle warning of a nearby car.

Roll Stability Control

Among the first active safety technologies to be successfully shared globally is AdvanceTrac© with Roll Stability Control™ (RSC), Ford's industry-first electronic stability control system. The Ford-exclusive system measures the roll motion of a vehicle and then takes corrective action to help reduce the risk of rollover.

The introduction of RSC began with the launch of the Volvo XC90 and was aggressively migrated onto the Ford Explorer and our entire North American SUV lineup.

Auto Collision Warning Systems

Ford and Volvo researchers worked together to develop Collision Warning with Brake Support (CWBS). Launched on the 2007 Volvo S80, CWBS uses forward-looking radar to gauge an impending frontal crash. If a potential car collision is detected, a warning is first given via an audio alert and a Head-Up Display light "bar" reflected off of the front windshield. Then, the system augments the driver's braking by automatically applying additional brake pressure to further reduce the vehicle's speed.

With CWBS, the driver is always in control. If the driver is taking some type of evasive action, for instance if they want to accelerate, the collision warning system is not going to override. But if the driver is not taking sufficient braking action and the collision warning system detects an imminent threat of accident or collision, then it will begin decelerating the vehicle.

Lane Departure Warning System

New systems like Lane Departure Warning are being designed to help reduce car crashes caused when drivers are fatigued or distracted. This innovative safety system uses a camera in the rear-view mirror to continuously monitor the road and keep track of where the car is in relation to the lane markings. If the driver loses concentration and the wheels move outside the lane markings, a warning buzzer alerts the driver. Lane Departure Warning has been demonstrated on various concept vehicles, but is not yet available on production models.

Mazda Pre-crash Safety System

The Mazda Pre-crash Safety System is another example of a radar sensor mounted toward the front of a car to monitor the vehicle ahead, oncoming vehicles or other obstacles. In addition to a collision warning, if the driver fails to take an evasive action in the event of an impending car crash, the vehicle's brakes are applied automatically to help reduce speed ahead of a collision. In addition, the seat belts are pre-tensioned in an effort to restrain the occupants even more effectively.

New Vehicle Safety technologies on S-MAX and new Galaxy

Passive automotive safety has led to enormous improvements in occupant protection over the last few decades. Sadly there are still too many fatalities and serious injuries caused by traffic accidents. How can these numbers be reduced and how can Ford comply with the EU target of halving road fatalities by 2010? The next significant step towards meeting these goals is from active safety technologies such as the new driving safety system including Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with Forward Alert (FA) and Collision Mitigation by Braking (CMbB) introduced on the S-MAX and new Galaxy.

These driver safety aids are based on radar distance control technology. The common ACC and FA sensor scans the lane in front and detects vehicles driving ahead. The ACC system independently accelerates and decelerates the vehicle by engine or by brake, but is only able to adapt the car to the traffic flow since the braking power is limited to 0.3g. But what happens in a critical situation? Too often a driver approaches a traffic jam on a motorway but does not decelerate the car as he is not paying attention to the road. He might be distracted by fiddling with the radio or his mobile phone. In cases like this, whenever the distance to the car in front gets critically small, the Forward Alert system comes into play. First, it warns the driver acoustically with a chime and at the same time visually with an icon blinking in the cluster. As such, the driver gains valuable and sometimes even pivotal reaction time. However, if he still does not react within the next few milliseconds, the pressure of the brakes is pre-charged automatically so that in the event of braking, the driver gets the full brake power immediately. In the case of such emergency braking, the hazard lights are also activated automatically to alert other drivers.

Even if the collision is not completely avoided, the impact can be significantly reduced. Therefore, this active safety technology helps to reduce the overall number of accidents as well as the severity of incidents.

The ACC system, a comfort feature, automatically deactivates when the brake or clutch pedals are touched. ACC has a certain driving safety potential as it creates a steadier and more homogeneous traffic flow.

The Forward Alert System can also be deactivated by a button, whereas the brake pre-charge function is always in operation. With this system, the driver gets significant support in critical situations, but is still fully responsible for any incidents. This can be considered a first step towards the next generation of active safety systems: autonomous braking. However, the development and implementation of autonomous braking systems do not only require more advanced technical solutions but also an appropriate legal framework.