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Smart cars to reduce road accidents

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Subido el 25 de julio de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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Road accidents kill over 40 000 of people in the European Union every year and injure nearly 2 million at a cost of about ¯160 billion to society. Casualty numbers may be on their way down, but they still remain fairly high. To increase road safety and reduce the number of accidents on European roads the European Commission launched the eSafety initiative in 2003.

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Every year, the Bibendum Challenge brings cars of the future together in a series of 00:00:00
races. 00:00:06
It's a lot of fun, but it's also a chance to compare new technologies. 00:00:07
Some of the vehicles doing battle in the French capital Paris this year are prototypes equipped 00:00:12
with highly sophisticated technology that could save many, many lives. 00:00:16
With an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road, the need to make them safer is 00:00:21
more and more apparent. 00:00:25
Around 50,000 people are killed in the European Union every year, a number that Brussels wants 00:00:29
to halve by 2010 with the help of new technology. 00:00:34
It's drivers like Frederic Blanc that new safety features will help in particular. 00:00:42
The Frenchman's still haunted by a serious accident he had two years ago. 00:00:46
I was driving at 80 kilometers per hour. 00:00:56
There was ice on the road and the car started to skid. 00:00:58
I lost control and the only thing that I could do was to close my eyes and wait for the car 00:01:01
to stop. 00:01:05
Fortunately, a safety belt and airbag saved Frederic from any serious injury. 00:01:08
But in the future, it's hoped technology will be able to help prevent such accidents happening 00:01:22
at all. 00:01:27
Distance and parking sensors already feature in many modern cars and lorries to assist 00:01:28
the driver. 00:01:32
Researchers now want to make the vehicle itself more intelligent and aware of what's happening 00:01:37
around it, explains Maxime Flaman from the Car Industry Association, ERTECO, in Brussels. 00:01:42
They have to understand that there is a critical situation. 00:01:50
They have to perceive their environment. 00:01:54
They have to interact with the driver. 00:01:57
And they have to see, okay, the driver is in a dangerous situation and I should act, 00:02:01
I should brake, for example, or I should try to avoid the accident. 00:02:07
On this safety track at the French Automobile Club in southern France, drivers like Frederic 00:02:13
are learning how just a little more speed increases braking distances enormously. 00:02:18
Safety braking aids have been developed by some car makers, but they're still suffering 00:02:23
from teething problems. 00:02:27
Different sensor systems work either with radars or normally invisible lasers to scan 00:02:29
the environment. 00:02:33
But with the European Commission's PREVENT project, researchers are trying to develop 00:02:34
systems that could be incorporated by all manufacturers. 00:02:38
The project allows us to try out new technologies that car manufacturers would not necessarily 00:02:45
develop. 00:02:50
But PREVENT also gives us the opportunity to work together to test systems that would 00:02:51
not work on their own. 00:02:56
Together with Flaman in Brussels, German telematics expert Matthias Schulze is coordinating a 00:03:05
number of different projects in a Europe-wide network of developers, including the car industry 00:03:10
and research institutes. 00:03:14
In Athens, Angelos Amditis and his team are working on smarter software programs that 00:03:17
could improve the performance of safety systems, like automatic braking or lane-keeping assistance. 00:03:21
Key to all this is enabling the car to understand what's going on around it and react in the 00:03:28
right way, like warning the driver in case of a dangerous situation. 00:03:33
So Amditis and his team of engineers are developing sophisticated software to teach the car to 00:03:37
recognize its environment. 00:03:42
They are changing their position very fast. 00:03:44
So if you are in a local area where you have a number of different cars, changing directions, 00:03:48
changing positions, having different speeds, then you need to have a way to localize these 00:03:55
cars in a very accurate way, very fast. 00:04:00
And then you need to have ways to create what we call local dynamic networks between different 00:04:04
cars in order to be able to achieve this communication. 00:04:09
This is what Angelos Amditis and his team are trying to achieve. 00:04:14
When one car comes across a hazard, such as icy roads, it will be able to pass this information 00:04:18
on to other vehicles in the area in order to warn them. 00:04:23
In these local dynamic networks, cars and lorries will also recognize construction sites 00:04:33
or other obstacles and communicate them wirelessly to other cars. 00:04:37
The aim is that eventually the elements of these systems will interact intelligently 00:04:42
with each other, whatever make of car you're driving. 00:04:45
All these elements allow the creation of common solutions for the future and common platforms, 00:04:52
which in turn allow reduction of costs and creating all this critical mass that is needed, 00:05:04
both in developing these new solutions, but also in supporting their penetration to society. 00:05:11
Amditis is optimistic that his vision will become reality in the not-too-distant future. 00:05:19
His hometown Athens has experienced a traffic revolution in the past few years with major 00:05:24
investment. 00:05:28
This has turned round a city that was once notorious for its smog and traffic chaos. 00:05:30
And in the future, more intelligent systems will help to save more lives in Europe and 00:05:34
worldwide. 00:05:38
What you need in this area, you need really new, advanced human-machine interaction systems 00:05:39
as we call them, which are capable of managing all this information and decide when, which 00:05:46
information and how this information can be presented to the driver. 00:05:54
Unlike existing dumb electronic systems that sometimes annoy and distract drivers, the 00:06:00
virtual co-drivers of the future will only intervene in case of a possible danger. 00:06:05
But such human-machine interaction requires highly sophisticated technology. 00:06:12
Night vision, for example, is nothing new, but in regular vehicles it only makes sense 00:06:20
when the electronic assistant works intelligently in the background. 00:06:24
It should only interact with the driver when the situation appears to be getting out of 00:06:29
control, like when vigilance devices warn drowsy drivers of their tiredness. 00:06:32
The system needs to be designed in a way so the driver does not feel incapacitated. 00:06:48
Ideally, he or she should not even be aware of it working in the background. 00:06:53
In the meantime, Frederic will have to make do with improving his skills within the safety 00:07:02
of the automobile club. 00:07:06
What counts most is to be a good driver and to react correctly to whatever situation on 00:07:12
every journey, not only here on the track but when driving to work or going on holiday. 00:07:17
And that's vital. 00:07:26
Even when the current technology is under development, make it off the test track and 00:07:27
onto real roads, good driving skills will still be the most important factor in making 00:07:31
it safer. 00:07:36
It's just that soon we should all get a little extra help along the way. 00:07:37
For more UN videos visit www.un.org 00:07:47
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Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
      • Nivel Intermedio
Autor/es:
The European Union
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
1551
Fecha:
25 de julio de 2007 - 13:11
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
European Commission
Duración:
07′ 47″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
448x336 píxeles
Tamaño:
39.24 MBytes

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