The safest and most practical technology

In the industrial era, there are two perspectives on technology. One is forward-looking, and the other is devoted to the future. For example, Google began experimenting with driverless cars. Honda's Queen Robot Asimo demonstrated that Honda has more advanced technologies than those of today's cars; the other is practical, focusing on the present, how to industrialize laboratory technologies and Entering millions of households and further improving the technology that has been used will often require the efforts of several generations of automotive engineers.

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. demonstrated its new technologies in practical areas in a way closer to life at the 2011 Nissan Technical Conference.

"Zero accident", the ultimate safety "turbocharged with dual-clutch transmission, this combination is new enough, which means that its stability is yet to be verified. I value practicality, feel that mature technology is worth buying." Early 2011, When the public’s “new technology” offensive was the fiercest, Yan Ziming, an electrical engineer in Zhuhai, stated this view.

At that time, the author had intense discussions with him about whether there was a conflict between new technology and practicality, and whether emphasizing practicality meant not promoting the development of new technologies. In the automotive field, where is the performance of pragmatism? At the time, we did not reach a conclusion.

All along, German cars have appeared in front of Chinese consumers as advanced technology advocates. Japanese Honda is also happy to show off its top technology. The purely electric bicycles at the Volkswagen booth at the 2011 Shanghai Auto Show and the future personal transportation terminal at Honda at the Guangzhou Auto Show are all highly futuristic technological products. They are dazzling, cool, just out of the pavilion. How close are they to my life?

For example, engineers can still do nothing about traffic accidents. The machine is dead, people are sentimental, emotional, and have different manifestations as fate fluctuates. But it is precisely from the day the vehicle was generated that traffic accidents have already followed suit. From automobiles, trains to airplanes, accidents have occurred in the use of any vehicle. One hundred years after the birth of the car, traffic accidents caused by automobiles have become the 10th leading cause of death in humans. An average of 1.2 million people in the world are killed each year in auto accidents, and more than 90% of them occur in emerging countries where the number of motor vehicles has increased dramatically.

Consumers' most intuitive understanding of car safety is often whether the car body is firm in the event of an accidental collision, which is what people often call "failure." It is also based on this understanding that SUV models are safer than cars. However, real car safety, in addition to ensuring the safety of occupants at the time of a collision, also includes minimizing accidents.

"Zero accident" is an absolute ideal value in the transportation industry. Nissan Motors, one of the Japanese automakers, put forward the slogan "Challenge to traffic accidents." Its goal is to reduce the number of accidental deaths and serious injuries involving Nissan vehicles by 2015 through the development and application of related technologies. Half of 1995. The ultimate goal of the plan is “zero accidents” and the driving force behind Nissan’s advancement toward “zero accidents” is the technology developed by Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. that is constantly developing “Car Guardian” technology and “Helping you stay away from danger”.

Nissan’s slogan “Car Guardian” is its core concept in automotive safety. Under this philosophy, Nissan proposed the concept of "security barrier." The aim is to continuously develop and perfect new safety technologies so that Nissan products can take into consideration the various conditions of the car from the “potentially hazardous” state when the vehicle is stalled to “after collision”. Risk factors enable the most effective barrier protection and ultimately drive the driver away from danger or minimize damage.

There is a truck and a car on the road. No matter which angle they collide with, people do not feel safe to sit in a car rather than sitting in a truck. But why can't the car bypass the truck? In the same environment and conditions, cars have a greater ability to avoid collisions as long as there is sufficient time and pre-judgment. Nissan’s “safety barrier” allows drivers to anticipate the occurrence of danger as early as possible, thereby enhancing the driver’s ability to actively avoid danger.

Safety comes from the details At the test site of the Nissan Technical Briefing, there was a test project that required the driver to face a wall and hit the gas pedal against the wall. After the driver depresses the accelerator, the vehicle is not accelerating and the warning light on the dashboard of the car lights up, and the warning tone sounds. The final vehicle stopped completely at about 5 cm in front of the wall. This is Nissan's "accidental pedal acceleration suppression system" developed for misplacing the throttle.

Japan has a limited land area and the parking lot in the city also adopts a floor structure. It is relatively common to park a car upstairs. The problem with this kind of car park is that once the wrong conditions occur in the parking lot and the throttle is used as a brake, the consequences will be serious. Currently in Japan, more than 7,000 accidents are caused by mistakenly pressing the brakes and accelerator pedals each year, resulting in more than 10,000 casualties. Occurrence of misoperation in the low-speed stoppages accounted for the largest proportion, accounting for more than 60% of all such accidents. There are many examples of Japanese older people driving. When they go shopping in supermarkets, there is a parking lot on the second floor where they step on the accelerator to cause the car to rush out of the building.

In response to this, Nissan has developed a "accidental pedal acceleration suppression system." This system acquires image signal data through four sets of cameras in the panoramic surveillance video system to identify whether the vehicle is on the road or in the parking lot. During the parking process, the vehicle will alert the driver based on the obstacle distance acquired by the radar. If during this process, the obstacle is too close and the driver steps on the wrong pedal, the trip computer will suppress the accelerator pedal command. If necessary, the trip computer will automatically brake the vehicle to avoid or reduce the impact.

There is no doubt that this system is very useful for novices, especially newcomers with parking stress. This technology will be applied to Nissan's mid-to-high-end models within two years.

In addition to having a safety assist system while parking, Nissan also noticed that some rear-end accidents caused by the sudden deceleration of the front vehicle or another car in front of it after high-speed driving. When driving normally, the driver can only observe the first car in front of the driver with naked eyes, and Nissan made the idea of ​​“putting the safety technology line forward”.

The radar in front of the vehicle detects the driving conditions of the two vehicles in the front within 150 meters. If the front-distance vehicle has an unexpected situation and may cause a rear-end collision, the system can warn the driver by prompting and tightening the seat belt so that the driver can have sufficient time to brake the vehicle, thereby avoiding continuous The danger caused by the rear-end. The system was named "frontal collision warning system."

In "Not bad money", Xiao Shenyang and Zhao Benshan made some wonderful remarks on "what is the most painful thing in life" and it seems to apply in the automotive field. Good technology should make the car run faster. The best technology is to make the car safer.