Toyota ushers in next generation of cars with autopilot system

Toyota has rung in the next generation of cars, featuring an autopilot system that would swerve to avoid collisions without drivers taking any action.

The Automated Highway Driving Assist (AHDA) system allows wireless communications between vehicles to avoid collisions keeping the car in the middle of the road, regardless of the number of twists and turns ahead.

Besides Toyota, Nissan and Google are also working on self-driving car technology, but Toyota's AHDA technology may be available to consumers in a few years.

According to Toyota managing director Moritaka Yoshida, the advanced driving-support technologies would prevent human errors, lessen driving stress and help drivers avert accidents and had a potential to reduce the number of traffic deaths.

While alertness on the part of the driver and general control of their vehicle would still be needed, the new technology would leave most of the work to the autopilot.

Toyota said the latest collision-avoidance system had doubled the detection time of oncoming objects to four seconds from a previous two seconds.

 The Japanese giant had already introduced its pre-collision braking assist system in its Lexus luxury sedan and planned to incorporate it in other models by 2015, with the other technologies to follow.

The company's current pre-collision system uses radar detection to spot pedestrians and other hazards and initiate alerts and automatic braking to cut the risk of an accident.

The addition of automatic steering would help prevent collisions in cases where automatic braking alone was not sufficient, for example when the vehicle was moving too fast, or a pedestrian stepped suddenly into the path of the car.

The PCS system uses an on-board sensor to detect a pedestrian in the vehicle's path and if it determined there was a risk of collision, it triggered a warning light on the dashboard, immediately in front of the driver.

In the event of an increased likelihood of an impact, it sounded an alarm to warn the driver to take avoiding action and initiate pre-collision braking force and automatic braking.

If the system detected that braking alone would not be able to avoid collision, and there was sufficient room for avoidance, it activated steer assist to swerve the vehicle away from the pedestrian.

The system was introduced in 2012 with increased pre-collision braking force and automatic braking in the Lexus LS 600h.

Toyota plans to make technology more affordable and more widely available in its model ranges by 2015, before introducing PCS with Pedestrian –avoidance Steer Assist.