Japanese carmaker Honda has introduced two new experimental safety technologies for decreasing the collisions between automobiles and pedestrians as well as motorcycles.
The new safety systems include vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) and vehicle-to-motorcycle (V2M) technologies, both of which are in the research and testing phase.
The systems are part of the company's plan to develop safety and driver assistive systems that would help the users to predict and avoid traffic accidents through sensing and communications technologies.
Honda R&D Americas chief engineer Jim Keller said the experimental technologies provide an indication of the future potential for collision sensing and predictive technologies the company is developing to further reduce the potential for serious accidents, injuries and even fatalities.
"These V2P and V2M systems are part of Honda's broad vision for smarter and safer vehicles and roadways," Keller added.
The new V2P systems features dedicated short range communications (DSRC) enabled smartphone to detect a pedestrian and uses communication between the phone and nearby vehicles to offer auditory and visual warnings to both the pedestrian and drivers.
According to the company, the smartphone application assesses the position, direction and speed of the pedestrian using DSRC technology to alerts the driver about potential collision with an audible alarm and visual warnings on the vehicle's heads-up display and navigation screen.
Vehicle-to-Motorcycle (V2M) technology also uses the DSRC system to determine the potential for a collision with a motorcycle and is capable of identifying a motorcycle even when it is obstructed from the view of nearby automobile drivers.
The V2M system gives out the auditory and visual warnings to the automobile driver.
Currently, the V2M is being researched and tested in cooperation with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
