Toyota Paving the Way for Automated Highway Driving Technologies
Toyota recently introduced a test vehicle that uses special Automated Highway Driving Technology to allow for driverless travel on the freeways. Named and popularized as the “Highway Teammate”, the test vehicle presents and highlights a huge step forward in autonomous driving and related safety technologies while representing Toyota’s view of the evolving car-driver relationship in the age where artificial intelligence is taking over! In fact, Toyota is the only Automobile Manufacturer in the marketplace that has presented a unique proposition towards driverless technology.
The brand believes that interactions and communications between cars and their drivers should mimic those of “close friends”, who share a common purpose. Sometimes helping each other out and sometimes watching over each other. This is definitely a unique marketing approach and will gain much reputation in the marketplace.
Toyota refers to this driver-car friendship relationship as the “Mobility Teammate Concept” and stated that the test vehicle Highway Teammate unveils and elaborates the first effort to give form and life to this unique concept.
The car has so far been tested on the “Shuto Expressway” in Tokyo and is known to perform a series of maneuvering, cornering, and handling trails that cover a variety of automated functions, including changing or maintain lanes, and exiting or merging onto highways.
So, what equipment does the Highway Teammate use? The car boasts a number of Automated Highway Driving Technologies that allow for autonomous driving on highways from on-ramp all the way to off-ramp. It uses on-board sensors and cameras to evaluate traffic conditions on the freeway and then make appropriate decisions by maneuvering the car when travelling.
To engage autonomous driving, the driver is required to switch to automated mode, before entering a highway on-ramp (after passing through a toll gate). Using highly accurate road map data, the Highway Teammate pinpoints its position and also uses multiple proximity sensors to recognize nearby hazards and vehicles while selecting the best lanes and routes based on the destination you want to reach.
Based on these real-time data exchanges, the Highway Teammate test car automatically operates the brakes, steering wheel, and accelerator to achieve the right speed while travelling in driving lines, pretty much the same way a driver would.
By successfully combing decision-making with road detection and hazard recognition, the vehicle takes instantaneous driving actions – similar to the way a human driver would react. The vehicle also comes equipped with plenty of safety technologies that are expected to play an incredibly important role in the future of its products. Since Toyota believes that mobility means freedom, safety, and efficiency, it is ramping up its research into all the possible issues/problems could arise with such technology.
