This one might be controversial on Melbourne’s Beach Road – Volvo’s Geneva debut was a cyclist detection system which automatically applies to brakes when it senses a cyclist swerving ahead. There’s arguments in Melbourne about the behavior of cyclists who train alongside Port Phillip Bay early in the morning – car drivers claim the two-wheel brigade swerve and race like it’s the Tour De France on what is a major arterial road.
In any case, Volvo’s system is a development of its current Pedestrian Detection system with full auto brake. New software has been developed with more rapid vision processing to extend the detection to moving cyclists.
The system is driven by a radar unit in the front grille and a camera mounted in the internal rear-vision mirror. When both detect a pedestrian or cyclist ahead (and automatically process their speed), the auto brake system is activated.
Volvo pints to European data which shows 50 per-cent of cyclists killed are involved in a collision with a vehicle and the Swedish giant will incorporate the cyclist-friendly technology in most European models from May this year.
