From safety belts to VR, Volvo has set out to save more lives

Statistics show that since Volvo invented the three-point seat belt in 1959, this revolutionary safety equipment has saved more than one million lives. Today, safety has become one of Volvo's most prominent brand labels. With the continuous development of technology, the safety performance of automobiles is constantly improving. For Volvo, the pursuit of safety is endless. Obviously, Volvo has begun to explore how to use the latest technology to develop safer cars and travel environments.

Recently, Volvo held a live interactive event at the "Open Innovation Center" to show through the lens how its development team uses new technologies, including mixed reality simulation devices, to develop and verify vehicle safety systems. Virtual reality helmets, virtual reality environments, and virtual reality characters, which seem to only appear in games or science fiction movies, are now helping Volvo explore the future of travel safety.

Just as we often say, "Practice leads to the truth", this also suits the field of automobile safety. Because of this, Volvo is also one of the first brands in the world to start car crash experiments, and has obtained a wealth of data from various crash experiments, which will be useful for the subsequent development of safer body structures, more reliable materials, and more reasonable passenger compartments. The layout provides real and effective data support.

But compared with pure body safety technology, with the advent of driver assistance and autonomous driving technology, how to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of these systems in real traffic environments has become the most troublesome technical problem for developers. The uncertain factors of the real road environment are changeable and complex, and it is obviously not competent to rely solely on experiments and computer simulations.

On the other hand, human factors inevitably exist in the actual traffic environment. For example, the driver's mental state, observation range, operating behavior, and pedestrian's trajectory, etc., will directly affect road traffic safety.

For safety reasons, driving assistance and automatic driving systems obviously cannot be tested on real roads until they have reliable and complete performance. Conversely, the above-mentioned system cannot be effectively optimized and improved without testing the real road environment.

In order to solve this seemingly contradictory technical problem, Volvo has carried out in-depth cooperation with a number of top technology companies, and pioneered the introduction of mixed reality simulation devices into its own development work, striving to achieve new breakthroughs in safety and autonomous driving technology. Major breakthrough.

A movable driver's seat, a steering wheel with tactile feedback, and a clear virtual reality head-mounted display device, etc., which will make any game veteran envy, are important work items in Volvo's "Open Innovation Center". Here, Volvo has taken the driving simulation device to a new level, focusing on making it difficult to distinguish reality from virtual.

The driving simulation device uses the leading real-time 3D development platform Unity and the cutting-edge technology of Finland's high-end augmented reality headset manufacturer Varjo, including driving real cars on actual roads. The simulation device has realistic high-definition 3D graphics, augmented reality headsets, and Teslasuit full-body touch experience kit that provides tactile feedback from the virtual world, while monitoring the body's response.

Through this combination of software and hardware, Volvo engineers can continuously simulate various driving scenarios when driving cars on real test roads. Everything is done under safe conditions. Engineers can gain in-depth observations of human-vehicle interactions and provide assistance in the development of new safety, driving assistance and autonomous driving functions.

Test drivers can also experience multiple scenarios such as the active safety and driving assistance functions in the concept, the upcoming autonomous driving user interface, and future models. The simulation device can be used both on the actual test road and in the laboratory, and each scene is fully customizable. Therefore, highly simulated driving simulation devices have unlimited possibilities.

Tactile technology can reproduce the tactile experience of interacting with the real world through force, vibration, or movement. Volvo’s simulated test drivers put on the advanced somatosensory suit developed by Teslasuit, which can experience some of the impact of the collision without causing personal injury.

Volvo engineers can use the somatosensory suit to study the response of muscles, stress levels and heart rate under pressure, and to test these responses, and apply the research results to the development of next-generation safety systems to avoid and reduce dangerous situations.

Casper Wickman, senior director of user experience for Volvo's "Open Innovation Center" and live event anchor, pointed out that this allows Volvo to study real occupant reactions in a safe environment at a cost of only a fraction of actual testing. He said: "Cooperating with outstanding companies such as Varjo, Unity and Teslasuit, we do not need to build physical test facilities, that is, we can test real traffic scenes in a virtual environment. The simulation device not only allows us to test in the virtual scene Experience the real driving experience in the middle, and you can switch the travel scene you are in with one key."

Author: Volvo has used cutting-edge technology to lead automotive safety innovation

From the invention and popularization of the three-point seat belt to the first to use virtual reality technology to develop driver assistance and autonomous driving systems, Volvo has never stopped exploring the field of automotive safety technology. If the three-point seat belt invented by Volvo has saved more than one million lives in traffic accidents. Well, today's Volvo has worked hard to save the next million lives. Especially in today's development direction of driver assistance and autonomous driving, by introducing more cutting-edge virtual reality technology, Volvo is expected to lead the innovation of automotive safety technology once again.