In a surprising project that is being introduced at the KES, the humble bumblebee has given engineers at Nissan Motor's Advanced Technology Center a strategic hint at how to design the next generation of crash-avoidance systems.
BR23C is one of many new safety technologies that Nissan is working as part of its Safety Shield concept - an advanced, proactive approach to safety issues based on the idea that cars should help protect people. The approach classifies driving risks and accidents into six stages.
In flight, each bee creates its own oval-shaped personal space which in fact closely resembles Nissan's Safety Shield concept. But more crucially, it is the bee's compound eyes, capable of seeing more than 300-degrees, that allow the bumblebee to fly uninterrupted inside its personal space. In order to recreate the function of a compound eye, engineers came up with the idea of a Laser Range Finder (LRF).
The LRF detects obstacles up to two meters away within a 180-degree radius in front of the BR23C, calculates the distance to them, and sends a signal to an on-board microprocessor, which is instantly translated into collision avoidance.
Nissan Korea introduces Nissan's advanced technologies in KES 2009. Nissan, the first exhibitor in KES among the global and domestic automakers, shows off Nissan's cutting-edge technologies. Not only is it showing the BR23C robot car's crash-avoidance system modeled after a bee's behavior, but it is also showing off a driving simulator applied Distance Control Assist and Lane Departure Prevention system. And, Nissan's technology flagship super car GT-R is also being exhibited.
