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Toyota’s Crash Test Bike Braves Autonomous Cars
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Cyclists are a challenge to driverless vehicles so Toyota has created a crash test bike and rider that mimic the real thing.
Just a month ago the head of one of the largest auto OEMs in the world caused a mini-firestorm when he said bicycles are a pain in the butt for his firm as it develops autonomous vehicles.
“One of the biggest problems is people with bicycles,” Carlos Ghosn, chief of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, told CNBC at the CES 2016 last month. “The car is confused by them because from time-to-time they behave like pedestrians and from time-to-time they behave like cars.”
He concluded, “They don’t respect any rules usually.”
Those issues spurred Toyota engineers at its Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center (TCSRC) to create a crash test bike and bike rider.
Toyota’s bike is shatter-resistant and built in parts that can be quickly fit back together. It is modeled on a 26-inch mountain bike, the most popular type in the U.S., according to Cycling Weekly.
Steve, the pedestrian and cycling crash test dummy, has legs that appear to go around like a cyclists. And Steve has a covering that appears to be human skin to the sensors in autonomous vehicles.
In addition, the bike ‘rides’ on a platform that allows for collisions up to 38 miles-per-hour.
Toyota plans to release media on the test bike and dummy in April at the World Congress of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit.
Both Renault and Toyota have committed to creating and marketing self-driving cars by 2020.
Toyota is working to have the cars available for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to be held that year. Renault announced it would release its first semi-autonomous car this year, and have a fully autonomous vehicle ready by 2020.
In 2011 Toyota committed $50 million over five years for the TCSRC and has partnered with 16 universities, agencies and research institutions on 26 projects on auto safety research.
Photo of Bicycling on Dearborn Street bike lane, 2012, by Steve Vance.