Toyota says it will spend at least $30 million over the next five years, through its Future Research Department, studying how to make future mobility safer for children, the elderly, pedestrians and others inside and outside the vehicle.
"Humans are at the center of Toyota's technology development strategy, so we are designing our new safety research in pursuit of safety for all," Danil Prokhorov, director of Toyota's Future Research Department and the automaker's Collaborative Safety Research Center, said in a written statement. "As part of this, our projects will explore the diversity of safety needs and analyze safe mobility options that accommodate different applications, physical characteristics and levels of accessibility for people and society."
The research being funded will focus on several areas, including helping users and nonusers understand and interact with future mobility technologies. It also will study traffic environments for human drivers and interactions with autonomous vehicles for potential safety hazards, along with crash protection measures and new testing scenarios for driver assistance and automated driving systems.
The studies will be done in collaboration with university and medical researchers, and is based in Ann Arbor, Mich.
