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Feb 16, 2022
by Sebastian Cenizo Scoop / 2 Comments
All ideas are worth pursuing in the name of safety.
Toyota has always been keen to innovate with safety technology and has proven its proficiency in this field with numerous accolades over the years. While it has been addressing its formerly dull image with exciting new cars like the GR Yaris and GR Supra, not to mention the upcoming GR Corolla, it still has a strong focus on making cars safer to drive.
Its most recent innovation concerns the technology behind lane keep assist systems which, according to a new patent discovered by CarBuzz, are not good enough. In the documents filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Japanese giant explains the problems it sees with existing systems.
In a traditional lane keep assist system, the steering wheel will vibrate if you deviate from your lane and/or automatically pull the car back into its lane, usually accompanied by an audible warning chime. Toyota says that these are distracting methods of informing drivers that they're in the wrong lane and that a warning chime makes one look away from the road to see what the issue is.
Toyota's solution is an inflatable steering wheel that can increase or decrease the diameter of the steering wheel's rim, with Toyota explaining that this could also be paired with a system that automatically corrects the steering, as in existing systems.
The Japanese automaker says that an increased rim diameter helps increase friction, which thereby increases the driver's grip on the steering wheel and their control over the car. Thus, an inflated steering wheel would indicate that you're on the right path while a thinner rim is intended to indicate that you're heading into the wrong lane.
Another embodiment of the invention suggests that only part of the rim could be inflated or deflated, which actually does seem helpful. In this case, a deflated left-side grip would indicate that you need to make a correction to the left, and vice versa.
Sure, the existing tech hasn't been lambasted in some viral campaign for being ineffective, but if even a small improvement can be made to safety, it's worth considering. And if this innovation seems weird, just wait until you hear about Toyota's manual gearboxes for electric cars.
