Cologne. A safety innovation from Volvo Car Corporation has once again won a prestigious award: pedestrian detection with full auto brake, first used in the new Volvo S60, receives the Plus X Award in the Innovation category and can now call itself “Best Product of the Year 2010”.
This system, unique in the world, prevents collisions with pedestrians or, at higher speeds, reduces the consequences of an accident. A top-class jury of 144 jurors from 32 nations decided in favour of the technological innovation from the Swedish premium manufacturer.
The Plus X Award, the largest technologies, sports and lifestyle competition in the world, honours manufacturers for products of particularly outstanding quality.
More than 1,000 products from all sectors of technologies, sports and lifestyle were submitted for this year’s competition. The categories judged were innovation, high quality, design, ease of operation/functionality, ergonomics and ecology.
Innovative edge
The products honoured with the most Plus X Award seals in their product type received the distinction “Best Product of the Year”. The crucial element in the jury’s decision was rational innovation, the Plus X factor, which clearly improves the present-day state of the art and sets the prize winner apart from its competitors. The jury recognised such an innovative edge in the new safety system from Volvo Cars, pedestrian detection with full auto brake.
Pedestrian detection with full auto brake combines a newly developed radar unit in the front grille and a camera at the level of the rear-view mirror in an effective system that spots pedestrians on the road ahead of the vehicle. If the driver fails to respond in time in this situation, the system automatically activates full braking power.
Half of all accidents involving pedestrians occur at speeds of less than 25 km/h. The new Volvo system can completely prevent accidents of this type up to a speed of 35 km/h. At higher speeds the system ensures maximum deceleration and in so doing substantially reduces the consequences of an accident.
Five years of development
Volvo Cars invested more than five years in the development work on the new safety system. Half a million test kilometres were driven in various parts of the world so that the system could store the patterns of movement of pedestrians in different traffic situations, countries and climatic conditions.
Pedestrian detection is an enhancement of the collision warning with full auto brake already introduced by Volvo, and therefore also protects against rear-end collisions. The prize-winning safety system is introduced for the first time in the Volvo S60.
The Plus X Award and the distinction of “Best Product of the Year 2010” once again emphasise the special position of the Swedish premium manufacturer with regard to safety and highlights the company’s claim to build the world’s safest cars.
