by Lingjia Zhang, Clemson Automotive Engineering Graduate Student
Basic Description
Many accidents happen when the driver is turning off a road or performing a U-turn. The Left Turn Assistant (LTA), a new BMW Group Research and Technology research project, addresses these issues and makes left turns safer, especially at crossings with poor visibility. The left turn assistant is automatically activated when the car is turning left. Sensors detect when the car is about to perform a left turn. A camera is used to mark the left turn lane, three laser scanners in the front end of the car map the area 100 meters in front of the car. If the sensors detect vehicles or people approaching while the car is still moving into the intersection, the left turn assistant makes an automatic braking input at low speeds (up to 10 km/h) to prevent a collision. Meanwhile, a warning sound and symbols (see below) appear. The video shows how LTA works.
Warning Symbols
INTERSAFE-2 Since 2008, a consortium of 11 European carmakers have been working together to develop assistant systems to decrease accidents occurring at intersections. Left Turn Assistant is one of these systems.
