Seat develops smart Leon
Safety innovations on show this week
  Smart Leon |
SEAT is presenting a special, smart Leon at the ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) congress being held in London this week. The car features a raft of technological innovations devised by the Spanish company.
This prototype has been developed over two and a half years at the SEAT Technical Centre in Martorell, in response to the European Union’s ambitious AIDE project (Adaptive Integrated Driver-vehicle Interface). The ultimate goal is to increase driving safety, drawing from available vehicle-generated information regarding surroundings, vehicle and driver. This makes the car intelligent enough to make decisions that affect driving safety.
As an example of this technology in action, the Leon will notify its driver when it senses danger on the road ahead, via a light on the dashboard and an audible warning. The vehicle also emits a warning sound and sends vibrations through the steering wheel if it detects that the driver is falling asleep.
Another good example many will be able to relate to, is that if an incoming call occurs while on a roundabout, the vehicle recognises the situation and puts the call on hold until exiting the roundabout.
These are only a few of the features included in the prototype. The SEAT Leon achieves these results with sensors that monitor the driver’s eye movement and blink frequency, a radar to detect objects ahead, GPS and a specific communication network.
The SEAT Technical Centre has also developed new solutions for the driver to interact with the vehicle, such as a steering wheel-mounted control to manage most of the menus. These functions can also be carried out through voice control.
We probably need to accept that this is the face of mainstream motoring in the future. The critical thing is to ensure that the toys have an off switch...
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