BMW Emergency Stop Assistant in the Works

All of you interested in the automotive field know by now that today's vehicles make use of all types of road safety technologies that stretch far beyond collision prevention. The new trend of fitting the vehicles with systems which will allow them to contact emergency services in case of a road event has been taken to another level by BMW, who is working on a new type of system.

Unlike most of the systems currently in use, this one is intended to look after the well being of a driver, especially in the case of older people. Health issues are a big concern when it comes to these motorists, as cardiovascular problems often cause collisions.

The Emergency Stop Assistant is being developed under the SmartSenior - "intelligent services for senior citizens,” with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It is based on sensors designed to monitor vital data from the driver, as well as on BMW's ConnectedDrive assistance systems.

This allows emergency services to not only locate the vehicle involved in an incident, but also to asses the number of people in the car and even the severity of the injuries of those in the vehicle, before arriving on the scene.

“Our primary aim is to avoid accidents caused by a health-related loss of control - or at least to reduce the severity of such accidents,” Ralf Decke, project manager for SmartSenior said.

"In order to keep a limit on the variety of possible driving situations, which vary infinitely in complexity, we are developing the prototype of our Emergency Stop Assistant initially for use on motorways and sections of roads resembling motor ways,” he added.

The complete description of how the system works can be found here.