Special Feature 2018 - Our Contribution to a Sustainable World
2. Realizing Zero Traffic Accidents
It is a universal desire and goal to eliminate road traffic accidents, which take the lives of many people every year. The technologies and products of the Nidec Group have played an important role in improving driving support functions and enhancing vehicle braking performance. We hope that our technologies and products will contribute to realizing zero traffic accidents in the future.
Reducing Road Traffic Accidents as a Global Goal
According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015 released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of global road traffic deaths reached 1.25 million in 2013. Taking this issue seriously, member countries of the United Nations have determined to attain Target 3.6 “By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents” in Goal 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) of the SDGs.
Developing an Advanced Driver Assistance System and Spreading Autonomous Driving
Accelerating R&D toward Sophisticated Driving Support Functions
Every year, there is an increasing number of vehicles equipped with functions that help drivers drive safely, including a lane-keeping support function, an inter-vehicle distance control function, and an automatic emergency brake function.
The further development of the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) will lead to reduced involvement of drivers in driving, helping the realization of completely autonomous driving. Since traffic accidents are attributable largely to human errors, the realization of autonomous driving is expected to significantly reduce traffic accidents.
Critical technical requirements for an autonomous car include collecting sensory information, determining appropriate navigation paths, detecting road obstacles, and adjusting speed and steering according to traffic conditions. Ultimately, the design of autonomous cars needs to be considered not only in terms in-car hardware and software systems but also in the context of the future intelligent transportation systems.
The Nidec Group provides motors, motor controllers, and sensors, which play a key function in ADAS. The roles we can play in all this would not be small. We hope to open up the gateway to such new challenges by advancing our technical capabilities in sensing devices and recognition algorithms that enables autonomous cars to safely take over the driver's detection and decision tasks. Making use of every technology, we will accelerate research and development toward the realization of collision-free vehicles.
Supporting the Evolution of Brakes
Brake Systems That Ensure the Safety of Electric Vehicles
With the electrification of vehicles, braking operations, which play a pivotal role in safe driving, are in the process of changing so that they will be controlled by an electronic control unit. A new mechanism allows for the highly accurate perception of a driverʼs actions and highly precise motor control, thereby being able to shorten the distance traveled from when the driver applies the brakes to when the vehicle stops and improving the security of driving.
The Nidec Group develops and supplies such next-generation brake systems as part of its efforts of focusing on the development of automotive motors. In accordance with technical trends in brake-by-wire systems, which use electrical signals to rapidly control brake force, we also promote the development of motors for electric brake boosters. We will work to enhance the safety standards of future vehicles by providing products with high performance and reliability.
