Toyota Sharing Its Automated Safety System with Rival OEMs

To curb crashes and save lives, Toyota Motor Company will offer its Guardian automated safety system to competitive original equipment manufacturers, either through licensing or entire systems, reports Bloomberg.

The automaker recently made the announcement at the CES show and says the move comes in an effort to do what is good for society.

Guardian uses self-driving technology to keep cars from crashing. However, Guardian is being developed to amplify human control of the vehicle, not replace it. With Guardian, the driver is meant to be in control of the car at all times, except in those cases where Guardian anticipates or identifies a pending incident and employs a corrective response in coordination with driver input.

For example, Guardian will seize control of a car and steer it around a possible crash or accelerate out of the path of an oncoming vehicle running a red light, reports Bloomberg.

Advocates say the technology has the potential to save countless lives. With Toyota's new willingness to share what is presently proprietary, any automaker that wants access to the technology can have it in the not too distant future—upping the odds for reducing roadway fatalities.

In 2018, the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) stepped up efforts to make Guardian a smarter machine. The technology continues to undergo rigorous and demanding driving scenarios, including "corner cases" that are too dangerous to perform on public roads. On closed courses, engineers challenge and stretch Guardian's intelligence and capabilities. Through continuous refinement, Guardian learns how best to navigate and react to dangerous scenarios, as they unfold.

Toyota has been developing Toyota Guardian technology for the past three years and plans to roll it out on the nation's highways and byways early next decade, according to the Bloomberg report.