Another Uncrashable Car!

. . . Although this one's a little way from being roadworthy!

I've posted before about in-car technology which aids drivers (to get a good sleep?), but the Telegraph has news of this:

The concept car, called BR23C and created by Nissan Motor alongside the University of Tokyo, has been fitted with a sophisticated sensor system enabling it to avoid obstacles it encounters in its path.

The technology mimics the skills of the compound eye of a bumblebee which has a bio-mechanism enabling the insects to instantly avoid approaching obstacles.

As a result, the Biomimetic Car Robot Drive is able to detect an object up to two metres away in a 180-degree radius before instantly swerving away to avoid crashing.

Toshiyuki Ando, the Nissan engineer leading the research, said: "The split second it detects an obstacle, it will instantly change direction by turning its wheels to a right angle or further to avoid collision.

"The whole process must mirror what a bee does to avoid other bees. It must happen with the blink of an eye."

The concept robot has been developed as part of Nissan's road safety project, which aims to half the rate of traffic accidents in its vehicles by 50 per cent by 2015.

Nissan the country's third largest automaker – plans to install the technology into its electric vehicles as early as 2010 in Japan and the US before expanding internationally by 2012.