Road safety: a wraparound airbag for self-driving cars

The innovation of the day is an airbag tailored for driverless taxis.

As most will have benches that face each other as in trains, it was urgent to find a new way to deploy the airbag.

Today in the event of a frontal crash, the airbag will come out either from the steering wheel or from the dashboard.

Problem: what to do when there is no more steering wheel, no more dashboard or when you have two rows of seats facing each other?

We invented an airbag that deploys from the sides.

An enveloping airbag that will protect both the head and the thorax.

It is very ingenious.

Is it strong enough to hold someone back in the event of an impact?

Anicet Mbida has not tested it, but apparently yes.

In the photos, we see that the airbag is guided by a frame that comes out both from the sides and from the ceiling.

This device has just been presented by the startup Zoox at the same time as its new autonomous taxi.

Their car is perfectly symmetrical.

There is no forward, no back.

It can roll in both directions.

And as inside they installed two benches facing each other, they absolutely had to find a solution in the event of an impact.

With this system, they ensure that everyone will have protection equivalent to the 5 stars of the Euro NCAP crash test.

It should be noted that in today's cars, this level of protection only concerns the front seats.

Those in the back are often sacrificed.

We would therefore benefit from using this technology even on traditional cars.

This would ensure that all passengers are safe, whether they are seated in the front or in the rear.