RescueCar
When an accident occurs, every second counts in rescuing injured persons. Even if a fire or explosion is not likely, the injuries may be serious and require very urgent treatment. Studies in the US have revealed that 30% of deaths occur within minutes of a crash and 70% of deaths within two hours. If the medical response time can be cut to one minute, it is estimated that about 3,000 lives could be saved in the US annually. Of course, that response time is impossible unless you crash right outside the accident & emergency section of a hospital but Ford’s RescueCar aims to speed up rescues by automatically sending information about the accident to hospitals.
The RescueCar makes use of the existing cellular telephone infrastructure to relay data on the accident within a minute of the event. The data will tell rescuers how severe the accident was from sensors that record impact energy on all sides of the vehicle and also what position the vehicle has stopped in (on its side or upside down). Such information will ensure that the right equipment is sent to the crash site to speed up rescue.
Also important is the condition of the occupants and although data sent will also include whether the airbags deployed and whether seatbelts were used, the impact may have thrown the occupants into odd positions. Small children may be displaced and it would also be important to know if there is a childseat with a baby inside.
For this reason, a tiny camera will constantly record an image of the cabin and when an accident occurs, two images will be transmitted. One will show the cabin a second before the accident and the other will show the situation after the accident. These images will provide vital information to rescuers.
“However, we do realise that there will be some privacy issues here and Ford is mindful of such possible concerns. So we will study the matter carefully before introducing the feature,” said Srini Sundarajan, a supervisor in the Safety (R&D) division of Ford. “It might be that we will provide the option for users to switch off the camera if they don’t like the idea or just not install it.”
As for location of the vehicle, this is already possible since more and more vehicles are having Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation systems. Until this year, GPS accuracy was not precise enough for non-military users so it was not feasible to rely on GPS to pinpoint a vehicle’s location. However, now that the accuracy has been reduced to a few metres (the inaccuracy ‘program’ was removed by the US military in May 2000), GPS can be used to locate crash sites faster.
Like all computerised systems, electrical power is needed so a separate power supply will be provided to ensure that if the crash is so severe as to destroy the car’s battery, the system will still be operable.
“There’s still some way to go in the RescueCar concept. We need to work on system reliability and consider access to the ownership details which may be made known to rescue teams. But if the features can be installed on the same scale as airbags, we could see a dramatic improvement in the speed and quality of rescues in future,” said Mr Sundarajan.
