A consortium of companies and research institutes has begun work on a new EC-funded project to develop advanced active safety systems that can avoid collisions or mitigate impact severity in accidents.

The Accident Avoidance by Active Intervention of Intelligent Vehicles (interactIVe) project will test the performance of implemented safety systems through active intervention, including autonomous braking and steering in critical situations.

The advanced driver assistance systems warn drivers of potentially dangerous situations to provide them with as much reaction time as possible and trigger autonomous intervention of collision avoidance subsystems if drivers fail to react in time.

The interactIVe system will also support the development of new technologies for environmentally sensitive driving.

The €30m, 42-month project is being carried out by a Ford-led consortium consisting of seven automotive manufacturers, six suppliers, 14 research institutes and three other stakeholders.