A safe pair of hands

Åsa Laveno, Senior Project Manager, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Drive Me.

Among other things, Åsa Laveno ran the 24-strong team of software developers behind Volvo Car's City Safety – the most advanced standard safety package currently available anywhere in the world. We caught up with her at Volvo Car's development labs in Torslanda.

VQ: Briefly, can you explain what City Safety is – what it does?
Ok, so say you’re driving along and you get distracted for a moment. Maybe you sneeze. And someone walks out into the road or the car in front stops suddenly. City Safety warns you with an audio alarm and a short brake pulse, to get you to look up. If all goes well, you see the hazard and hit the brakes yourself. If you don't brake in time, City Safety will brake for you. First, it applies a pre-brake and pre-tightens the seatbelt. Then, if it really needs to, it brakes fully. The purpose is to prevent a collision if possible and limit injury and damage if not.

VQ: So it's an autonomous braking system that prevents collisions with people and cars...