This sounds a bit beyond the current imagination, but the technology patent proposed by Waymo is more like the reverse application of the protection that the protagonist can harden when facing danger in science fiction movies. Once the vehicle senses that it is about to be hit, it can automatically change the hardness of the car body. With the help of components with variable tension such as cables, support rods or springs, the car body absorbs the impact path through the process of becoming "soft" to reduce the impact caused by hard collision.
However, it is still difficult to imagine how Waymo's technical patent works, and it is impossible to confirm how this patent can reduce the impact of vehicles or pedestrians outside the car and passengers inside the car during the impact. Prior to this, the Waymo layer said that Google's self-driving vehicles used a lot of rubber and foam materials to reduce the possible impact of steel collision during driving.
Whether it is applied to self-driving vehicles or not, in fact, BMW and other automobile manufacturers have invested a lot of research, hoping to improve the impact path of traditional vehicles in car accidents, many of which are related to avoiding the secondary impact of passengers in the car or the extrusion caused by body collapse. At the same time, many studies focus on avoiding hitting other vehicles and pedestrians, and how to minimize the damage in the case of collision.
After all, not only must automatic cars strictly avoid injuries such as car accidents, but it is also important to avoid any accidents under the conditions of ordinary human driving. Therefore, Waymo and many automobile manufacturers pay special attention to prevent accidents when vehicles are driving. In the recent development, Waymo has cooperated with the fire department in Chandler, Arizona, so that its driverless vehicles can correctly identify vehicles such as fire engines, police cars, ambulances and even police motorcycles during the day and night, so as to avoid obstructing such special vehicles from performing their tasks during driving, while ensuring safety during giving way.
You may want to see the following: LGV30 will replace the second screen function in the form of software …