Japanese inventor makes gas and brake one pedal
08-05-10, 01:03 PM
#1
Japanese inventor makes gas and brake one pedal
Japanese inventor makes gas and brake one pedal
The interface between human and machine are often as much art as they are science. A prime example is the way automobiles are controlled, in particular acceleration and braking. While nearly all vehicles over the last several decades have used a pair of adjacent foot pedals to manage those operations (with a shrinking proportion using a third for manual clutches), a third setup hasn't gained any traction in the marketplace.
As both Audi and Toyota can attest, this arrangement is less than ideal for many drivers. In an emergency situation, when you can't even see the pedals, it's all too easy to hit the throttle when you meant to lay on the brake.
Japanese inventor Masuyuki Naruse has developed a single pedal solution that should eliminate the possibility of misapplication. Naruse's system consists of an accelerator operated by rotating the right foot clockwise while the brakes are operated by pushing down in the traditional manner. While the idea of a single pedal solution is certainly appealing, the side press for acceleration seems like it could be problematic from an ergonomic standpoint – particularly over an extended period of time.
With the arrival of electric vehicles, regenerative brakes and even brake-by-wire systems, a single pedal operation with braking coming simply by releasing the pedal is a possibility. The Mini E almost does this through the use of a very aggressive regenerative braking system, allowing drivers to slow the electric Cooper quickly without ever touching the brake pedal. There's little doubt that over the next few years we'll be seeing more innovation in this area with the hope of eliminating unintended acceleration, but building a better mousetrap – one that stands up to the test of time – is going to be difficult to implement across all vehicles.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/05/j...ake-one-pedal/
08-05-10, 01:54 PM
#7
Lexus Fanatic
This concept is nothing new, Most airplanes, with two pedals, have used dual-function foot pedals for many decades (I am a licensed pilot). Pressing on the top of the pedals activates the foot-brakes (each main-wheel brake can be activated separately). Pressing the bottom of the pedals moves the rudder (and/or the nose-wheel) left or right, depending on the pedal. In fact, to make a tight turn on the ground with many planes whie taxiing (particularly those with free-castoring front wheels), one simply uses each individual brake to make the aircraft pivot around that wheel. Aircraft throttles are usually hand-operated.
Long ago, though, engineers decided not to do individual left-right brake pedals for cars, because of the possibility of uneven pedal pressure causing the car to veer into an adjacent lane...and a possible crash.
Long ago, though, engineers decided not to do individual left-right brake pedals for cars, because of the possibility of uneven pedal pressure causing the car to veer into an adjacent lane...and a possible crash.
Last edited by mmarshall; 08-05-10 at 01:57 PM.
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08-05-10, 02:37 PM
#9
Lexus Fanatic
08-05-10, 02:58 PM
#11
Oh boy!!!! This is asking for trouble
sure it's not a conspiracy cooked up by gm???
inept/absent minded drivers are already confusing with left and right.
"I thought I was stepping up to stop it................. "
sure it's not a conspiracy cooked up by gm???
Japanese inventor Masuyuki Naruse has developed a single pedal solution that should eliminate the possibility of misapplication.
"I thought I was stepping up to stop it................. "
08-05-10, 05:02 PM
#13
No, I don't play soccer!
Here is the full article from The New York Times.
Gas-and-Brake Pedal Gets New Look After Recalls
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 3, 2010
TAMANA, Japan — Two pedals, inches apart, one for gas and the other for brakes. For years, a Japanese inventor has argued that this most basic of car designs is dangerously flawed.
The side-by-side pedal arrangement, the inventor says, can cause drivers mistakenly to floor the accelerator instead of the brakes, especially under stress. The solution? A single pedal that accelerates the car when pressed with the side of the foot. More to the point, when the pedal is pushed down, it always activates the brakes.
“We have a natural tendency to stomp down when we panic,” said the inventor, Masuyuki Naruse, who owns a small factory here in southwest Japan. “The automakers call it driver error. But what if their design’s all wrong?”
Mr. Naruse, 74, is one of a handful of people who have designed combined brake-accelerator pedals in an effort to prevent accidents caused by unintended acceleration, which has come under a spotlight since charges that some Toyota vehicles accelerate without warning.
Regulators in Sweden are testing a single-pedal prototype by the inventor Sven Gustafsson. In Japan, about 130 cars equipped with Mr. Naruse’s pedal, mostly owned by friends and acquaintances, have been declared street-legal, including Mr. Naruse’s own Mitsubishi Diamante sedan. He holds patents for the Naruse (pronounced NAH-roo-say) Pedal in Japan, the United States and six other countries.
Yasuto Ohama, a security company executive whose Toyota Harrier has one of the pedals, said he switched after his foot hit the gas instead of the brakes and he almost struck a bicyclist.
“I can never go back,” Mr. Ohama said. “I now have peace of mind, because there’s no mistaking when there’s only one pedal.”
Toyota, which attributes reports of unintended acceleration to gas pedals that stick or get caught under floor mats, has recalled 8.5 million vehicles worldwide to address the problems. It has also gently suggested that in some cases the driver might have been at fault.
Last month, it said that an internal investigation of 2,000 vehicles reported to have accelerated unintentionally found “pedal misapplication” in most cases, with drivers mistakenly pressing the accelerator instead of the brakes.
Ririko Takeuchi, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for Toyota, said the company could not comment on Mr. Naruse’s pedal design. But she said Toyota “listens to ideas we receive from the public, because we believe there’s always room for improvement.”
“If you ask whether the current pedal design is the best we can do, the answer is no,” Ms. Takeuchi said.
Mr. Naruse’s pedal, in various versions, has been around for two decades. But until recently his testimonials fell mostly on deaf ears — despite many accidents linked to pedal confusion.
In 2009, nearly 6,700 traffic accidents involving 37 deaths and more than 9,500 injuries were thought to have been caused by drivers in Japan mistakenly pushing the accelerator instead of the brakes, said the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, a government affiliated group based in Tokyo.
Car safety specialists say it is likely that tens of thousands of crashes in the United States have also been caused by pedal errors. In an accident in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2003, a driver believed to have hit the wrong pedal killed 10 people when his car plunged into an outdoor market.
Since at least the 1980s, researchers have pointed to the propensity for drivers to press the accelerator instead of the brakes. In a 1989 study, Richard A. Schmidt, a psychologist now at the University of California, Los Angeles, described how disruptions to neuromuscular processes can cause the foot to deviate from the intended motion, even slipping from the brake to the accelerator. And when the car accelerates unexpectedly, Mr. Schmidt said, even experienced drivers can panic, “braking” even harder.
In experiments in Japan by Katsuya Matsunaga, an engineering and psychology specialist at Kyushu Sangyo University in Fukuoka City, drivers were asked to switch feet from the accelerator to the brakes on cue, at times while accompanied by startling noises. Subjects under stress sometimes hesitated or found it difficult to switch from one pedal to the other, he said.
The current standard pedal arrangement is a function of automotive evolution.
Drivers of Ford’s 1908 Model T maneuvered an accelerator lever on the steering column and three pedals: for shifting gears, reversing and braking. Over time, the advent of various manual and automatic transmissions has required different footwork.
Mr. Naruse’s design is a unified pedal, shaped to accommodate the entire foot. On the right side is an accelerator bar. At any point, the driver can push down on the pedal to activate the brakes, while automatically releasing the accelerator bar.
In light of the recent Toyota recalls, the Obama administration has said it might require automakers to equip new cars with “smart pedals,” systems already used in some cars, that deactivate the accelerator when the brake pedal is pressed. But the smart pedals would not prevent drivers from pressing the gas pedal instead of the brakes.
“Simply speaking, the conventional pedal setup, which forces drivers to switch back and forth between pedals, is dangerous,” Mr. Matsunaga said.
“Mr. Naruse’s pedal works because it takes into account how our bodies work,” he said. “It makes sure that when we make a mistake, the car stops.”
Replacing standard pedals with the Naruse device requires no big changes to a car’s braking or acceleration systems, Mr. Naruse said, and retrofitting costs about 100,000 yen ($1,156) each. The biggest challenge of mass marketing the pedal, driving specialists said, would not be cost or technology, but the need to fundamentally change the way millions of people drive.
“For wider adoption, there would have to be solid proof that drivers used to the old pedal setup can adapt quickly and without error,” said Koya Kishida, who specializes in traffic psychology and ergonomics at Chukyo University in Japan.
Two episodes in the late 1980s, when Mr. Naruse hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes, inspired his quest for a better pedal. (He has invented other things, including a commercially successful machine that helps harvest edible seaweed). In one incident, his car lurched into a busy road, but he avoided a collision.
By 1991, he finished his first prototype. Mr. Naruse said Toyota engineers tested a prototype in 2000, but were dissatisfied with the design; the automaker would not comment, saying its research and development efforts were confidential.
Mr. Naruse said that in May he invited Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, to try a Lexus sedan fitted with the latest version of his pedal. Mr. Naruse said he had received no response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/bu...pagewanted=all
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: August 3, 2010
TAMANA, Japan — Two pedals, inches apart, one for gas and the other for brakes. For years, a Japanese inventor has argued that this most basic of car designs is dangerously flawed.
The side-by-side pedal arrangement, the inventor says, can cause drivers mistakenly to floor the accelerator instead of the brakes, especially under stress. The solution? A single pedal that accelerates the car when pressed with the side of the foot. More to the point, when the pedal is pushed down, it always activates the brakes.
“We have a natural tendency to stomp down when we panic,” said the inventor, Masuyuki Naruse, who owns a small factory here in southwest Japan. “The automakers call it driver error. But what if their design’s all wrong?”
Mr. Naruse, 74, is one of a handful of people who have designed combined brake-accelerator pedals in an effort to prevent accidents caused by unintended acceleration, which has come under a spotlight since charges that some Toyota vehicles accelerate without warning.
Regulators in Sweden are testing a single-pedal prototype by the inventor Sven Gustafsson. In Japan, about 130 cars equipped with Mr. Naruse’s pedal, mostly owned by friends and acquaintances, have been declared street-legal, including Mr. Naruse’s own Mitsubishi Diamante sedan. He holds patents for the Naruse (pronounced NAH-roo-say) Pedal in Japan, the United States and six other countries.
Yasuto Ohama, a security company executive whose Toyota Harrier has one of the pedals, said he switched after his foot hit the gas instead of the brakes and he almost struck a bicyclist.
“I can never go back,” Mr. Ohama said. “I now have peace of mind, because there’s no mistaking when there’s only one pedal.”
Toyota, which attributes reports of unintended acceleration to gas pedals that stick or get caught under floor mats, has recalled 8.5 million vehicles worldwide to address the problems. It has also gently suggested that in some cases the driver might have been at fault.
Last month, it said that an internal investigation of 2,000 vehicles reported to have accelerated unintentionally found “pedal misapplication” in most cases, with drivers mistakenly pressing the accelerator instead of the brakes.
Ririko Takeuchi, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for Toyota, said the company could not comment on Mr. Naruse’s pedal design. But she said Toyota “listens to ideas we receive from the public, because we believe there’s always room for improvement.”
“If you ask whether the current pedal design is the best we can do, the answer is no,” Ms. Takeuchi said.
Mr. Naruse’s pedal, in various versions, has been around for two decades. But until recently his testimonials fell mostly on deaf ears — despite many accidents linked to pedal confusion.
In 2009, nearly 6,700 traffic accidents involving 37 deaths and more than 9,500 injuries were thought to have been caused by drivers in Japan mistakenly pushing the accelerator instead of the brakes, said the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, a government affiliated group based in Tokyo.
Car safety specialists say it is likely that tens of thousands of crashes in the United States have also been caused by pedal errors. In an accident in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2003, a driver believed to have hit the wrong pedal killed 10 people when his car plunged into an outdoor market.
Since at least the 1980s, researchers have pointed to the propensity for drivers to press the accelerator instead of the brakes. In a 1989 study, Richard A. Schmidt, a psychologist now at the University of California, Los Angeles, described how disruptions to neuromuscular processes can cause the foot to deviate from the intended motion, even slipping from the brake to the accelerator. And when the car accelerates unexpectedly, Mr. Schmidt said, even experienced drivers can panic, “braking” even harder.
In experiments in Japan by Katsuya Matsunaga, an engineering and psychology specialist at Kyushu Sangyo University in Fukuoka City, drivers were asked to switch feet from the accelerator to the brakes on cue, at times while accompanied by startling noises. Subjects under stress sometimes hesitated or found it difficult to switch from one pedal to the other, he said.
The current standard pedal arrangement is a function of automotive evolution.
Drivers of Ford’s 1908 Model T maneuvered an accelerator lever on the steering column and three pedals: for shifting gears, reversing and braking. Over time, the advent of various manual and automatic transmissions has required different footwork.
Mr. Naruse’s design is a unified pedal, shaped to accommodate the entire foot. On the right side is an accelerator bar. At any point, the driver can push down on the pedal to activate the brakes, while automatically releasing the accelerator bar.
In light of the recent Toyota recalls, the Obama administration has said it might require automakers to equip new cars with “smart pedals,” systems already used in some cars, that deactivate the accelerator when the brake pedal is pressed. But the smart pedals would not prevent drivers from pressing the gas pedal instead of the brakes.
“Simply speaking, the conventional pedal setup, which forces drivers to switch back and forth between pedals, is dangerous,” Mr. Matsunaga said.
“Mr. Naruse’s pedal works because it takes into account how our bodies work,” he said. “It makes sure that when we make a mistake, the car stops.”
Replacing standard pedals with the Naruse device requires no big changes to a car’s braking or acceleration systems, Mr. Naruse said, and retrofitting costs about 100,000 yen ($1,156) each. The biggest challenge of mass marketing the pedal, driving specialists said, would not be cost or technology, but the need to fundamentally change the way millions of people drive.
“For wider adoption, there would have to be solid proof that drivers used to the old pedal setup can adapt quickly and without error,” said Koya Kishida, who specializes in traffic psychology and ergonomics at Chukyo University in Japan.
Two episodes in the late 1980s, when Mr. Naruse hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes, inspired his quest for a better pedal. (He has invented other things, including a commercially successful machine that helps harvest edible seaweed). In one incident, his car lurched into a busy road, but he avoided a collision.
By 1991, he finished his first prototype. Mr. Naruse said Toyota engineers tested a prototype in 2000, but were dissatisfied with the design; the automaker would not comment, saying its research and development efforts were confidential.
Mr. Naruse said that in May he invited Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, to try a Lexus sedan fitted with the latest version of his pedal. Mr. Naruse said he had received no response.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/bu...pagewanted=all
