Hyundai Mobis Reveals New Tech That Autonomously Steers When Reversing

Based on what one sees when navigating busy parking lots, it seems that many humans have a hard time steering when moving in reverse. With that observation apparently in mind, engineers at Hyundai Mobis have developed a “reverse driving support technology” — that is to say, tech that steers for the “driver” when moving in reverse.

The path taken with the new tech is fairly interesting, so seems worth covering here. It’s quite simple: the speed and travel paths taken by a car moving forward are stored and then automatically reversed. (That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but it gives you the general idea.)

Following this successful tech development, Hyundai Mobis will reportedly now continue working on autonomous reverse driving tech — seemingly seeking to carve out for itself an interesting and useful tech/approach in the autonomous vehicle sector.

The press release on the subject provides more: “Contrary to the Driving Assistance System (DAS) which directly recognizes external environments through cameras, radars, and ultrasonic sensors, Hyundai Mobis’s reverse drive support tech grasps external environments through real-time driving information. Under this method, a steering angle sensor, a wheel sensor and a yaw sensor installed inside a vehicle measure the car’s speed, distance and degree of rotation.

“As the whole industry has focused on forward autonomous driving technology, expensive cameras, lidar and radar sensors are concentrated at the front of a car. As a result, the back of a car is supported only by a rear camera and ultrasonic sensors that measure short distances, and this makes it difficult to actively recognize external environments. … Hyundai Mobis filed applications for two domestic patents and one overseas patent on this technology.”

The plan now, apparently, is to further the tech by integrating the use of cameras and radar.