Google is working on a driverless car that already has spent countless test hours learning the rules of the road. In a new patent awarded to Google this week, the company outlined a system for external airbags and bumpers that could deploy in the event of an accident.
One idea suggested in the patent is to mount airbags on the outside of the cars, to create a buffer for pedestrians. These airbags would deploy when the car senses that a collision with another vehicle is imminent. The patent notes that using traditional car bumpers and airbags would most likely cause a person to bounce off and injure themselves in the resultant collision with the ground. Google’s solution for preventing pedestrian injuries of this sort: bumpers made out of a “visco-elastic material.”
While the patent does not specify what that material could be, it most likely would be of a consistency somewhere between that of an earplug and memory foam.
