Ford's New Smart LED Headlights Can Detect Potential Road Hazards

Automotive  

Ford Motors is developing advanced lighting technology that enables drivers to more easily see potential hazards when driving at night. The Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System widens beam at junctions and roundabouts after interpreting traffic signs.

Nighttime driving is one of the more dangerous activities that people do, with more than 40 percent of all fatal accidents occurring at night, because the ability to see falls drastically when the sun goes down, resulting in reduced depth perception and poor peripheral vision. Also, there are far more potential dangers on the road at night than during the day, with drunk drivers and drowsy drivers being more common on the road, and with animals more likely to run into oncoming traffic during nighttime.

Related articles Who Owns The Future?  Car App Market Set to Grow from 12 Million to 4.3 Billion by 2018  When Robots Rule The World

Ford Motors has been working on a technology that could make driving at night much safer, by helping drivers detect and avoid the dangers on the road more easily. The company has announced that it is developing two smart lighting technologies: the Advanced Front Lighting System and Spot Lighting, which are supposed to better illuminate the road while driving at night and alert drivers to road hazards.

"Many people who drive at night have had to quickly react to someone or something suddenly appearing in the road – as if from nowhere. Ford's Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System and Spot Lighting help ensure the driver is quickly alerted to people or animals that could present a danger," said Ken Washington, vice president, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.

The Advanced Front Lighting System employs a camera attached to the car's rear-view mirror that is faced forwards, in addition to GPS information, in order to detect when the car is approaching an intersection or a roundabout, and improve illumination. Thanks to GPS signals and a special technology that can recognize traffic signs, the system can detect intersections and roundabouts, and widen the headlights' beam, making it easier for the driver to see whether there are other cars, pedestrians or something else coming from either side of the road. In case GPS is not available, the infrared camera will help the system determine whether the car car is approaching a curve, based on the lane markings.

On top of this, the Advanced Front Lighting System can keep track of the intersections and roundabouts from previously traveled routes and anticipate where it needs to provide better illumination.

Spot Lighting is the second smart technology currently under development by Ford Motors. It also uses an infrared camera, which monitors the area in front of the car and can identify people and wild animals based on their body heat. Ford says that it can detect up to eight people or animals, up to 400 feet away. Then, after detecting a potential hazard, the system warns the driver via a display on the car's dashboard, and shines a spotlight on the person or the animal it has identified.

Both technologies are being developed at Ford's European Research and Innovation Center in the German city of Aachen, and the automaker says that the Advanced Front Lighting System will be offered in some of its models pretty soon, but it will take a bit more time before the Spot Lighting system is ready to go into production.

By Jordan Perch

Embed

Author Bio - Regular 33rd Square contributor Jordan Perch is an automotive fanatic and “safe driving” specialist. He is a writer for DMV.com, which is a collaborative community designed to help ease the stress and annoyance of “dealing with the DMV.”