Aachen, Germany - For some years the cutting edge of car-safety development (the so-called “nanny files”) has been about saving drivers from themselves (and other drivers - see this morning's Google story!) but now the emphasis seems to have shifted to helping drivers save themselves.
And the buzzword is lights, with several makers developing 'smart' headlights that shine where they're needed and not where they will blind other road users.
Now Ford is developing camera-based lighting systems that not only 'read' the road, but also help the driver to identify potential hazards such as pedestrians, cyclists and animals.
READING THE ROAD
They combine the company's adaptive headlights and traffic sign recognition technologies, already available on production cars, to widen the beam when it identifies an upcoming intersection.
The system also uses GPS information to better illuminate bends and dips in the road; where GPS data isn't available a camera in the rear-view mirror housing detects lane markings and predicts the road's curvature, using the information to spread the beam in the direction where the road is going.
More than that, it stores the information so it can do better next time, learning by repetition in a clear echo of how we get to know the roads we travel often.
SPOT LIGHTING
This is still experimental, but Ford engineers are busy developing a system that uses an infra-red camera in the grille to locate and track up to eight people and bigger animals, including larger dogs, simultaneously, as far away as 120 metres.
It can highlight two hazards for the driver - with a spot and a stripe on the tar - lit by two special LED lamps next to the fog lights. The highlighted objects are displayed on the screen inside the car, framed in yellow or red depending on how close and how immediate the hazard is.