Many of us have experienced that sinking feeling of returning to our car in the parking lot, only to find a stray cart has drifted into and subsequently dented our pride and joy. Such travesties could soon be a thing of the past, though, because Ford has just patented a new technology that could enable cars to autonomously avoid collisions when they are parked.
Filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office as application US12617393B2, the “System For Detecting Moving Objects”, utilizes onboard cameras, sensors and software to detect moving objects and calculate their trajectory. The car is then placed into one of four states: idle, aware, warning or evade.
View Price on AmazonIf the car doesn’t expect a collision is imminent, it remains in its low-powered ‘idle’ setting, monitoring any change in trajectory. If the probability of a collision is reckoned to be between zero and 10 percent, the car instead switches to its ‘aware’ state, readying the powertrain, brakes and steering in case evasive action is needed.
Above 10 percent risk, the car will engage its ‘warning’ mode, flashing the lights and honking the horn to alert whatever is heading its way. Finally, if a collision is almost certain (anything above 90 percent probability), the car will activate its ‘evade’ function, autonomously maneuvering elsewhere to “reduce the probability of impact without impacting another vehicle or other structure”.
Of course, this won’t always be possible; if the car is boxed in, for example, it wouldn’t necessarily meet the above criteria to avoid other impacts. In this case, onboard cameras will be deployed to record the collision. If the approaching vehicle is one with smart vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) capability, the car with Ford’s patented software could transmit an instruction to apply the brakes in order for a collision to be negated.
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
