Ford Spotlights New Technology

Engineers at Ford Motor Co.'s research center in Aachen, Germany, are developing new lighting technologies the company says will enable drivers to more easily identify potential hazards and traverse unlit roads.

Building on current adaptive headlight and traffic sign recognition technologies, Ford's new camera-based front lighting system widens the headlight beam at intersections to better illuminate pedestrians, animals and other objects in the periphery of a vehicle's direction of travel. Ford hopes to commercialize the technology in the "near term."

The system uses GPS information to better illuminate upcoming dips, curves in the road and roundabout exits. If GPS information is not available, a forward-facing video camera mounted in the rearview mirror base detects lane markings to predict the road's curvature. The information is stored in the navigation system so it can be used in subsequent trips over the same route.

The Aachen team also is working on a new spotlighting technology. Currently in the pre-development phase, the system uses an infrared camera in the front grille to locate and track as many as eight moving objects including large dogs as far away as 400 feet.

The system can spotlight two hazards for the driver with a spot and a stripe on the road surface, illuminated by two special light-emitting-diode lamps next to the fog lights. The highlighted objects are displayed on a screen inside the vehicle, marked in a red or yellow frame, based on proximity and risk level.