Ford rolls out new driver assist system

Ford Motor Company is rolling out a new driver-assist system that can reduce the severity of or even eliminate some frontal collisions involving vehicles and pedestrians. Pre-collision assist with pedestrian detection will debut as available technology on the 2015 Ford Mondeo on sale in Europe this year. It will then roll out to other Ford and Lincoln products around the world.
October 24, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

278 Ford Motor Company is rolling out a new driver-assist system that can reduce the severity of or even eliminate some frontal collisions involving vehicles and pedestrians. Pre-collision assist with pedestrian detection will debut as available technology on the 2015 Ford Mondeo on sale in Europe this year. It will then roll out to other Ford and Lincoln products around the world.

The system uses radar and camera technology to scan the roadway ahead and, if a collision risk with a vehicle or pedestrian is detected, provides a warning to the driver. If the driver does not respond in time, the system can automatically apply up to full braking force to help reduce the severity of or even eliminate some frontal collisions.

According to Ford, pre-collision assist may help drivers avoid rear end collisions with other vehicles at all speeds, while pedestrian detection can help the driver avoid pedestrians at lower speeds and both may reduce the severity of forward collisions or even prevent certain forward collisions.

“This technology adds to the already impressive list of driver-assist technologies Ford customers benefit from today,” said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, Global Product Development.

Ford warns that, while the new system may be especially helpful in unexpected situations, it does not replace the driver and has limitations including night, low and harsh lighting conditions, vehicles moving in a different direction and certain weather conditions.

Ford engineers tested the system on closed test tracks using rigs fitted with manikins to replicate pedestrians. They then spent months refining the technology on roads around the world to test system reliability.

“This real-world testing was an important part of the development, because pedestrians in an urban setting can present a wide range of potential situations,” said Scott Lindstrom, Ford manager, Driver Assist Technologies. “We covered more than 300,000 miles on three continents that included a wide range of settings and situations.”

Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Developing new detection and monitoring technologies
    November 21, 2012
    Established detection and monitoring technologies continue to evolve, but is it time to challenge their supremacy and take a serious look at less conventional ITS? Andy Graham considers the options with Jason Barnes. For ITS system providers, the most potentially lucrative markets over the next few years are going to be the BRIC (Brazil Russia India and China) group of countries, all of which are building many miles of new roads, applying tolling to existing ones (8,000km in China alone) and implementing w
    Read More
  • Need for harmonisation in ITS standards
    February 1, 2012
    As the calendar rolls over, and we hop from continent to continent and World Congress to World Congress, where Memoranda of Understanding and cooperation agreements are the headline news, it is easy for those not intimately involved to forget that standards definition is a well-nigh continual process. Significant progress has been made in recent months towards achieving the critical mass and economies of scale which are going to drive development and deployment in, amongst other things, cooperative infrastr
    Read More
  • New Zealand opts for Redflex enforcement
    July 2, 2014
    Australian based Redflex Traffic Systems is to supply New Zealand Police with the latest radar-based fixed speed enforcement systems under a national rollout of cameras at sites with the highest risk of speed-related crashes. The contract is for 56 REDFLEXspeed fixed speed enforcement systems, with twelve systems to be deployed in 2014. All remaining systems will be installed by the end of 2015. The first new camera will be installed for testing at Ngauranga Gorge in Wellington and will eventually re
    Read More
  • Measuring the effectiveness of winter VMS
    August 5, 2013
    A survey into the effectiveness of weather-related variable message signs on a trans-mountain highway has some interesting results, as Alexis Bacelar told ITS Europe. A study in the Massif Central region of France evaluating the usefulness of winter weather warning signs has highlighted the effect of variable message signs on driver behaviour. During the winter of 2009-2010, road operator Massif Central Direction Interdépartementale des Routes (MC DIR) started installing bad weather-specific variable messag
    Read More

Highlighted Content