Ford is Helping Make Driving at Night Less Stressful

Ford has improved its Pedestrian Detection technology so that it now works at night.

According to a new poll commissioned by Ford, night blindness and fear of hitting someone top night-time driving fears and the American automaker is hoping its latest technology helps alleviate those worries. The new technology is designed to detect pedestrians at night and then automatically apply the brakes if the driver does not respond to initial warnings.

In order to get Pedestrian Detection to work at night for the first time, the development team worked at night by sending life-sized dummies into the path of vehicles on closed tracks. The system was also tested on public roads in busy cities including Paris and Amsterdam.

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So how does it all work? Basically the system processes information from a radar located in the bumper and a windshield-mounted camera through a database of “pedestrian shapes” to distinguish people from objects like road signs and trees. According to Ford, the camera delivers over 30 snapshots every second, and the video live feed and wide viewing angle allows the system to see pedestrians, even in low-light conditions.

In North America, the technology will first debut on the 2018 Ford F-150 and Ford Mustang models, while Europeans will first see it on the next-generation Ford Fiesta that debuted at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show last week.

“We know some drivers find hitting the road at night a stressful experience. Especially driving in towns and cities, pedestrians – sometimes distracted by mobiles – can without warning step into the road, leaving even alert drivers very little time to avoid an accident,” said Gregor Allexi, active safety engineer, Ford of Europe. “Day and night, Pedestrian Detection is designed to help identify people already in – or about to step into – the road ahead.”