“These radar-based systems build on Ford’s leading safety heritage,” Jeff Rupp, Ford’s Research and Innovation Center manager said. “Many years of research and engineering work, leveraging experience gained in aerospace and other non-automotive applications, have enabled Ford to offer these crash avoidance and driver awareness systems on a growing number of vehicles. As a result, vehicle occupants may be better protected than ever before.”
With the expansion of the technologies' availability, Ford has also tweaked the systems. For next year, Adaptive Cruise Control will be pictorially represented on a high-tech LCD vehicle instrument display when activated, alongside other driver information such as the fuel gauge and speedometer.
The Collision Warning with Brake Support will come with a “heads-up” display of red LEDs that flash on the windshield, and provides an audible alert when its radar senses a reduction in traffic speed in vehicles ahead.
“We’ve designed the chime and visual alerts to be effective at improving the reaction time from the driver when they’re not paying attention, to get them on to the task at hand, which is applying the brakes if needed,” Aaron Mills, Ford senior engineer of advanced driver assistance systems concluded.
Google News