Driving in daylight is one thing, but when the night comes, the situation changes totally. The headlamps will allow you to see about 500 feet (152 m) ahead in total darkness and most of the times they won’t fully reveal what’s on the left or right side of the road. For this you can mount a thermal vision camera on your car and see almost like during the day.
Some automakers like Audi, BMW and Mercedes are already offering night vision systems on their flagship models, but this doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from this neat solution on your cheaper vehicle.
FLIR’s PathFindIR is probably the most know such aftermarket system and it has already reached its second iteration. Basically, if your car has an infotainment screen, this camera can be mounted up front, get fed by a 12 VDC socket and offer a standard NTSC or PAL video output for you inside the cabin at night.
Because such a camera isn’t seeing light but heat, the system will allow you to see up to four times more than what the headlamps are revealing, without being glared by oncoming traffic.
The camera’s rough casing allows you to mount it on the outside of the car, near or behind the front grille, while the 24-degree FOV lens balances longer detection range with viewing of either side of the road.
The software will automatically detect and highlight pedestrians or animals nearby the road, so you can spot danger quickly enough to react.
Google News