Car headlights that detect cyclists

Ford is developing car headlights that detect cyclists and illuminate them automatically.

Conventional car headlights do a good job of illuminating the road directly ahead, but on a roundabout the driving direction changes in such a way that the light does not light up the road ahead in time.

The new headlight technology uses an infra-red camera in the car’s front grille to simultaneously locate and track up to eight people at a range of up to 120 metres. Once detected, the pedestrian or cyclist is illuminated by a spot light and an LED lamps marks a line on the road pointing in their direction. The highlighted person is displayed on a screen inside the car, marked in a red or yellow frame, according to their proximity and the level of risk

Other features include a widened beam at junctions and roundabouts to better illuminate potential hazards on the fringes of the road.

https://youtu.be/klkqOO7EaW0

The system also uses GPS information to offer improved lighting on bends and in dips. Where GPS information is not available, the technology uses a forward-facing camera mounted in the rear-view mirror base to recognise lane markings and predict the road’s path.

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