Coming soon: Cars that see around corners

Drivers in the near future will be able to see obstacles around blind corners.

British engineers have developed a camera that scatters laser light 4,000 times a second and collects the tiny amount of reflected light to build an image of its subject. The camera can see around corners by bouncing its light off walls, the ground and other objects.

The camera is able to construct images from tiny amounts of scattered, reflected light because of its incredibly fast processing speed. In the time it takes a person to blink, light has the time to travel twice around the world. When the new camera blinks, at its rate of 15 billion frames per second, light has the time to travel only a few centimetres.

Mercedes has offered night vision cameras as an option on its top-of-the-range cars for almost a decade. The infra red lamps are claimed to see three times further than dipped headlights can illuminate an unlit road, but the new laser camers developed by a team at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have potential to dramatically improve road safety.

As fully autonomous vehicles such as the Google car draw ever closer to becoming a commercial reality, the laser camera will enable them to detect and react to children standing between parked cars, horses around corners on country lanes and cyclists on unlit roads.

X-ray vision for drivers

Once you can see around street corners, why not through the bonnet? A gizmo developed by Land Rover allows drivers to see through the bonnet to the ground directly beneath and in front of the bumper could help make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Cameras film an area of ground beneath and directly in front of the car that it is impossible for the driver to see. The images are projected onto a head-up display on the inside of the windscreen – effectively allowing the driver to see through the bonnet.

The technology has been fitted to a Land Rover with a view to improving off-road performance, but it may have benefits for road safety. Heavier vehicles such as SUVs and lorries represent a threat to pedestrian and cyclists. HGVs have been known to run over cyclists waiting directly in front of them at lights because there is blind spot directly ahead of the vehicle.