Last week we were driving at night in a test vehicle that didn’t light up the road more than 15 feet in front of the car causing alarming blind sports. Are their better headlights out there? Ford is developing them.

Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System builds upon Ford’s current Adaptive Front Lighting System and Traffic Sign Recognition technology employing Spot Lighting technology to widen the field of vision for drivers.

“Many people who drive at night have had to quickly react to someone or something suddenly appearing in the road – as if from nowhere. Ford’s Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System and Spot Lighting help ensure the driver is quickly alerted to people or animals that could present a danger,” said Ken Washington, vice president, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.

According to Ford, the system uses GPS information to better illuminate bends and dips on a chosen route. Where GPS information is not available the technology uses a forward-facing video camera mounted in the rear-view mirror base to detect lane markings and predict the road’s curvature.

After those uncharted areas have been navigated by the system, the vehicle’s camera stores the information in the navigation system. The next time the vehicle travels the same road, the headlights adapt to the course of the road automatically to better light the way.

 

 

Ford expects the technology to be available in vehicles in the near future.