A brand new Ford patent submitting has surfaced that hints at a driver-assist system designed to forestall collisions with trains.
First noticed by Motor1, the patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2021, however was solely printed on March 30, 2023. As Motor1 notes, the doc exhibits two doable implementations of this concept, every utilizing sensors to detect oncoming trains as a automotive approaches a railroad crossing.
In one model, sensors could be positioned on the railroad tracks on each side of a crossing, and talk with sensors within the car. If the system detects a practice, it warns the driving force not to cross. Placing sensors on each side of a crossing permits the system to verify {that a} practice is absolutely out of the best way earlier than giving the all-clear, and that it isn’t, for instance, reversing again over the crossing.
The second model pares issues again a bit. Instead of putting sensors on the tracks, it might depend on in-car {hardware}, resembling cameras and lidar, to watch the crossbars and warning lights at railroad crossings—the cues human drivers generally ignore when approaching railroad crossings.
Ford additionally mentions sending data to different autos, in order that drivers know a practice is occupying the crossing earlier than they attain it. This characteristic, which sounds just like the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication the automaker in 2018 stated may assist eliminate traffic lights, may very well be useful to emergency autos, permitting them to reroute round trains, Ford detailed within the patent.
This system would additionally assist improve car automation, in accordance to Ford, permitting vehicles to routinely cease at railroad crossings with out drivers having to take over. The automaker has filed a number of patents that may very well be applied to autonomous vehicles, however the core expertise itself remains to be underneath growth. So it could be awhile earlier than we see something like Ford’s train-detecting system in a manufacturing car.
HIGH-RES GALLERY: Ford train-detection system patent image
This article was initially printed by Motor Authority, an editorial accomplice of ClassicCars.com
