While the U.S. waits for changes to affect its ancient headlight regulations, it must watch as cool, futuristic tech such as Matrix LED and laser headlights wow the European car market. We’re not the only ones frustrated—the automakers themselves would love to sell Americans high-tech peepers (especially Audi, which uses the ornate lighting as a key component of its styling) and now Ford has joined the fray. The American automaker has revealed that it, too, is developing a slick multi-function front lighting system that goes beyond the sort of swiveling adaptive headlights currently allowed in the U.S.
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Ford’s technology relies on more straightforward principles than, say, Audi’s Matrix LED setup to adapt the headlight beam for varying road conditions and to illuminate roadside objects deemed a potential collision danger. With Audi’s system, each headlight unit incorporates banks of multiple LEDs that can be individually switched on and off to “move” the headlight beam around corners; that system also can selectively shut off individual LEDs to put oncoming cars in a “shadow” to prevent dazzling their drivers, and flash a beam at pedestrians at the roadside. (Why this complex light show? It allows the car to run the high beams pretty much all the time without blinding everyone in its path.) The Ford lacks the Audi’s banks of LEDs and its ability to “shadow” oncoming traffic, but it does have the ability to adapt the width of its LED headlights’ beam and to shine a “spotlight” on roadside pedestrian traffic using small, well, spotlights near the fog lamps.
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Still in the prototype phase, Ford’s advanced front lighting uses both a regular camera and an infrared camera to detect bicyclists, pedestrians, and animals on or near the roadway, as well as determine whether the car is approaching an intersection or a roundabout. In the first case, where an animal or human is seen by the camera, a swiveling LED lamp illuminates the object and a forward view through its lens is displayed on the dashboard screen with the potentially dangerous roadside object highlighted with a yellow box. Objects posing a greater or more imminent threat are boxed in red. The camera can pick up as many as eight objects at a time, but the system will light up just two objects at a time (again, the ones posing the greatest risk for a collision), mostly because there are only two swiveling spotlights.
- -When the car’s cameras determine it is approaching an intersection or roundabout (which it does using Ford’s existing road-sign recognition tech), it widens the headlight beams to better illuminate the car’s surroundings. The GPS-linked system then tags the location so that the next time, it automatically widens the beam on approach. Again, should a pedestrian be detected, the system still will shine a spotlight on them.
-The setup is quite clever, and it should prove to be far more cost-effective than the similar yet more complicated tech from Audi, Mercedes, and BMW. Does it have a shot at making production? Absolutely—according to Ford, the technology is expected “to be available for customers in the near term.” Does that include the U.S.? Not likely, given how regulations surrounding headlights haven’t budged for more than 50 years. (We reached out to Ford for comment but are still awaiting response.)
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It’s somewhat telling that these headlight advances at Ford are coming out of the company’s Aachen, Germany, research and development facilities. Even so, the more companies that bring this sort of tech to market (even if that market is Europe), the more pressure is sure to build on slow-moving American regulators to allow these safety-enhancing lighting solutions on U.S. roads.
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