March 16, 2018—2019 will mark the start of the rollout of Ford Co-Pilot360 to all of its passenger vehicles. The ADAS suite includes features like autobraking and automatic lane keeping, according to Ford.
“Though our vehicles today are safer than ever, drivers tell us they are still stressed about getting in a potential accident,” said Jim Farley, Ford president, Global Markets. “That’s one reason why we’re making these must-have technologies accessible to millions of customers each year.”
Ford Co-Pilot360 starts with standard automatic emergency braking—called pre-collision assist with pedestrian detection—that can help drivers avoid collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians who might accidentally cross in front of the vehicle’s path. If a potential collision is detected, a warning flashes and an alert sounds, and if the driver’s response is not sufficient, the system can automatically apply the brakes to help minimize a frontal collision.
The technology addresses Ford research showing a growing trend of people worrying about hitting pedestrians – and will be standard on 91 percent of Ford vehicles in North America by 2020.
Blind spot information system, or BLIS, uses radar to identify a vehicle entering the blind spot and alerts the driver with an indicator light in the side-view mirror. Cross-traffic alert can warn drivers of traffic behind when slowly backing out of a parking spot or driveway.
Lane keeping system has three functions:
- The first can notify drivers through steering wheel vibration that they need to correct course when the system detects the vehicle drifting close to lane markings
- The second provides steering torque to steer back toward the center of the lane
- Third, a driver alert system, continuously monitors driving pattern using a forward-looking camera and provides visual and audio warnings when the system estimates the driver’s vigilance level to be less than that of an attentive driver
Commercial customers can also benefit from Ford’s expansion of driver-assist technologies. By 2020, E-Series, F-650 and F-750 and even the F59 chassis will come with available automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, driver alert system and more.
A National Transportation Safety Board study shows having technologies such as AEB can help prevent and mitigate rear-end crashes, which can help customers lower their cost of ownership.