Ford is developing car headlights that detect cyclists and illuminate them automatically.
Conventional car headlights do a good job of illuminating the road directly ahead, but on a roundabout the driving direction changes in such a way that the light does not light up the road ahead in time.
The new headlight technology uses an infra-red camera in the car’s front grille to simultaneously locate and track up to eight people at a range of up to 120 metres. Once detected, the pedestrian or cyclist is illuminated by a spot light and an LED lamps marks a line on the road pointing in their direction. The highlighted person is displayed on a screen inside the car, marked in a red or yellow frame, according to their proximity and the level of risk
Other features include a widened beam at junctions and roundabouts to better illuminate potential hazards on the fringes of the road.
The system also uses GPS information to offer improved lighting on bends and in dips. Where GPS information is not available, the technology uses a forward-facing camera mounted in the rear-view mirror base to recognise lane markings and predict the road’s path.
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the pedestrian or cyclist is illuminated by a spot light (which dazzles him/her?)
The highlighted person is displayed on a screen inside the car (yet another screen inside the car to look at, perhaps it would be better if drivers looked through the windscreen?)