Ford Researches New Smartphone Technology to Help Avoid Collisions

Unseen obstacles are always something on a driver’s mind while they’re on the road, but a new technology that Ford is currently researching could help. This new smartphone-based technology that can warn drivers of pedestrians, bicyclists and other things in the road, even if they’re in the vehicle’s path but the driver can’t see them, making vehicles even safer and more sophisticated than ever.

The technology currently exists in the form of a concept smartphone app. This app is installed on a pedestrian’s phone and uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) messaging to indicate the location of the phone and its owner to a connected Ford vehicle. The vehicle works to calculate if there is a risk of a collision, and Ford SYNC can provide different alerts on the screen, such as graphics of pedestrians or cyclists with accompanying audio alerts.

BLE uses very little power, allowing small batteries to operate for long stretches of time. In consumer BLE applications, two devices are typically paired together, but Ford’s new technology uses BLE as a beacon, allowing it to sense multiple other similarly equipped devices in range without pairing. The system uses the speed to determine if a person is a pedestrian or a cyclist, and evaluates the risk of the situation based on the direction they are traveling, causing the requisite Ford vehicle to send driver alerts when necessary.

BLE technology is used in many kinds of personal electronics devices, the most relevant to this application being smartphones and fitness monitoring devices. Essentially, it creates a wireless personal area network via radio waves in the 2.4-gigahertz band, allowing a device to communicate with similarly equipped devices. It’s a useful tool for this kind of technology– BLE is already available in many smartphones today, and it’s also compatible with SYNC connected vehicle technology. A Ford vehicle won’t even need any hardware changes to be compatible with this system.

Ford is working together with Commsignia, PSS, Ohio State University, T-Mobile and Tome Software. The research team will be demonstrating their results at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s World Congress in Los Angeles.

“Newer Ford vehicles already with Ford Co-Pilot360 Technology can detect and help warn drivers of pedestrians, bicyclists, scooter riders and others – and even apply brakes if drivers do not respond in time,” said Jim Buczkowski, Executive Director of Research and Advanced Engineering. “We are now exploring ways to expand vehicle sensing capability, for areas drivers cannot see, to help people drive even more confidently on roads increasingly shared by others using their two feet or two wheels.”

“We see other possible applications for this technology, including detecting road construction zones and construction workers,” Buczkowski continues. “Ford innovates for the masses, so it’s very promising to start with Bluetooth Low Energy technology that’s already become part of our everyday lives because it’s affordable and effective.”

This technology is still in the research phase, but given its practical applications, we could very well be seeing it widely used in the future. To see more of Ford’s groundbreaking technology in action, take a look at our new inventory online.